You are right on the cusp there, it seems. I’d say your decisions you make now and for the foreseeable future will define your addiction. There is a huge distinction between physical dependence and withdrawals and addiction, itself.
When I was 17 years old I was a raging cocaine addict and that was shortly before anyone really knew what OxyContin was. I would do OC everyday to battle the paranoia and psychosis cocaine caused me at the time, but never once realizing it was addicting, a powerful opioid, to be honest at 17 I didn’t even know what an opioid was. I used them for roughly 3 months (hard to remember exactly), and then I flew to Arizona and stopped everything cold turkey. I had no cognitive ability to understand what physical withdrawals were, I just assumed I would feel awful from stopping cocaine and so I made it 30 days with absolutely nothing and honestly, I don’t even remember being deathly ill at any point.
I flew back home and my soon to be (most toxic) girlfriend was still doing opioids everyday and I really didn’t understand what was happening or why she needed them so badly. One night, after what was probably 45 days completely clean, we were hanging out and she offered me a 20 MG OxyContin. I did it, and that’s when I was able to cognitively able to understand what addiction must be like. The feeling was unlike anything, ever, all the bad, all the pain, all the anxiety, it all just faded. I had never really been able to experience opioids when I was strung out on cocaine, but this time, just... wow... I could just function like a normal human being, it was so freeing. From that day on, I tried desperately hard to not use, but it was just not meant to be, the girl who (I thought) I was in love with couldn’t function without them, and so almost everyday was spent trying to figure out how to get them for her, and then it just became our thing.
Fast forward fourteen years later of being a highly functional opioid addict, the responsibilities and life overcame me and everything collapsed way too fast. In hindsight, I was blinded to the illusion the drug could offer me without realizing it was just that, an illusion wrapped up nicely, hiding itself from the truly horrible pain it would inflict upon me as it’s slave for decades to come.
The reason for this backstory has a reason, I promise. It’s to highlight that the portion of addiction that is psychological is far harder to break than the physical dependence and the withdrawals. And when your physical dependence is large and after many failed attempts to break free of it, it all just compounds and compounds and compounds to a place that is almost impossible to escape.
Your story just reminds me when I was at that pivotal point in my life, and I wish I really had an appreciation of how my actions at that time would change the trajectory of my entire life. If you can avoid the addiction, by all means, it’s the best option in my humble opinion.
