If you follow Gabor Mate and his understanding, you aren't prone to addiction if there isn't underlying trauma or suffering, possibly that you're unaware of and haven't processed yet.
I've had many dozens of procedures where afterward I need an opiate prescription. I try to only take them for as long as necessary, usually no more than 2 days, because I know an extra 12-24 hours does start to get into mild withdrawal for me. The fearful scenario you're painting more sounds like when someone shoots up an opiate directly into their veins.
More recently however I've had different procedures, surgeries, the prior being stem cell treatments - and I've needed to take opiates up to 4-5 days due to post surgery pain. But these surgeries reduced my pain so much that the mild withdrawal was the same or less than when I was used to just taking them for 2 days.
What I actually wanted to is that as the pain in my body reduced (from whatever procedure I was getting done), then the withdrawal was easier, less present - arguably as there was returning into less pain in my body as the opiates wore off.
I'm talking about physical pain above, but physical and emotional pain share the same pathways - and if someone isn't actually properly grounded, connected, to their body, and its sensory, they may not realize how much pain their body is actually signalling, and then I imagine opiates could quickly become a problem for someone.
TL;DR: Opiates aren't actually that great unless you're in pain - though that's supposing you're taking the actual medicinal use level dose - and not taking 4-10x+ recommended; I can't speak to that.