It all started with a knock on our door.  My husband answered and there, barely, stood a drunken man I had never met before.   "Hey Rob! (my husband) Bob out front told me you lived up here, thought I'd come by for a visit, mind if I come in?""Actually, I do." and my husband slammed the door in his face. Naturally I asked, "Who the fuck was that?""Mike, I don't know why the fuck he thinks he can come here and act like he's my buddy. He should know I fucking hate him.""How come?""He used to date my Aunt Kathy.  You never met her, she died from a brain tumor a couple years before we met.""I see...""Yeah, he used to beat her, even after she was diagnosed with cancer.  She gave him everything, even bought a car for him, which he tried to sell after she died, but couldn't because it was still in her name.  As far as I know, he tried to sell off most of her shit.  He tried to say they were common law, but it obviously didn't hold up in court.  They were only together for a year, and even then it was off and on/""Fuck... like, does he not know that you know that?""He should, I beat the fuck out of him for it."
Turns out, Bob from out front works with Mike, and they were drinking together.  When Bob mentioned my husband, Mike made Bob believe that him and my husband went "way back" and that they were "practically family" back in the day.  He told Bob that he was "married" to Rob's Aunt, who, to his dismay, passed away, leaving him alone and sob. sob. sob.  Hearing this made Rob snap.  He told Bob that if he ever sees that douche bag around here again, that he was going to kill him. Mike, not Bob.  Bob apologized, you could tell that he honestly had no idea what had happened.  After talking to Bob for a while, we found out that Mike was asking Bob for a ride to his dealers house, and a smoke, and a beer, and if he had any oxy's.   Obviously he's one of those people who live from hand out to hand out.... and will take from anyone, even cancer patients, and the deceased.   Low of the low, which is why I wonder how some people can live with themselves?
To be so much in denial, to actually believe that other people down-play their behavior and past as much as they have.  I can understand trying to repress things you regret.  Like someone who accidentally kills someone has to eventually try to move on with life.  But that person isn't going to go to their victims family acting as though nothing ever happened, or even that they have a positive association with them.  That's just fucked up. 
  I can personally add credibility to the fact that sometimes people just get caught up in bad lifestyles. Although they made the wrong choices in life, and could have possibly prevented their predicament, they're not always bad people... just misguided.   Mike does not fall under that category, although I'm sure he's tried to convince people of that whenever he's in a bind.  He cannot, or should not be helped, because he doesn't want help, he wants someone to enable him.   I don't care what happened to him to make him this way, because not even death of someone he took for granted and all out assaulted on a regular basis, does not make him feel the least bit less entitled, let alone guilty. 

After Mike showed up on our door... probably to ask us if we would provide the services Bob wouldn't, I saw a man picking up cigarette butts off the ground.   Although dirty, and unapproachable looking, I approached him, and tried to hand him a smoke.   Why?  Because I respected him.   He would have rather supported his own habit, and take on that embarrassment, than ask someone who he just witnessed light one up.   If he asked me, I would have given him one... but he didn't.  I actually had to insist that he take one by telling him that I couldn't watch someone do that, when I have more than enough to spare.   He told me I shouldn't be smoking anyway, and that's the only reason he was going to take one away from me. He wasn't going to take one unless I left thinking he was doing me a favor, and not the other way around. 
The people who deserve the most help, ask for the least.  The people who ask for the most, probably have a shitty past that they should be, but are not, ashamed of.  Often times people mistake people with addictions as all the same.   It's important that we realize that not all are lost causes, and no matter how addicted they are, or what they're addicted to, they can still be good people.   A lowering of standards does not equal a lack of shame.