Confessions of a blind opiate user

The first time I took opiates, I was still a kid. Elementary school. My dad had a bottle of codeine cough syrup and said I could take some to help me sleep. What he meant was a sip here and there. What I did was drain the bottle over two weeks. Not to get high. Not to party. I was just trying to shut my eyes. I had brutal night terrors and insomnia that felt like my brain was on fire after midnight. Sleep was a battlefield, and codeine was the first white flag I ever waved. The first time I took an opiate to actually get high was in high school. I took a friend on vacation and he brought hydrocodone along for the ride. After I swallowed it, the noise in my head finally went quiet. My thoughts stopped sprinting. Warmth spread through me like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. Love. Calm. A careless happiness I did not know existed. Still, opiates were not my drug of choice back then. I knew better. My mom had always been addicted. I remember shaking her, begging her to wake up while she was loaded on pain meds. More than once I hovered over the phone, convinced she was dead and that I was seconds away from calling 911. That fear burned itself into me. After high school, life stopped playing fair. I was in an accident that nearly killed me. I lost all my eyesight and now live completely blind. In the hospital they pumped me full of hydromorphone and fentanyl. For a brief window of time, I escaped. Not just from physical pain, but from the grief, terror, and rage of waking up in a world I could no longer see. Opiates gave me a soft place to land while my old life burned to the ground. After blindness, opiates became my drug of choice. They are excellent at dulling physical pain, but that is not the real hook. They smother psychological pain too. If your existence is dark and heavy, a little opiate light can make the day feel survivable. Your shoulders drop. Your chest loosens. Life feels warmer, quieter, and briefly humane. The edge comes off everything sharp. I have been addicted to opiates before. I am not now. I use them occasionally when I want to relax, knowing exactly what they are and what they can take from you. I do not romanticize them. I respect their power. Fire can keep you warm, or it can burn your house down. I have seen both.