These "poor individuals" need to pick themselves up out of the muck. No one can do it for them. I'm afraid to ask what you mean by "institutionalizing" people. But if you mean treatment programs, they don't work unless the person WANTS to end their substance abuse. And when someone WANTS to end their substance abuse, more than anything else in the world...they don't need treatment programs. Some (many, if not most, actually) never get to that point. Nothing much can be done about it since recovery comes from within.