Hi Casey.
About 3 and a half years. I was prescribed cocodamol 30/500 for a herniated disc in my back. Then, one day, I had a headache and took a couple as I just found them in my desk. I was doing a 16/8 fasting thing at the time so took them on an empty stomach and felt the euphoria for the first time…and so began the recreational use!
The first year was codeine phosphate and dihydrocodeine from internet pharmacies (before they tightened up the rules), then bottles of codeine linctus to supplement this. At this point, I was probably maxing out at about 150mg per dose (always once per day, purely for recreation). Then it gradually increased until this year when I’ve been on 800+ mg per evening for the last few months.
I think that, as the dose was so big, it stayed in my system long enough that I would sometimes go a day without but mostly every day for months now…
Prior to the herniated disc, my addictions were exercise and work. I’ve maintained the former reasonably well so I’m aiming to go back to that being my main source of endorphins once I’m totally over the tired muscles!
I’m pretty confident, to be honest. I’ve got a bit of an obsessive streak and, when I gave up smoking cigarettes and, later, a very significant cannabis habit, I never looked back because the thought of failing and breaking my ‘clean streak’ was too powerful for temptation to win!
Let’s hope I’m right and that same obsessive refusal to fail will be able to overcome opiates…I stopped heroin after only dabbling a handful of times as I knew it was so good that it would defeat me if I let it into my life properly so hopefully there’s a good precedent for my ability to avoid this type of thing.