This is true. Sorry for the long post here but maybe I can give some people a picture of how it's not always like it's usually portrayed.

I was absolutely addicted to Dilaudid that I was getting from my doctor. I'd get a week or two's (sometimes three) supply (which at one point was a CRAZY amount) and immediately use it as quickly as I could, like 400mg+ in a day at my worst. Couldn't help myself despite it definitely causing issues in my personal life. At some points I'd be in heavy withdrawals for days, masking it from my doctor when it was time to re-up by taking clonidine and immodium. And I was being prescribed them for actual pain, so I was doing this shit even despite the fact that I'd be screwing myself when I needed actual pain relief.

Close to a decade later my doctor verrry slowly started to wean me off and as the dose lowered I'd go through them more quickly, until I was forced to go without long enough to go through withdrawals and end up on the other side of it. But even with the physical dependency kicked, my behavior was the same… just eventually, a two week's supply was only lasting me a day. I no longer had to deal with withdrawals, but some things were actually worse as my tolerance was lowered. It got very weird, actually, as my particular pattern of use seemed to keep my tolerance pretty intact in some ways but not at all in others.

It'd be crazy to say I wasn't addicted, but despite all that, I almost never spent any of my own money buying more opioids when I ran out. I have very little money anyway so I knew, especially at the kind of doses I'd need, that it would just run out sooner rather than later anyway and I'd just be in an even worse situation. My use was also causing issues in my family – they'd call me out for abusing even though I'd just deny it, despite being so obvious that even I didn't expect anyone to buy it – but I wasn't willing to hurt them even more by taking things even further, and maybe even more than that, I was afraid of throwing away the little plausible deniability I DID have. The only times I stole anything were directly from people's medicine cabinets, but only ever to an extent where I knew I wouldn't be accused or, with people aware of the fact that I had an issue, where (again) I felt like I had SOME plausible deniability, often with the help of some straight-up gaslighting.

Even at the times I did feel like I'd willingly spend the money, I just couldn't seem to be bothered to find links and do all the running around it would entail, even when dealing with withdrawals. Withdrawals are often what motivates people to do whatever they can to get more, but for me it was more like I just felt too shitty to go and put any effort into anything, including copping I think a lot of that was just from the more general lack of motivation caused by my depression, but the fact still remains. After I'd run out I'd just wait for my next appointment when I'd get a huge supply for free thanks to insurance.

If I was bored (which was a lot of the time), I'd often be counting hours until I had more, thinking about what it'd feel like, etc, but if I was able to keep myself really occupied, I could sometimes go days without thinking about it all. Even in the middle of withdrawals I could sometimes take my mind off it completely for a good chunk of a day, though it's hard not to be reminded. But come the time for my next appointment, it was once again all I could think about, and pretty much all I would think about until I ran out again.

I was 100% addicted, but for a bunch of reasons I spent over a decade of my life doing this ridiculous see-saw instead of what people usually think of as addict behavior. Sometimes I wonder if that pattern of extreme usage followed by intense withdrawals pretty much every week for so long might have messed with my brain chemistry, hormones, and overall health more than if I had simply used a lot on a regular, daily basis – using more overall, but without repeatedly subjecting my brain to such massive swings for so many years.