I think majority of the people in the transcripts are trying to give a metaphorical presentation of their pain – because it’s hard for someone, an outsider no less, to understand and fully grasp what an addict is going through and to know, truly, how difficult it is to get back on track – and even more so how dissuasive it feels to even return to their previous, healthy state.
This excerpt from the study is an example of an allegorical interpretation of their pain because they use actions or examples to better describe the pain they undergo during “withdrawal pain.” In the first instance of this excerpt, the girl describes how things are in much "higher contrast" - she can see the positives much brighter with these drugs, but she can also feel the negatives much deeper and opaque with the loss of it. Hence, the comparison creates a strong kind of dependency, a strong, overwhelming feeling of need. And at the last part of the section, they describe weapon metaphors such as "knife, or bones that cut through." That kind of extreme, brutal, and gruesome pain is being used in their narratives to describe the torture, the magnitude of what their "withdrawal pain" feels like.