(excellent detailed analysis -Ed.))
I can think of a couple of things that it appears are quite common . . . some for addicts, some for all people with physical dependence especially on opioids and benzodiazepines:
Having that metabolic hourglass over one's head is demoralising, limiting, and creates a lot of the below, but it is the government, ignorant citizens, and the cowardice of the medical profession which makes it into a Sword of Damocles and, after all, people get sick when they don't get enough sugar, vitamins and so forth.
Addiction is the juxtaposition of an acquired disordering of metabolism and the endocrine system (tolerance and physical habituation) with narcotic analgesics it is almost inevitable) and a full-blown clinical level phobia about the withdrawal syndrome, which is not universal but common as the concerns about the withdrawal killing the patient and perhaps even more so the prolonged, semi-permanent, or permanent debilitation from Post-Addiction Withdrawal Syndrome, both with their attendant personality changes causing problems and the economic impact. The latter has everything to do with restriction and illegality of the drugs in question in a lot of cases.
Much of this has to do with the fact that a lot of people have distress which the narcotics alleviate, and the patient knows this, and the drugs do something for them that cannot be obtained otherwise, and never will in that euphoria, anxiolysis, empathogenic effects are a part of the analgesia and cannot be separated. Also, people are happy to be out of pain -- naproxen, dexamethasone, and a lot of antihistamines do that too in a degree related to how much pain they alleviate.
The distinction betwixt addiction and habituation is anything but trivial and is at the root of a lot of suffering in many parts of the world.
Even medically induced habituation begun and supervised by doctors and continued with perfectly informed consent has some things which come with it that range from the inevitable to a lot of things having nothing due to habituation and certainly the pharmacology of the agent (narcotic analgesics). Because of the politics and economics involved and the abysmal ignorance by the public and even doctors about pharmacology and medicine in general.
There is a lot time wasted in the acquisition process, be it from calls back to doctors and triplicate prescriptions for narcotics to copping smack, which can be cut down by making them accessible again. This causes one's life to telescope down because of the time and energy involved in Taking Care of Business and it is most regrettable.
The ignorance of family and others is rather hard to get around it seems because of the disinformation put out all these years. For a supervised chronic pain patient, this is a bit of a problem, and is one of the things which reduce some of our margin for manoeuvre, to the point that, for example, the fake opioid cri$i$ in the United States people leaving permanently to get medical care elsewhere, which is lots energy, resources, money, and not everyone is in a position to choose such a thing.
For an addict, as well as a lot stimulant and definitely benzodiazepine and sedative-hypnotic addicts, the lost time, opportunities, and problems make the whole thing a catastrophic state of affairs, and the anti-drug motherfuckers should wonder why even with this, they all come back even with an interruption, thus the 98 to 99.5+ per cent relapse rate. In both cases of addiction and medical habituation, the relapse is a physiological reaction with the body trying to get what it needs and has nothing at all to do with the willpower or morality of the user. If the body is low on water, one gets thirsty.
And what all of this does to the self-image, hedonic tone, and personality of someone caught up in it is a substantial problem and heartbreaking . . .
