Heroin

There’s a Mark Twain quote about quitting smoking: “It’s the easiest thing to do. I’ve done it a thousand times.” The same sentiment here: I quit heroin on a weekly basis, sometimes daily, but I eventually give in, I always give in. It becomes too difficult. I didn’t sleep last night, and I probably won’t sleep tonight either. I lie there moving, changing positions. My skin itches, my back hurts. Last night was unbearable, and I know tonight will be worse. Unless I get high.

Some people medicate themselves with alcohol, some weed, others get off on sweets. I like to shoot heroin. It’s a part of my day-to-day life like anything else. Most days I can’t do anything else until I get my morning fix, my breakfast. I’ve been using heroin now for the better part of eight years, but the past year and a half has been by far the worst. I’ve been sober probably only a dozen days in the last 18 months, shooting anywhere from $30 to $200 a day into my arm. The sad part is that most of the time I don’t even get high. I do just enough to feel normal, to be able to function, to get off the couch.

My body wants it’s daily fix. It’s crying for it. It’s looking for the bliss, the sunshine. Heroin coats your brain with endorphins. After a while, your brain recognizes that it is getting outside help, so it doesn’t produce as much on its own. So now my body’s deprived of that outside help and it’s being left to suffer.

Withdrawal is different for everybody: a constant runny nose, cramps, diarrhea, body aches, vomiting, depression. The depression is the worst part for me, everything becomes sad and meaningless, futile. This is what scares me the most. There is a sadness in me I can’t really explain. People close to me or the ones who are good at reading others can see it in my eyes. I guess it’s this sadness that I’m escaping from. Rather than deal with the issues, I opt to medicate myself. I realize that this is only a temporary bandage, and I have started something that is near impossible to stop by myself.

One definition of insanity is doing something over and over and expecting a different result. I know what heroin does to my body, I know the effects it has on my life, but I still choose this path. Sometimes it seems that I am just making an excuse to get high and that I should toughen up and quit being so weak. A lot of people are sad, but not everyone shoots heroin.

As I even just think about giving in, I know that I will. I already have. Once you think about it and you’re an addict, there is no way to escape it. The trap is set. The seed has been planted. The wheels are in motion. Pick your metaphor.

I first started using heroin in ’92, it cost $40 a bag, which is a tenth of a gram (that is ideal, but rarely do you get that, and if you do it is usually not all heroin, but rather cut with something else, like vitamin B12 or baby laxative).

Ten bags equal a bundle, and five bundles equal a brick. In the larger cities, a bag costs around $10, less if you buy in quantity. The high price in Portland is based on the fact that someone had to transport the stuff over state lines. Most of the dope around here comes from Massachusetts, mainly Lawrence. On any given day, I bet there are at least a dozen cars going down, “making the run.” I’ve made runs before, but I don’t like to. For one, Lawrence Police are suspicious of Maine plates; they’ll pull you over just to make sure you’re straight. Secondly, the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency has nothing better to do than make heroin the number one enemy of the state. If you get caught with anything it is considered trafficking. And lastly, even if you do manage to get by the police, you still take the chance of getting ripped off down there. Everyone, and I mean everyone, gets ripped off eventually. I learned many lessons about copping in the big city, but even the best of us get beat.

For the most part, I find it safer to score dope in Portland than Lawrence or Boston or even New York. Unless you know someone in those cities, you’re forced to score on the street. It’s easier to network in Portland. And accessibility is definitely a factor in how much dope I do. The more difficult it is, the more discouraging it becomes. Around six, seven years ago, everyone got busted and heroin became scarce. I can remember spending the whole day riding around the West End or Munjoy Hill looking for someone on a corner. After a while I just gave up. A couple years later, heroin was becoming popular again. After a while, the heroin-chic fad kind of made it passé — I even think that was a song title. So many younger people were trying it now, teenagers, kids. I guess I was just as young when I first tried it, but for some reason I seemed older.

I used to go out to the bars in the Old Port, and most people didn’t know what was going on. A few people could read my eyes — faded, with pinned pupils — but most were clueless. But then Kurt Cobain died, and every publication in the world had an article about the return of heroin, and then the jig was up. Even old-school junkies couldn’t hide it anymore; everyone knew what to look for. My mother began counting spoons and Q-tips after reading an article in Parade magazine. She would always be looking at my arms for marks, but I rarely wore a sleeveless shirt. I have a picture of myself with some dope buddies taken a few summers back, and we all had on sweaters. It’s kind of funny if you think about it.

Someone will call me soon. Someone always does. The addict’s day starts early. No sooner do I think this than the phone rings. It is 8 a.m. now, and my friend Ricky is on the phone. He is 30-ish with two kids and no job, born and raised and living on the West End. He’s been pretty much my partner in crime the last few months. I knew he would call first.

“No, not really. Why?” I know where this is going. It’s the same conversation everyday.

So and so is lookin’, he says, and so goes the routine. Someone calls Ricky looking for dope, he calls me because I have the car and most of the connections. Ricky quotes them a price of $30 a bag with a two-bag minimum purchase but knows I could probably get three for $60 and me and him split the bag. So much for day two.

Splitting a bag, I won’t exactly be high, but I won’t exactly be hurting anymore either. This kind of deal happens once, twice, maybe fives times a day. We usually try to coordinate everything for one run; what might have been there in the morning might not be there in the afternoon.

I go to his apartment and grab the loot, but I have to go across town to Munjoy Hill to get the dope. One would think that most of the dealers I know would live in downtown Portland, but the truth is I know a half dozen dealers living in North Deering and a couple out on Falmouth Foreside. The suburbs are just as much infested as the rest of the town.

This morning’s heroin comes in tiny, ziplocked bags with black and gold skulls on them. Usually it comes in sealed plastic bags with some sort of stamp or emblem on them signifying the brand name. Batman and Shamrocks were made famous during recent busts, but there are at least a dozen more: LadyBugs, Pink Panthers, Mo’ Money, Blue Stars, Dolphins, TNT, Executioners. Some other bags are waxed paper, like the ones stamp collectors use, with some kind of logo on it: Poison, Knockout, Da’ Police, Terminator, Rambo, Eagles, Red Devil’s, and the deadly White China.

Page 1 | 2 | Next

Names and certain details were changed in this story to protect the identity of its subjects.

The damage done

A day in the life of a Portland junkie

By Anonymous