It’s late afternoon in Brisbane; the humid air collects into sweat which rolls down my back as the grey clouds above threaten rain. I sit on the back porch, typing idly into my laptop, a plume of smoke from my half-smoked cigarette curling lazily into the heavy atmosphere. I am reading a few of my favourite blogs, and reflecting on the nature of the addiction we all share…

And suddenly, a refrain from an old sixties protest song the aging hippies I had as teachers taught us in primary school, runs through my mind.  

“When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?”

I think of the behaviour of my fellow junkies and I, and I have to wonder. Will we ever learn? Or are we doomed to forever be haunted by the memory of the opiates… the kiss of steel and the opiate rush which seem, by now, so much a part of who we are?

Yoshi asked me this the other day. He is the age now, that I was when I started using heroin. (Lesser opiates had been part of my life, on and off, since my teenage years. But once heroin got its hooks into me, it’s been a rare week I’ve been without - except during my year in the United States. Ten years already, and it shows no sign of easing up.)

“Will this longing ever go away, or is the sweet rush of that opiate pleasure burned into our soul for good?”

As I told him, I’m older but no wiser… well aware of the tens of thousands I’ve shot up my arm in my pursuit of a little peace, or perhaps just peace of mind? But no wiser as to why the allure still remains. Regardless, I should know better these days. 

Word is there’s a heroin drought all up and down the east coast - people getting ripped off, even the best of dealers reduced to selling stuff much sketchier than they’d ever push at another time. The gear is, in a word, shithouse. 

Those of us on maintenance therapy, or without a severe habit, are the lucky ones. But something in us still screams for the score, for the hit, for the few precious moments of bliss… even if we know the price is too high in the end.

The price is too high, to keep seeking the high. But do we learn? Not easily, it seems, and none too well. Why?

“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind.”       

I have a confession to make.

I introduced a friend to heroin recently; I am not proud. Rather, in fact, I am very, very worried.

Geoffrey (let’s call him that) is a friend of mine whose usual drug of choice is alcohol. But foolishly, I gave him his first taste of heroin a few weeks back. Once, and then once more. And now, I fear I have unleashed the demon in him. He asks me for a taste several times a day now whenever I see him; I tell him no, so then he asks me if I know of anyone nearby from whom he could score.

“For the last time, no.” But he isn’t listening.
“It makes me feel really comfortable. I felt so calm after that one last little taste…” I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. My stomach sank, in fact, because I knew too well how he felt, how seductive that calm can be… and how much I wanted to shield him from the cycle of destruction which almost inevitably followed that glorious feeling.

“So, can you fix me up?” he asks again.
“No,” I tell him.
“But I can keep it under control.”
“Oh, we all think that. In the beginning, anyway. Few of us ever can keep it in check, though, in the long term…” I trailed off, took a long drag of my cigarette, and sighed loudly. “It fucks up your life, Geoff. You will like it too much, and it will fuck up your life. Best advice I never took.” I pulled a wry face, and looked at him sadly. “I should never have said yes to you in the first place, actually. It was stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Actually, if I’m sick at myself now, it’s nowhere near how sick I was at myself - with panic and remorse - the night I gave Geoffrey his first taste. I guess I should have known that he, as a non-user who wasn’t completely freaked out by the fact that I used now and again, was going to ask. Sooner or later, they nearly always do. Which probably explains why I like to use alone.

Needles didn’t freak him out. “I’ve done speed intravenously,” he told me. “It was a while ago, but yeah…” I sipped my beer cautiously, waiting for what was to come next. “You know my son’s been doing it. I want to know what the fuss is all about.”

“Once, Geoff, and no more.” Goodness knows why I caved in. Was it the mention of his son, a kid eleven years younger than myself, whom I’ve never met? Who knows. But I nodded, and dug in my bag for my kit.

He hovered about me while I got out what I needed and set to it, intent on mixing up our taste. (Okay, I’d done one a few hours previously, and didn’t really need another. But there was no damned way I was doing him up without a little shot myself, to steady the nerves and so on… besides, I’ve never known anyone who’s a user who can mix up a taste for someone else, and not have one themselves. I mean, there’s self-control but nobody has that much cool… really!)

“Gear’s been really… rocky, lately,” I muttered, busy with plunger-end and spoon. “Could you pass me the lighter, Geoff?” He passed me what I asked for, wordlessly. Good, I thought. Someone who respects the sanctity of the mix. That silent time when one is mixing up, be it in a car, a park, a public toilet, or the relative safety of a friend’s kitchen (where I was now) - that mix-time is a form of junkie meditation, a time I hold sacred in some special sense, even if it lasts just thirty seconds.

Wordlessly, I held the spoon up, and gestured for Geoff to run the lighter underneath. “Okay, that’s it.” I said after a few seconds, and put the spoon down again. I worked the plunger which I had separated from its syringe, back into the barrell, and dropped a tiny piece of cotton into the spoon. Deftly, I drew the heroin solution up through the cotton, tapped the barrell, and levelled off the plunger.

