Is anyone truly lost in theory? Maybe not.
Do people ever change in reality? Extremely rarely.
The amount of people I've seen die both famous and personal while still deeply entrenched in their character flaws of decades is almost all of them. Big change is extraordinarily daunting and uncomfortable for people who are young, with it, and healthy; Ant has none of that going for him.
One of his oldest flaws is one of his biggest: the inability to confront. That includes everything from others, to reality, to himself. His dad and his low-IQ blue collar upbringing fucked him up big time. Joke all you want about Treefort Richard or Crybaby Anthony but being dogged out and screamed at any time you try to show emotion or sensitivity will fucking ruin you. And like lots of abuse cases, Ant continued to protect his father, even after death.
In the parallel dimension, Ant finally accepted that this was traumatic and went to go get therapy to deal with his serial comfort seeking... he didn't do that in this one. Instead, he took a shitty HVAC job because it didn't require any studying or training, he cheated on his wife instead of getting divorced, he panicked and placated and settled during that divorce instead of challenging it, he kept handing Panhandle Joe checks instead of telling him he wasn't entitled to millions just for being an initial spark, he let Opie drag down the show for years and years both while it was on and behind the scenes, he ran to Twitter any time he had vitriol to express instead of thinking about dealing with something rationally, he kicked his genetic predisposition for alcoholism into overdrive so he wouldn't have to ever be alone with his internal monologue, and he goes to sleep every night with the TV on so he's in a perpetual state of stimulation.
He might have some Michael Jackson in him with that manchild mentality of wanting to retreat from all responsibility, hence the stupid playhouse mansion and all the debauchery... probably even the young girl attraction as well.
I can't blame him for having a shitty start, but I know plenty of people who try to fix themselves even in their pauce state. When you have millions of dollars and don't even try to invest any of it back into yourself, you don't have any excuse. He could have taken a year or several off, gone to some gorgeous beach country, have a round-the-clock therapist or whomever for guidance, and a team of chefs and maids to make sure the only thing he had to worry about was himself. Throwing all that away in one blackjack hand was a better idea I guess.
The major thing working against him now is the drinking. He has absolutely incurred either some brain or hormonal damage at this point, and his pickled nigger brain is just going to octuple down on everything he's fucked up. Looking at Joe, that might have even been the case without the booze.
In all of it, I don't give a fuck that he's racist or neurotic or that he isn't funny anymore, even the hypocrisy I could live with. Going after his former fans like that college kid or the bicycle guy because they made fun of him online is inexcusable... but the absolute worst of all is Selfcuttinggirl, and that's one of the only PUBLIC examples of his pedo shit. You can have the worst childhood in the world but the second you transfer that suffering onto others is when you don't deserve anymore sympathy.
I'm assuming going forward it's just going to be more of the same: drifting further and further away from old associates and losing more and more money to where he's just drinking to tolerate the misery of a $5 pot card game with Fred from Brooklyn and Steven S. Going to sleep with the TV on every night to block out the regret in the 500 SF apartment, maybe going on a comedy club stage every few months to 30 people to get a trickle of the glory days back. All until he's just a barely conscious demented old man Dawn's family will have to put in a nursing home. If you don't genuinely want to change, you won't.