Perhaps the best a drug addict or an alcoholic can hope for is a sympathetic soul. No one could ever mistake Arte Moreno for a sympathetic soul. Think of a term for someone 180 degrees from a sympathetic soul and that’s Arte Moreno.

Moreno is the owner of the Angels, the team that plays in Anaheim, Calif., but Moreno renamed the Los Angeles Angels, hijacking the geographic designation of another team, the Dodgers. Moreno took that step for financially selfish reasons, figuring he would benefit from marketing endeavors using Los Angeles.

In retrospect, though, his stealing another team’s name pales in comparison to his treatment of Josh Hamilton, the player he foolishly gave $125 million to when the outfielder was a free agent after the 2012 season.

The only person more foolish was Hamilton himself for taking the money and abandoning his cocoon of comfort in Texas.

“Your environment definitely has something to do with it,” Hamilton said last week when asked at a news conference in Arlington, Tex., about the difference in his performance in Anaheim and Arlington.

“If you’re comfortable and you can be at home and relax but go to the field and still feel you’re at home when you get there, that’s pretty important. I loved the guys on the team but it was LA; it wasn’t Texas.”

So why leave Texas if being there was so integral to his success? Like most players, though many deny it, Hamilton went west for the money. The Rangers offered him three years, the Angels five.

And Moreno left Hamilton little time to make a decision. The owner told the player and his agent, Michael Moye, that if they left his office without agreeing to the deal, he would take the offer off the table. Moreno apparently was tired of making lucrative offers to free agents only to have the players reject them.

What Hamilton didn’t know in accepting Moreno’s offer was the type of employer he was subjecting himself to:

• Even before Hamilton informed Major League Baseball Feb. 25 that he had relapsed the day before reportedly with alcohol and cocaine, but after he had shoulder surgery Feb. 4, the Angels did not require or even encourage him to rehabilitate his right shoulder with them in spring training. Instead they let him stay home.

• After they learned of his relapse, they did not ask him to join them at their spring camp, ignoring the likelihood that a lapsed addict could benefit from the security friends could provide.

• Obviously at Moreno’s direction, the Angels removed from their stores at Anaheim Stadium and elsewhere merchandise with Hamilton’s name and number.

• The club did not assign Hamilton a locker in its clubhouse.

Is there any doubt that Moreno wanted no part of Hamilton? If there was, Moreno removed it with his comments, one of which was not giving Hamilton credit for reporting his relapse himself.

He said he was disappointed in Hamilton, that he had lacked accountability and that his contract included language that allowed the Angels to nullify it if he had a relapse

Presumably Moreno was disappointed because Hamilton had a relapse. That’s an understandable reaction, but if Moreno had wanted to be supportive of Hamilton, which would have made more sense, he could have added a positive remark.

“More than anything, we look at accountability,” Moreno said when Hamilton’s relapse became known. “With all of our players and all of our employees, we look for accountability.”

At his news conference upon his return to Texas, Hamilton was asked about the “accountability” comment.

“I have no clue what he’s talking about,” Hamilton said. “I showed up every day. I played hard.”

“Going into this season,” he added, “I hadn’t been the player they wanted me to be, but I worked my butt off to be that guy. They just didn’t want that to happen for some reason.”

As for Moreno, Hamilton said, “He knew what the deal was when he got me. He knew what he was getting. He knew what the risks were. He knew all these things.”

Moreno’s comments about Hamilton’s contract came when the owner declined to say if Hamilton would play for the Angels this season. Moreno claimed that the player’s contract contained language that would protect the team in the event of a relapse.

“It’s not about money, nothing about money,” Moreno told reporters. “In our contract, there’s language that he signed and that his agent approved that said he cannot drink and use drugs. So we have specific language in the agreement. We have a couple other players who have the same language.”

A union lawyer disputed Moreno’s contention, saying Hamilton’s contract include no special provision that would enable the Angels to cancel it.

“There’s nothing special in the contract language that would have given him that right,” the lawyer said. “It’s the same language that’s in many special covenants.”

The uniform player’s contract has a paragraph in which the player pledges “to conform to high standards of personal conduct,” but Moreno would have been hard pressed to use that provision to his benefit.

The fact that Moreno agreed to pay about $68 million for the last three years of Hamilton’s contract while the Rangers pay $7 million tells you all you need to know about Moreno’s claim.

Moreno wasn’t the only Angels’ executive who was outspoken in his view, though it was pretty clear that he set the tone and paved the way for the others to be critical.

By commenting publicly, the Angels violated what is supposed to be the confidentiality under the Joint Drug Agreement, but Commissioner Rob Manfred ignored their transgression, very likely because his office did the same thing in criticizing an arbitrator’s ruling that Hamilton could not be disciplined for violating his treatment program under the JDA.

Club president John Carpino said the arbitrator’s ruling defied logic.

General manager Jerry Dipoto, a former major leaguer, issued a statement in which he said the “Angels have serious concerns about Josh’s conduct, health and behavior and we are disappointed that he has broken an important commitment which he made to himself, his family, his teammates and our fans. We are going to do everything possible to assure he receives proper help for himself and for the well-being of his family.”

The Angels, however, did no such thing. They traded him instead.

“We determined as an organization that this is the right move for us,” Dipoto said on a conference call. “It was something we determined some time ago. This is not the way we envisioned any of this playing out when we signed Josh, but at the end of the day, we felt this was the best for the team, to be able to clear the air and move forward with 25 guys we have on the field today.”

“This is a transaction that puts Josh back where he wanted to be,” Dipoto added. “That was made very clear through the course of this.”

There’s no question that a return to the Rangers was Hamilton’s preference, but it didn’t have to be. Had the Angels reacted in a sensible way after they learned of his relapse, “I would’ve rehabbed in spring training. I probably would have been playing a month ago,” Hamilton said.

“I need baseball. I love baseball. I’ve been playing baseball since I was 3. But baseball is coming to an end soon.”

Hamilton, who will turn 34 May 21, has had a career laced with addiction problems. He was the first player picked in the 1999 draft (by Tampa Bay) but missed nearly four seasons (2003-6) because of drug and alcohol addiction.

Three strong seasons preceded his free agency following the 2012 season, and Moreno grabbed him, only to watch him have two poor-to-mediocre seasons for the Angels.

At his news conference last week, Hamilton explained what he felt was part of his problem.

“Between 2012 and 2015,” he said, “a lot of my support system was kind of removed or pushed away and others added, not all my doing. I’m taking it back to 2012 as far as having the same support group. I want to have what. I get along with, what I feel is best for me. I’ve put all these pieces back into place.

“Your environment has something to do with it. If you’re comfortable and relaxed and when you go to the field still feel like you’re at home, that’s important.”

Had Hamilton thought about that a couple of years ago, he could have avoided running into Arte Moreno.