I think you don't understand what "flippant" means. The parent's response was certainly flippant. He displayed a (to borrow the phrase from dictionary.com) frivolous disrespect for my curiosity and questions.

I would absolutely agree that my frame of reference is different (I wouldn't say "skewed"; that's a bit of a weird and disrespectful way of putting it), but I'm asking questions with the intent to try to understand better what people who have struggled with addiction have to go through to get better.

You accuse me of being dismissive, but I am anything but: I am asking questions trying to understand the forces at work here. The parent was very dismissive of me and my effort to understand.

Let's teach by example here.

Dismissive: I think addiction isn't real because I've never experienced it.

Dismissive: I'm going to imply that your questions are stupid and invalid just because you haven't experienced what we're talking about.

Not dismissive: [pretty much everything I've said up till now]