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Comment by TrackerFF

2 days ago

I grew up in rural nowhere, and so, so many of my HS peers ended up as addicts. From my observation, I'd usually group the addicts in two types: Those predisposition to addiction, often combined with deeply traumatic events in life, and those that get addicted by accident or just with time.

The first group were the visible ones. The kids that came from broken homes, and had experienced abuse or similar traumatic events. They'd start acting out young, be introduced to alcohol, weed, and pills at age 12-15. By the time they were 18, they'd be full-blown addicts to anything the could get their hands on. Since they had no income, they'd supply their drug use by crime. Burglaries, robberies, theft, scams, everything. Eventually they'd move away, and become homeless junkies in a larger town - or extremely rarely, they'd become sober.

The other group of people, those that became addicts by accident or just over time, would be "stealth" addicts - at least until it all boiled over. Some of these people would become addicts after injuries/operations and serious painkillers. Others would escalate their weekend drinking to trying various drugs, and then become weekend users. Until it spilled over to their weekdays. Some could quit/become sober. Others could stick to weekend usage, and many would just slowly circle their drain.

How "functional" one can be, really depends on whether you have the means to support your habit, and how it affects your work + private life. You only need to be caught once, really.

With heroin, your biggest risk is that there's really not many dealers that are pushing heroin. And if you're a full-blown addict, you likely won't say no to whatever replacement they're selling. That's the time old slipper slope:

Become addicted to oxys after surgery or injury -> purchase oxy from dealers when your prescription is used up -> start shooting whatever junk the dealers are selling -> OD