I always manage to be able to use my hands, except for the best vein I had, which is totally scared almost 2.5 inches on my left hand. But the corner betwen your thumb and index has a really easy to get vein most people never go for, mostly because it is hard to see at all, but once you know where it is, it's easy to register into it.
And I broke my promise-to-self not to read threads about IV'ing, it's quite the trigger, the whole chase of getting dilaudid/HM Contin, finally getting home, prepping my shot, seeing the register working, that yellow dilaudid solution going into me...it was almost as good as the out of this world rush it provides, I guess one can call it reward anticipation. Like when you were flunking a course in a semester so you decided to study hard as shit for the last exam to bring your average over the passing grade...and that moment of anticipation until you kicked ass with a 86% or something which brought you to 60% and made you pass.
I wish I can regain real life reward one of these days. The d-methadone in our north american racemic methadone is an NMDA antagonist and it somewhat reduced any sort of craving for artificial rewards. I don't even enjoy getting high on anything except a small amount of dexedrine + weed with my girlfriend, anything other and the REAL thorn in my side: benzos show up in the needing department even more than usual so yeah. That's what happens when you abuse, like not finding veins. Try finding an orally potent opiate, hell, even high dose CWE'd codeine would help me go through a day or two when I was out of dilaudid, 300-350mg of codeine, CWE'd from 222's (aspirin with codeine) works much better than the tylenol alternative (the aspirin really stays out better).
Only reason I became a daily user of needles at one time is because all I could get what hydromorphone, IR and ER. When Oxycontins were removed temporarily, my guy suddenly also couldn't get Oxy IR's 20mg (largest dose of IR oxy in canada available), when life takes a shit on you....Generic oxycontin even became available the day I came out of my 6 first days of methadone treatment inpatient start 8)