When you're dumb, ya gotta be tough!
Seriously, though, as much as we humanoids hate to admit it, pain is the greatest of all teachers. Some of the most important things you can teach a kid are that it hurts to say or do dumb things, it hurts to ignore what parents and other adults tell you, and it usually hurts to do things you don't understand BEFORE searching out and carefully considering all the information and advice you can find. Shielding a kid from pain when they are lazy or do stupid things (within reason, of course.... you don't let a two year-old cross a street by himself) is the quickest way to ruin that kid, and the longer you shield the kid from pain, the more pain it takes to set the kid straight.
At some point, nothing short of an extremely painful brush with imminent death will do the trick - and often that doesn't even work. I spent 7 years of my life working with homeless and other poor people full-time. While maybe 40% of the homeless have severe mental health issues and can't help themselves, I and many others have found that until those in the other 60% experience enough pain to realize that they are gonna die early and in extreme pain if they continue to do drugs to medicate whatever else is wrong in their life, there usually isn't a whole lot you can do to provide lasting and effective help. Sadly, no amount of pain is enough for many.
