I wish I had a time machine go back 30 years and say no thanks to a line of rosebud crank get my head into schoolwork and be one of these nerds I thought were missing out on a good time. I went a year and a half clean and one bad moment thought I just smoke a little as you said it's downhill from there.It should fill you with dread because it's how things are once you've tasted the forbidden fruit. It's hard to go back to life without them and it will be months, perhaps years, before your brain returns to normal. By using opioids you've trained your mind and body to stop producing their natural feel good chemicals. This means that you feel pain more acutely now and your brain is no longer releasing those natural chemicals that give you joy when you do things that are supposed to make you feel good (like eating a large meal or being around your girl). You've effectively shut off your natural supply of everything that makes you happy and your bodies ability to mask pain.
Things do not return to normal once you're through acute withdrawals. The fight is just getting started and it will take all of your will power to get through the months that follow. In time, for me it takes about 8 months to a year, your natural endorphins will start being produced again. The problem is you've also tickled the receptors they attach to with stronger chemicals constantly. So now the endorphins your body naturally produces aren't as effective. It's like you're attempting to catch a nod with codeine after years of using IV heroin. No matter how much codeine you chug you're going to run into a ceiling you can't break through. At best you'll just feel some mild effect that might take the edge off but it's never going to feel as strong as you know it should.
If you stay off longer maybe it improves. I don't know. After my period of heavy abuse I attempted to quit/taper many times. I stabilized on methadone, quit that CT, suffered for weeks, made it to the year mark, but something went wrong in my life and I found myself coming right back. Before long I was months into taking kratom 3-4 times daily and not even feeling much from it. I quit that CT but the pain was too much for me to deal with. So now I'm stabilized on 0.5mg-2mg of bupe everyday. I cut a piece off an 8mg strip in the morning and another about 6-12 hours later. I wake up everyday in mild opioid withdrawal. But it's better (and cheaper) than using the opioids I like. Plus, it keeps me honest because any opioids I might come by would be a waste. I know I could probably bust through but I also know 20mg of oxy or something would be a total waste so I don't even bother getting started.
Wish I had better news for you but this is how it is. Don't feel too bad. Lots of us fell into this trap without realizing it. I still remember the first time I went into opioid W/D. My source of free pills went to jail and I didn't put two and two together. I just assumed I caught the flu and that I felt better when I took an oxycodone pill because it was masking my sickness. It wasn't until a year or two later I realized how fucked I really was. I wish my friend would have never traded me that first Oxycontin ER for a joint. I can't remember what mg it was but it was one of 30+mg ERs at least. Guy told me to snort half of it and that I would enjoy it. I was drooling on myself within 15 minutes. I didn't know what was in that pill but I knew I liked it better than any drug I'd tried up until that point.
If I had a time machine I'd be a very rich man. I wouldn't have lost my mountain of bitcoins and I would have saved all those free pills back then. I'm not kidding when I say back then pills weren't even worth money. You could trade a joint of brick weed for a handful of oxy or hydros. I had a friend that would give me sandwich baggies full of percocet and hydrocodone 10mg tablets because they were worthless. I would walk around with them at high school and give handfuls of them away to anyone that wanted some. All of my friend's parents had bottles of the things laying around. Oxycontin ERs were so common people would drop handfuls of them and wouldn't even bother to pick them up. It was a wild time to be a freshman.
After that long off the gear, I started having natural laughter enjoyed moments with family, and thought I was out the woods but if you want the truth I was still bored. I missed the fun with pals it's like you have to change your whole circle you plant yourself back with a few old friends that never got into the shit but I was bored. Every time I relapse now after I know I have gone past the point of stoipping without wd which let's be honest once it's bitten you is only days before wd happens I just go all out like a fucking whirlwind
I'm clean again now apart from 300mg pregabalin which is down from a high point of grams and grams of the stuff but I know the last drops are the hardest and I fear pregabalin wd more than the heroin . I'll get off it again but for how long I have thought of methadone but I hate the thought of still needing something to function still a slave but either way you can cut of the chains but you are never free from this fucking drug