To play devil's advocate w/Steve, the consensus being he is an ass, I would remind everyone that Steve was the oldest, had the most time w/their mother & was the last one to see her alive. As the oldest, he had the maturity to process reality & question his father about what happened, as opposed to the twins, who were too young to understand or even remember everything about that summer, not to mention impressionable enough to believe what adults told them.
While he also enables Luke like Shirley & Nell, his reaction is more in the realm of disappointment, compared to Shirley's anger, Nell's blind support & Theo's avoidance. As an addict myself, I thought Luke's reaction to Steve was void of accountability. He seems to be annoyed when his family, & rightfully so, put up walls to protect themselves & don't get their hopes up when history has taught them not to do otherwise. He hasn't put in the work yet to regain trust, yet always kind of expects it. An example of this was his reaction to Steve, despite being the one to ask Steve the question about Joey. Luke acted as if Steve gave an unsolicited opinion when in reality, he gave a fair & loving answer & turned out to be right.
I was so put off by that dinner; she was a guest at a dinner at the home of strangers & she hijacks the conversation to discuss the hell that is addiction? Ick. She talked about addiction & withdrawal in a way she seemed to be both playing the victim & attempting to sound interesting & tough via a war story. Meanwhile, Luke appeared to agree mainly in an effort to gain Steve's approval & respect,) & because at the time, he believed Joey's sobriety was a healthy, admirable stage to aim for. However, in reality, she seemed to want or need the chaos of addiction or the tragedy of struggling to be sober. She lives in the past, is extremely negative about sobriety & seems annoyed at the idea of finishing her steps, not because it's hard, like for Luke & the step of a fearless inventory, but rather because she thinks it doesn't matter or a life she isn't sure she wants. Steve saw thru this & was trying to protect Luke while speaking honestly. This was articulated when Steve told Luke a person can be good, you can love them but still be burned by them. This was rather diplomatic on his behalf, because he seemed to know the difference of addiction being a disease for Luke but a personality Joey seems to have embraced or accepted.
Steve is basically the only one who believes in science & logic amongst a family that acknowledge the paranormal. So cut the man some slack.
