In fact Somebody addicted to heroin can't function without being on heroin.. I'd push back on the comparison to alcohol though, having spent years as a blind drunk, and years on heroin/counterfeit blues it's far easier to OD and die on opiates/opioids by light-years ...
I've been an opioid user for 16 years and have never once overdosed.
I'm not talking about random street drugs, just pure diacetylmorphine & the commonly known opioids.
My oldest sister is dead after a lifetime of drinking shut down her liver.
I'm lucky to even still be here after several drunk driving accidents.
Opioids cause neither of those issues.
Considering more people die annually from alcohol related events & the fact that most "opioid overdoses" are often poly-drug overdoses generally cause by mixing opiates with alcohol, I'd have to rightfully disagree with you there.
Not to mention pharmacologically speaking, yes alcohol is worse on your body & brain than even heroin. Heroin isn't going to give you liver & kidney damage or wernicke-korsikoff syndrome. Nor is heroin directly toxic to your cells like alcohol is. Alcohol is also a contributing factor towards abuse & domestic violence. Not to mention car accidents.
Most people with an opioid tolerance are not just gonna up and randomly OD suddenly, unless they intentionally or accidentally take waaay too much or get a drug that's laced with something else. Another factor is people getting clean & then going back to using & thinking they can use the same dosage that they were at before they got clean & then they accidentally overdose.
Watched my brother overdose on alcohol when I was younger too. Started throwing up brown/black coffee ground looking stuff & had to have his stomach pumped.
So I think an alcohol comparison is completely valid. It's a dangerous poison that ruins lives & your body, yet it's totally legally & socially acceptable. Where as a less intoxicating & less physically damaging drug like heroin gets all the stigma & is illegal.
The closest I've come to ever feeling close to ODing on opioid, was the first time I was ever given fentanyl. And thankfully I was educated enough at the time to realize that it didn't look like "normal" heroin, so I started low & slow & that shit had me nodding to the point where I thought I was gonna pass out & die. I hate fentanyl, didn't want fentanyl. And accidents like this would be avoided if people could just access heroin/opioids legally & safely.