Xorkoth - thanks for the best "warning" post so far. It was very heartfelt and intelligent, and I appreciate it the most.
You're welcome... I hope it helps. I would like to analyze a few aspects of your post for you, hopefully to help you gain some insight.
To clarify, when I say I am only having one "session" a day, it is true. And I'm not doing all that snorting and plugging and pill swallowing all at once; I basically alternate between either snorting 2 dillies or plugging 3 or 4 (either/or, not both), once a night, with a few nights off here and there.
This is totally beside the point... it doesn't matter whether you did them all at once or over a period of hours. Rationalizing.
And I have come to appreciate that "the world is ok" feeling, as opposed to seeking out some zombie-like high.
Yep, me too. And now I take opiates every day (fortunately my opiate of choice is kratom and not something harder). Once you realize how easy it is to feel good about the world, it becomes hard not to use that shortcut.
I will say, last night/this morning was the first time I felt something that may have been withdrawl - the last few nights I've had trouble sleeping, but this morning I just lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, and feeling VERY anxious. A lot of anxiety.
Sounds withdrawal-related to me, although of course anxiety can come from many sources. Anxiety is one of the first signs of withdrawal, as well as insomnia. Restlessness is also big. The thing about withdrawal and anxiety is that anxiety infests all levels of your consciousness. So the fact that an issue in your life would be causing you insomnia could be a part of the withdrawal, even though it seems to come from an external source, because stressors in your life will be more apt to cause anxiety when you're in withdrawal.
Sadly, as friday came and went, I never got the call or an email and someone else in the office was assigned the job I was hoping would be given to me. All hope is not lost yet, but it's not looking good.
I'm sorry... I hope things look up for you soon.
So today was a very shit day, and tonight I decided to plug a record-breaking 6 dillies in the hopes that it will get my mind off all this.
This is the very definition of drug escapism, which is the number one cause of addiction. Not only did you take them because of stress due to life circumstances you're dealing with, but you upped the dose to a new high.
I know, I know, long, sprialing path down to hell... if I had gotten called back to work today, it would have been so easy to put down the drugs... I guess I can still justify it since I do need some for the pain, but I know I don't need 6! That's just me wanting to push reality as far away as I can on a shitty friday night.
Rationalizing. You CAN justify it, but that's the problem. Addiction makes you justify anything and everything involving taking the drugs. SHOULD you be justifying it is the question. The answer? No.
Why compound your life's problems by adding an opiate addiction? It will very likely become the biggest problem in your life and make joblessness look like a minor inconvenience.
And I'm still curious what a huge dose like that is going to feel like! Although for some reason, except for one ocassion, plugging doesn't seem to magnify the effect like everyone says it does, so maybe I'm doing something wrong. I'll check in on the plug thread.
A huge dose will feel like a regular dose, only stronger. It won't change the nature of the effects. It will, however, dig you deeper in your hole.
But here is a technical question - is there any sort of guideline for what amounts of opiates it takes over how long to become addicted, and to what extent? For example, let's say I keep myself to 2 or 3 dillies a day, once a day and that's it. This is even below my perscription's dose - will THAT lead me to innevitable addicition, or does it generally take a lot more?
I don't think such a guideline exists. However, 2 or 3 dillies a day is most certainly going to lead to addiction. Daily opiate use at all, even at prescribed dosages, will get you addicted. When people are put on opiates daily for more than a few weeks (or even just for a few weeks sometimes), it's pretty much a given that they will have to taper down or else they'll feel withdrawals. It's very easy to get physically addicted to opiates.
It's even easier to get mentally addicted, too. But that one's harder to catch due to all the self-denial. If I could sum up opiate mental addiction in one term, I think I would say: "self-denial". or maybe 'Rationalization".
Good luck.

I am truly hoping I do not see a thread started by you soon in The Dark Side. So many Bluelight posters have posted a similar story as this in Trip Reports, only to end up a few months or years later hitting rock bottom and posting about it in the forum we have that deals with addiction and misery. We are concerned because we've seen it all before and this looks awfully familiar. This is an important pivot point in your life. It could swing either way at this point, and it's 100% in your hands as to which path your life is about to branch to.
