DOSE:

repeated

Heroin

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

There are a lot of reasons why I started using heroin: I liked the high, it made time pass about 5 times faster than it normally would, and it seemed that I had nothing but time. Heroin made working really easy, it made me feel relaxed and light, it took things off my mind. There are two main reasons why I got addicted though. When I first really started to love, need it even, I had betrayed my best friend by taking the boy she loved away from her, I broke apart a group of friends I belonged to that was destroyed forever. I could not bear the shame I felt, I was shocked at the devastation I had caused. I wanted to hide, I couldn’t look at my friends, all I could seem to do was shave off a tar like piece of heroin that smelled like vinegar, mix it in water and put it up my nose.

I remember when my body started to get addicted, my boyfriend, the one I had taken from my friend, had bought seven balloons from the Mexican dealers. It was to most we had ever gotten, and when it was gone we got more right away.

When I started to snort so much heroin it made me sick to digest it I started shooting up. For anyone who’s shot up heroin, you know there is no better feeling in the world. The thing is for something that good there is something equally bad.

There were times when I couldn’t get out of bed because I was so sick, I would have headaches that lasted days, and these weren’t normal headaches they were heroin headaches. I also had a needle phobia- great thing to have for a heroin addict yes? So I pretty much relied on other people to shoot me up, which meant that sometimes I wouldn’t be able to get high, and those were bad days.

I was lying to all my friends, the few I had, because I was so ashamed that I was addicted to heroin, the thing I told myself would never, could never happen.

I couldn’t wear enough make up to cover the dark circles under my eyes despite the 16-18 hours of sleep I got everyday.

Toward the end I wasn’t shooting up to get high I just needed the drug to function, and I hated being reliant on it just to have a mediocre day.

My boyfriend and I started looking in to possible treatment, but by this point we were each going to start school in a couple of weeks and all the programs took longer.

One day I got a call from my boyfriend’s mom at work. She asked me what we were addicted to. She had found his garbage can full of black and bloody cotton balls. She took us to Fairview hospital to the Detoxification unit.

I cried almost all of the three days I was there. When we got out I had to go to school, art school nonetheless. I wanted to go, I didn’t want to be in the hospital in a treatment program. I was determined to beat heroin.

It wasn’t that easy though, for the first two months off heroin the only thing that kept me going was telling myself that I could shoot up in a few weeks, just a few more weeks. I wanted it so bad then despite how much I had wanted to be free from it.

I was week and depressed, lazy and completely uncreative.

I’ve been off heroin for six months now. I never thought I would be happy without doing drugs, I never wanted to be a “sober” person. But I am and I’m happier with my life then I have ever been.

It’s not impossible to get off drugs, it’s hard, hard as hell because it’s the life I know, but I have to consider the life that exists beyond drugs. It’s better than I though.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 61097
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 28, 2017	Views: 2,188
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Heroin (27) : Hangover / Days After (46), Depression (15), Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)