Forty-five units, give or take one or two. (The syringes are 100 units large; 100 units equals 1 cc.) I drew out a fresh syringe, pulled out its plunger with the now-familiar *THWOCK* sound, and pushed forty units into the new barrell. That was my “taste”; after all, I’ve been doing this for nine years; Geoffrey, by comparison, had no tolerance at all. What was left, I reasoned, should get him nice and high.

I reassembled my syringe, wrapped a belt around my arm and started tapping up a vein. Hmmm, that one doesn’t look too bad… I plunged the point into my arm, and with relatively little hide-and-seek, I found my vein. Bingo, I silently congratulated myself as I slid the syringe home. Sliding the belt off my arm, I licked a drop or two of blood from the injection site and savoured the feeling of the hit for a few seconds, while telling Geoffrey in a sepulchral post-heroin whisper to get his own arm tied off so I could shoot him up next.

“Guys’ veins are so much easier to get than girls’,” I said as I knelt beside him with the loaded syringe. His arms were a contrast to mine - fresh, unblemished, the veins full and fresh and simple to use. “What a time I could have with veins like yours,” I chuckled, mostly to myself. I ran my hand up his inner arm… there. I slid the needle home; drew up a little to make certain I was in, and pushed the plunger down. Done. I watched his face intently.

“Are you okay?” I asked. He nodded, bliss shining through every pore.

“Yeah.”

I turned away, busying myself with putting the used needles in the disposal bin… chatting away to him idly, it could only have been ten seconds when I turned back, and the words died in my mouth.

“Geoff?” He’d gone blue. Oh, SHIT. I knelt down to his motionless form on the kitchen chair, and started pinching his arm. “Geoffrey. Come on, now…”

No response. With one arm, I started slapping his face, softly, while with the other I reached down to feel the pulse in his wrist. Faint. He was turning purple now, and still not breathing. Oh shit shit shit shit SHIT…

“Geoffrey!” My slaps became stronger, as my voice, quiet but panicked, cracked from the strain. Nothing for it. I’d have to call the ambos. I grabbed his cellphone from the table, dialled triple 0, and shut my eyes as the call connected.

“Emergency. What services do you require?”

“Ahm… I need an ambulance at…” my mind went blank. Where was I? What the hell was Geoff’s address again? I started babbling. “Oh Jesus, I just walked in and my friend… I think he’s overdosed…”

“Are you on his phone?”
“Yes, but it’s a mobile…”
“We have that registered to a…” and the operator listed an address in Kelvin Grove. Of course. He bought this phone when he moved to Brisbane. That’s his LAST address. Damn, where are we?

“No, no, it’s Red Hill, it’s…” quickly, I walked outside the flat, looked at the door. Something in me freed up and I suddenly knew the address. “Red Hill. Flat 18, 132 Musgrave Road, Red Hill.”

“Okay, what has he taken?”
I’ve been pacing the floor; I walk back to the kitchen. “He’s not breathing… I… I think it might have been heroin.” (Disingenuity is always the key. Don’t admit anything until you have to.)

“Okay, the ambulance is on its way. No, I have not dispatched the police. Stay with your friend and put him in the recovery position, do you know how to do that?”
“Yes.” I disconnected the phone and again took Geoff’s pulse. Weaker. Damn you… stay with me… “Stay with me, Geoff.” I pinched off his nose and blew into his mouth, hoping to force some air into his lungs. I was rewarded with a ragged breath.

“Yes… that’s it. Stay with me. Come on. Ambulance is on it’s way. Breathe.” I heard him breathe a few times more, then I heard the sirens outside. I decided it was safe to leave Geoff where he was, for the time being, and I raced downstairs to show the ambulancemen up and go through the barrage of questions with them.

“What’s he taken?”
“Heroin.”
“And have you had any heroin this evening?” The paramedic looked into my eyes and I shrugged; I have pale blue eyes, so with people in the know, there’s no point in my lying. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

The kitchen was cramped and small, the men dragged Geoff out onto the livingroom floor. “What’s his name?”
“Geoff. Geoffrey.”
“Wake up, Geoffrey.” He was breathing, but only barely. I saw them prepare a shot of Narcan, and shuddered. Well, you ruined my shot by nearly dying, said a selfish part of me, and dammit, nobody dies on my watch. I knew I shouldn’t have given you that taste. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

“Are you going to have to take him to hospital? Because he really doesn’t like hospitals.”

“Probably. In fact, it’s very likely. How much did he use?”
“I’m not sure,” I lied. “I don’t think he’d had any for quite some time… I was out of the room, and I came back and found him like this.” Damned if I’ll admit to a bunch of paramedics that I nearly killed someone. They look down on users enough already. Junkys, the modern-day lepers…

In the end, Geoff came around enough for them to trust me to watch him for the rest of the evening, as an alternative to them sending him to hospital. We were both pretty quiet after the ambulancemen left, each thinking our own thoughts. I was mainly thinking about what an idiot I’d been.

