What I don't understand

First off.. Welcome to my mother.. Seems as tho she followed through with her threat to finally track me down online.. and K'bird helped -- and that's ok.
So.. my tangent this morning is people who were raised right.. who know the right thing to do.. yet they refuse to do it.
They are old enough.
They have reasons to live clean.
They know better.
Yet.. there they go.

Most of my family, if reading this, will think I am speaking about family members.. and quite honestly -- I could. But I'm not.

In my time in Atlanta, one person annoyed me more than any person on the known planet.
That's pretty bad.
Lets call him Carla. That's right. A boy with a girl's name.
He may not have had the Disney version of a home life. His parents may have made religious choices that would make most coonasses in SouthWest Louisiana scratch their heads.. but you know what? They fed him. Put a roof over his head. Sent him to school. Taught him the evils of drugs and alcohol.

What's he do?
The question, my friends, is what hasn't he done.

I met him when he was supposedly living right. Clean. Sober. Working. Wanting a good life in the right manner.
People aren't the same as me.. they dont get that sometimes dabbling in drugs is just as bad as using them every day.. they don't see the gateway of "escape" is always open and when they *think* they've messed it up bad enough -- dabbling wont be enough if thas the way out they've chosen.

So this brings us to Carla.
1.5 months in jail. For burglery and credit card fraud.

Dude is smart. Smarter than I. And this is what he's done to his life.
I guess I can thank the heavens that he doesn't have kids that are going to have to live this down in the public eye. That his mom and dad will, for sure, cut him off now. For good.
That I don't have to see it.

What I see here is bad enough.. and I've finally learned you cannot help or save everyone. Sometimes they don't want anything different.

So.. for the second time in less than a month.. I am closing a door and pulling up the welcome mat. My chances of our paths crossing here are less. Which is good because I'd be prone to kick his ass at this point.. but I still, for me, will let someone go while I can still stand the thought of them. Before my opinion and values and all those "nassy" things get in the way of saying that we cannot be friends and distance myself. At least, in this case, the miles between Atlanta and Louisiana do a good enough job.

I still don't get it though.