Day Three

Day Three

Heroin addict. No one likes that word. I know the first thing I had always thought of when someone said heroin addict was some homeless junky using dirty needles, hadn't had a bath in weeks, a scruffy beard, and tattered jeans. I pictured some mope begging for a dollar so he could get his next fix and go nod out in a box somewhere tucked into a dark alleyway. This is not accurate at all. A heroin addict or junky is someone you work with. It may be your local police officer, fireman, teacher, lawyer, doctor, or even preacher. I know this because I have personally known each of those people who were drug addicts. Dope does not discriminate. It is not racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, or any other prejudice. It accepts everyone. I guess that is one of the reasons I fell into it. It accepted me. Dope promises everything you have ever wanted. Love? You got it. Peace? sure! Lying Motherfucker.

So on Day 2 I left off where I had gotten high again for the first time in over a decade. Man what a disappointment. The high still didn't compare to the first time I ever shot dope. It was almost like I never quit. I immediately began wanting more and instead of weeks or months before I was a full blown junky, It took days to put its claws in me. Addiction is funny in that sense. It makes you think that you are ok and do not have a problem. By the time you realize that it is a problem you had been addicted for quite a while. The first time I ever realized I was a drug addict It was back in 2000-2001. I had been shooting dope for the better part of a year and didn't know I was an addict until a psychiatrist told me he thought I had a drug problem. A fucking drug problem??? I had a money problem, meaning I didn't have enough money to buy my drugs.

Here I am in 2014 getting high again for the first time in quite a while. It was days before I was spending $40 here $60 there and $100 in between. One pill was costing me $20 and one pill won't do anything, but make you want another. One of the drawbacks of being a junky and a narcotics cop is that if you are doing your job well, the dope will dry up and that is exactly what happened. The K4s dried up and some young thug had the genius idea to start selling heroin from Memphis and Chicago in this small southern town. Heroin was cheaper, more potent, and easier to shoot. At first I did not like it as much, but repetition will help you learn to like anything. I began having to have it everyday. I remember the first time I realized that I had a problem again was when I had called Jane and asked her to get me some dope. She was fucking off all day and kept putting me off. I started panicking and telling her she had to go get it now. I began sneezing constantly. I would explode in a fit of sneezes 5 and 6 sneezes long. The beads of sweat started forming on my head and that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach started to develop. Fuck.....This is what it has come to. I have to have dope to survive.

When she told me she had the dope and was on her way to meet me the withdrawals began to go. Eventually she showed up with some dope. Funny phenomena. Most junkies began to feel better when they know they are about to score. Just the idea of feeling better actually makes you feel better. Of course when you take that first shot after being sick it is like heaven. Someone once asked me what it is like shooting dope when you are sick. I gave them the best analogy ever.

Shooting dope when you are sick is like that long car trip you took with your parents when you were a kid. You know the one where you drove halfway across the country to go to some tourist trap in the middle of nowhere. Remember when you kept begging for your parents to stop so you could pee and they kept saying you had to hold it. Well they always took longer than they said to finally stop at a gas station so you could relieve yourself. If you go back, way deep into your memory, you can remember that feeling when you could no longer hold in your piss. That feeling you got when you got to the toilet just in time and the urine just poured out like a waterfall. It was like the rain of a thousand storms was in your bladder and you were finally opening the floodgates. That feeling of relief is exactly what it feels like to shoot dope when you are dope sick. Instant relief. It is like being in a blizzard and someone putting a warm blanket around you and you are instantly protected from the cold. It is a friend hugging you when you are sad. It is your mom bringing you chicken soup when you are sick. It is everything that makes you feel good when you don't feel good. That dope is a tricky son of a bitch. God forbid if you run out. Better hope for a lost $20 bill to appear or a really good friend.

“Poverty of young men alone behind the
stairways, who practice
alchemy inside bottle caps, who know
the altruism of a last syringe.”

― Jim Carroll, Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems