^^To the guy who doubts addiction and his (un?)lucky friend,
I did you one better in my chipping days. I was familiar with oxy and minor pain pills, becoming familiar with good but expensive dope, for years towards the end of high school. I used as much as I could, depending on money, and sure hustled/stole/scammed to get more drugs. Never even got a hint of withdrawal. It was totally voluntary, sporadic thing but sometime very frequent.
Either way I failed to catch a habit even with a month long fent patch binge. Not exactly every day but 100mcg and 75mcg patches every two days, skip a day PER week, if that, sometimes straight plus other opiates.....
4 something years after my first taste of vicodin, I had a surplus of money and started doing oxy 80's often. This STILL took me a couple months of every day use (about 80mg a day) to feel it. I remember the first time I felt w/d after halloween weekend. So I continued to do oxy. I tried a kick a couple months after, flew away somewhere warm. The w/d was pussy anyway... a joke for 3-4 days. Came back home in strong spirits, two days later was using again. W/d developed within a day or two, FF some months.
Money running out, using dope.
FF to heavier tolerance (10 bags a day of good), went to my homeland and kicked. Hard but doable. Drank a lot. No options means I did what I had to, regretted not manning up at home since I ended up kicking in a 1 bedroom apartment in the middle of belarus with my relatives. Came home in strong spirits, almost 3 weeks clean and feeling fine. Started using 3 days or so later.
This time the W/D took a couple tries, but it still got me. Well FF about 8 months and I'm using whatever I can get, hustling bags to do dope, getting pills in town if I have money and maintaining with suboxone when I'm short. No 'real' end in sight. Be warned!!!!