I can imagine.
I can also imagine the pharmacies, (apothecaries?) in the late 1800s, when you could legally buy preparations of Opium, Laudanum etc. It wouldn't have been a difficult decision to decide whether to get some of that, (maybe with some Coca Cola with actual cocaine for an energy boost too, because why not?) or whether to go for Lemsip or Benilyn (if they had anything similarly relatively lame back in the day...)
I don't really know about the history of drug use and drug problems back in those days, but even though such things were easily available, there doesn't seem to be much mention of it in any general histories, movies, or novels written or set in those times. As in there being an epidemic of problems due to these substances. (Not that I've read a lot of history or novels about those times, but I have seen a fair few movies and TV series set in that era, and can only recall one of them where the protagonist was addicted to Laudanum.)