1: I walked up and asked, “What is the matter?” and I regret ever doing that.1
2: You can see by the situation I'm in that I regret ever using drugs.2
Is this ever grammatical here?
OxfordDictionaries includes the definitions at any time and at all times; always. In the cited usages, does it mean "I [now] regret having done [the regretted thing] at any time in the past"? That seems unlikely in the context of #1, since the action could obviously only have happened at one specific time.
Or does it mean "I always regret / have always regretted doing it"? In which case, is the regret implied to have started immediately after I did it? That seems unlikely in the context of #2, since presumably the speaker repeatedly used drugs after the first time.
1. That a Man Can Stand: The Evolution of a Nation
2. Google