A question I've been wondering about a lot...

[Oasis29]

Okay. So I've been using very high dosages of prescription pain killers for over 5 years now. And I am on the verge of beginning to wean off of everything. I am just wondering... is there any true happiness or joy to be found outside of drugs and the highs that come along with them? I just... have been living like this for so long now, I honestly can't remember what it was like to not get all of my "good feelings" from drugs... I am going to go off of these regardless because I don't think my body can handle another hard withdrawal without dying. But I just hope that there is something worth living for, waiting for me on the other side of this journey... I know it sounds dramatic but it's just the truth of how I feel.

I have been on hydromorphone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, oxycodone and other variations of these, just to give you guys an idea of the kind of drugs I've experienced. Also I originally was 17 when I started. After a near fatal accident that has left me in a severe amount of chronic pain.

 

[wezface]

It really depends. Your brain chemistry is going to be really screwed up for a while, so it might feel like there will never be any joy to find in life. But if you stick with it, eventually you will find something. Everyone finds it some place different though, and if you have an underlying psychiatric condition like depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder, it's going to be even more difficult to sift through all the shit and find something worthwhile.
I'll be honest, it's not easy. I've been struggling with this very thing for a long time. My best advice, though, is to find a good therapist that you like, and to not overthink it. The purest joy is often found in the smallest things - sunshine, a good cup of coffee, knowing that your life is just a tiny speck in the universe and you may as well make the most of it. If you're not finding happiness, searching deeper and deeper or running away to look for it somewhere else is not the answer.
Good luck, man, and please keep us posted. I suffer from chronic pain as well and understand the mental battle that goes with pain and addiction. Get yourself into a program (NA, AA, whatever) just to check it out and find a support system and see if that's for you. And if you haven't yet, try some alternative pain control methods like acupuncture.

 

[Soulgasm]

Yes! There is so much much happiness to be had in life. However, you have to retrain your brain to work for this happiness; it's not as simple as just popping a pill (or insufflating, smoking, shooting if that's your thing). After your brain chemistry reaches an equilibrium (and it will), you will realize how much more rewarding life is without opiates.

 

[herbavore]

I have always felt that there is this strange thing that happens in life with love and with happiness. When you are lonely and you feel like you want to be loved, it grows in your mind to an unbearable need to be loved. The longer you are not loved the more centered your mind becomes on this huge need and rather than just naturally giving love to others, which means you usually receive love back, and you become solely focused on you. A similar thing happens with happiness. We want to be happy obviously, but the quest for happiness like the quest for love, can become self-defeating. When you can shift the focus to making people around you happy and making the people around you feel loved and valued--family, friends, even acquaintances and colleagues, happiness and love seem to flow backwards and you find yourself experiencing more happiness and more love. I'm not saying that people should become 100% selfless by any means. That is neither possible nor desirable.