I am a successful engineer with a wonderful loving family. I'm also addicted to hydrocodone. It's been about 7 years. It started I'm sure like many others, a

I am a successful engineer with a wonderful loving family. I'm also addicted to hydrocodone. It's been about 7 years. It started I'm sure like many others, a bad back, a wisdom tooth, and a little slip of paper good for 3 refills. One day I asked myself what these wonder pills would do for me when I wasn't in pain. It was instant bliss, like nothing I'd ever imagined life could be. I confined my indulgence at first to weekends, then a few times a week, then.... I'm at 50mg a day now, down from 100 so there's that. The real junkies will be laughing at me, and perhaps rightfully so, but I'm not laughing. I've experienced withdrawal a few times, and never longer than 3 days. Just as words cannot describe the sensation this drug gives me, it is equally impossible to explain the nightmare that occurs when my lazy mu-opioid receptors don't get what they are accustomed to. I keep myself on the edge of withdrawal all the time, only taking when I'm about to get the shakes, to ward off the demons for just a few hours more. I have a fighting chance to kick this thing, unlike many and I realize how lucky I am, but also I know I may not live long enough to reach my goal. I'm very good at spotting the fakes, but the fakes are getting better every year. The sad consequence of the tightening of supply in the past several years--closing the pill mills, rescheduling, limits on number of prescriptions a doctor can write--is a sharp increase in the black market price, a surge of demand from addicts whose doctors have written them off, and a massive incentive for counterfeits, many containing fentanyl. Prohibition doesn't work, people are dying. But who cares, right? We're just a bunch of junkies. I keep a note in my wallet explaining to my family that I love them and that I am sorry.