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During hospital stays I've sometimes been given an opiate called dilaudid. Each time I was in horrific pain and the drug helped a ton, but not like I wasn't still suffering after.

There's a moment like a minute after starting the IV where I feel like I'm on the verge of passing out. My memories of the times I've needed it are nothing but suffering, but instead my brain looks back at the specific moments where my body wants to black out and thinks "I wouldn't mind experiencing that again". That's how I process those memories after only receiving it 5-10 times over a two-year span. It's very very easy for me to imagine that drug leading to addiction, and it's very hard for me to imagine how difficult quitting and maintaing abstinence must be. I hope you can feel proud of yourself for that accomplishment in spite if the societal stigma around drug abuse.

As someone not in the know, does addiction typically start from naivety and peer pressure? Like I'm sure you have some understanding that it's addictive but you might still be too ignorant to appreciate the scope of that. Or is it more likely to begin as a consequence of legitimate medical use? That stuff scares me, but when I'm in that kind of pain it is literally impossible for me to care about anything besides how long I will have to wait to be in less pain.