going more into my headcanons surrounding toast's addiction under the cut (specifically there cos talking about this stuff openly is still kinda odd for me) (cw for addiction and mentioned overdose if it's not caught by the tags)
i have a sorta set idea of what toast's addiction actually looked like. i wasn't really aware of this stuff at the time that it happened but due to my fixations i have learned about this so i will say:
toast's addiction being opioids specifically (not gonna say any medications by name but if you've watched the john oliver pieces on this you probably know) is because when he was in america in the late 2000s that is the time when the actual epidemic of opioids was spreading. he tried them at a party but one thing he noticed was that on them he found it much easier to function normally? he wasn't the type to start binging to start with, and getting his hands on a whole bottle didn't mean he'd lose control (important for him, since in his mind, if he could maintain like this, he wasn't 'really' an addict, especially since it was only pills. basically medicine, in his mind. this is very wrong mind you but i digress)
finding that he's more productive while high means that he has to fill the time, so he piles on his course load. his body gradually adjusts to this state, and it honestly works for him because it quiets his anxiety and lets his brain focus on what he wants rather than it jumping to its own thing whenever. to the point where he completes his bachelor's degree at an accelerated rate, but as he gets closer to the end of his supply, he starts to feel a bit guilty especially while trying to wean himself down to hopefully conserve what he has. in the end the idea that he's failing by relying on something like this to function gets to him and he tries to go to an addiction clinic for help. but this is 2011 and mental health awareness is not in the state it is today and toast tends to downplay his actual state of mind hard (due to ocd-typical distress and because he thinks he's supposed to be the 'put-together' one and so he can't tell anyone he has problems, even mental health professionals)
they end up prescribing him suboxone (a drug used to treat opioid addiction which gets rid of physical cravings and blocks the receptors opioids bind to, meaning if your addiction is purely physical, this would probably be very helpful. unfortunately for toast, his addiction is also caused by his mental state so this doesn't help at all.)
the unpleasantness of being able to feel the anxiety and dread that the opioids had blocked out makes him feel so stressed he ends up feeling physically unwell anyway. so he stops taking the suboxone and tries to get his hands on stuff that's similar but due to being in england at that time (which didn't really have the opioid crisis since gps in britain weren't incentivized to over-prescribe them like in america) he couldn't get what he had been taking and so. in a bout of complete genius he starts mixing stuff.
as anyone who wasn't panicking could have guessed, this turned out badly, and he ended up overdosing and ended up in the hospital. luckily he didn't suffer any long term physical effects. but it worries everyone and the longer he sits with it the worse he feels, mentally more than physically.
after that, his prescription is switched to methadone, at a lower dosage than he needs. and this is where alcohol comes in. before this, toast was pretty moderate with drinking and mostly did it socially, but after. well.
he starts out somewhat fine on the methadone prescription but he finds it much harder to concentrate with the constant flow of thoughts that aren't useful and he's heard people talk about how alcohol helps as a writing aid. so it starts with that. and it helps him sleep better, so that feels like another reason. and he feels less guilty about this, because alcohol is so normalized. it falls into routine, but with alcohol, his tolerance starts to build in a way he never really felt with the opioids. so he drinks more, less able to regulate himself properly. he is aware in the back of his mind that he's doing something wrong, but even then, he's able to complete his thesis and get his doctorate, so is it really even that bad? and there's an element of shame within it too, since most people treat alcoholism like a joke.
with a better routine and actually being able to work at pie filling up his days he's able to cut back for the most part (aside from the drink before bed to make sleeping easier) but it really depends on a fluctuating mental state whether he's able to keep it together.
(i imagine some years down the line, hes talking to spooker (former ER nurse in my au but didnt like that job for reasons) and spooker points out that his prescription is probably too low to actually do him any good since he's seen similar cases. and that toast probably has ocd since spooker has ocd and toast tends to describe his thoughts in a similar way and while he's never been medicated for it he's pretty sure that it'd help toast out and toast takes 2 hours to actually process that. but yknow. it does help. and he's able to quit drinking entirely)
janainaart
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