Maybe in the case of those abused, a survival switch goes one way or the other, where they perpetuate the abuse, or become a crusader against it
Victims of molestation are far more likely to engage in deviant sexual behavior than the population norm. E.g. female victims of pedos are 23x more likely to identify as lesbians as adults than women who weren't molested. Which supports your theory that victims either repeat it or go to great lengths to avoid the sex who molested them.
It's somewhat similar to what you see for other forms of child abuse. Children of alcoholics are more likely to become alcoholics, but also more likely to become teetotalers because they experienced firsthand how horrible that was and chose to avoid it.
Sad story from a coworker who was a heroin addict, openly admits to being abused when young. He's taken in his gf's step daughter, who was pimped out for drugs at 6 years old... Not model citizens, but better than her scum ex who did that
Something to keep in mind when interacting with addicts is that their brains are typically dopamine starved due to childhood abuse where dopamine-generating activities where discouraged or actively punished.
If you had to rate your happiness on any typical day on a scale of -10 to +10, you're likely to be somewhere between 0 (neutral) and 10 (one of your best days). Addicts' baseline happiness levels don't even make it to 0. They're abusing substances not to feel awesome...but just to feel normal the way you so on a random day where your highlight is going through the Taco Bell drive thru and petting your kitty after work. That's why intervention based on stopping drug use is so difficult because their average day is crippling lack of dopamine.
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