Lynn who has been clean for six years
I wish people understood how much I wanted to stop, how much I hated what my life had become. I think people assume that there is a lot more choice involved than there is. But I don't think anyone really chooses to become a heroin addict. I chose to start getting high initially but something changed in me where pot and alcohol weren't enough and I compulsively sought better ways to get high. By the time heroin came into the picture it was too late, I was already gone. Heroin does not sound like a good idea to a rational human being and some people can use other recreational or prescribed drugs and remain rational. Those of us who become junkies are people who are rendered incapable of making good decisions when mind-altering substances are introduced to our bloodstream. You might call it a slippery slope, the regression from casual partying to heroin but it's really a very slow process of accepting different levels of normality.
The first time I knew of one of my friends shooting up I was disgusted, but it gradually became less foreign and one day just didn't seem like a bad idea anymore. After that point it is a quick downhill to rock bottom. The first time I shot up I had just turned 18 and that afternoon I was leaving the country to visit my parents for a month. I dreamt of heroin every night I was gone, And while I knew it was a bad idea, I knew as soon as I got back to the States I was going to do it again, just one more time. I spent the next three years waking up every day with the intention of getting clean but a few hours into the day I'd think, just one more time, then tomorrow I will do things differently.
It's hard to explain to anyone who's never been through it and I can see how it would be hard to understand because it doesn't make sense, but there was no choice. Even now, I have to keep reminding myself because it doesn't make sense to me anymore either. I have been clean for six years and am married. I, no joke, drive a minivan, have three small children and a nice house with a pool. Most people don't know and would never assume that I spent any time living in a tent behind a supermarket using dirty needles and rainwater to inject heroin into my neck. So that's the other thing I wish people knew, and really believed, is that we change. We Hate ourselves as much as society hates us but we don't have to stay that way forever, we can change into amazing beings.