A week or so later, Geoff asked me again for a taste. “Only a TINY bit,” I told him. “And only because that first time was such a fucking disaster. But that’s it, Geoff. No more. And I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that nobody sells to you, either. Although I know I won’t have to, really. I doubt you’d bother going looking for it, not that it’s easy to find in this town anyway.”

I did him up again, probably only giving him half what I had before, and watched him like a hawk until I was dead certain he couldn’t have overdosed on this gear. Needless to say, he enjoyed it. But I hope like hell he sticks to beer.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Opiates on their own can sometimes cause overdose, especially in opiate-naive individuals; however, opiates mixed with other central nervous system (CNS) depressants, such as alcohol or benzodiazepenes, can be far more deadly. Alcohol and heroin were used together in this story, and I mean it when I say DO NOT try this at home. Anyone. Please.

The other day I got a parcel from bi11i, the digital maestro responsible for both junkylife.com and opiophile.org.
In the parcel were a few things, notably an opiophile t-shirt (I’d post the link but it seems to be down right now) and a DVD of, to quote the man himself, “a film you might be interested in.”

Last night, I slid the DVD into the player, finally found my remote control amidst the detritus of my room, and gave it a whirl.
The film turned out to be the documentary Union Square (2003), a documentary following the lives of seven individuals living and shooting dope on the streets of New York City.

What I saw during the next 95 minutes was an arresting look into the lives of people not too far from my own age. They were articulate and incredibly self-aware - and it was this, even more than the graphic depictions of shooting up in public restrooms, which made me sit up and take notice.

The director, Stephen J Szklarski, not only gave us an unflinching glimpse into the daily routine of these young people, but also made the viewer care about them and their lives in such a way that by the end of the movie you wanted them to be better (even though you knew the prospects weren’t good). Therefore, it was good to see the “special features” section of the DVD held follow-up interviews with many of the participants of the original film, and even the mother of one of the guys.

I must admit, I dozed off during the Director’s Commentary (by that time it was about 1.30am, and the benzos I’d just swallowed probably didn’t aid in the whole keeping-awake thing) but what he had to say wasn’t as important, anyway. In fact, I kept thinking Shut the hell up, you pompous bastard. You’ve never shot dope, in fact you’ve admitted that you have no idea about any of this stuff, you’re in no position to judge. Who are you to say what’s what? STRAIGHTIE!

It was the central characters themselves - in particular Cheyenne (the only girl), Rob (the chatty depressive dude from a good family) and James (the kid from Long Island) - who made me care about the film; I could see elements of myself in all of them. I cringed when Cheyenne spoke about her and her boyfriend Mike being “functional addicts” before they lost their house… There but for the grace of God go I, I thought to myself.

Time after time, there were moments in the movie like that. The shooting-up scenes made me wince with the familiarity (my own arms, after a fairly extended run, are not pretty either) although the lifestyle these junkies lead is not a familiar one to me. I’ve only been to New York City but once in my life so far; even though I lived just two and a half hours away in Connecticut for almost a year (although CT could have been a different planet for all it has in common with the city.)

As much as the scenery changes, though, some things stay the same: the zero-sum equation of junkydom. The more you shoot, the more you want; more is never enough. It’s an incredibly limiting life where the sphere of reference keeps getting smaller, and you’re so busy staving off the sickness that you don’t even notice. The same holds true whether you’re on the streets of The Big Apple or in a rented couple of rooms in Brisbane.

As a documentary, Union Square was real, raw, and gut-wrenchingly good.
As an anti-drug film, it served its purpose too. I woke up this morning and didn’t even want to get high.

Nephalim, who has (thanks indirectly to junkylife, and more directly to a certain blogger) become infinitely more than just a name on a blogscreen to me, told me recently he can’t believe I don’t currently have a habit. But I don’t. No, I’m not on maintenance of any sort, I just use every once in a while (or more) and that’s it…

On reflection, I suppose I’m a little more unique than I thought. Is it self-control, lack of money, or just sheer laziness? A little of the first, a little more of the second and third, added to a tolerance which has dipped and soared over time… and the fact that I live in a city where the gear is (objectively speaking) atrocious.

Perhaps there is also the fact that I have seen the demon for what it is; I have known first-hand (for years on end) what the nightmare of addiction can do to a person, and it’s not an experience I care to repeat.

The thin white line of chipper vs addict… when does one fall over the edge and become the latter? For me, in almost nine years of dancing with the White Lady Heroin, it has been a game of changing rules. But there’s no denying when you wake up sick.

And the black hole that follows… the flat-out need versus self-loathing that becomes your life, the life of the addict, the cycle of scoring to avoid being sick… the hideous chasing of ones’ tail, if you would, just to attain some sort of equilibrium. The moment that you realise you’re too deep in it to just stop, and too tired to continue… until that next shot smooths out the edges of your ragged existence, and you find the strength to continue until the next – and the next – while your arms end up covered in needle marks, your teeth rot, and your health fails.

This is how I spent far too long. Getting high every once in a while turned into a nightmare maelstrom from which there seemed no escape.

So last week, when I realised I’d taken things a little too far lately, I gritted my teeth, filled my script of Xanax, and bit the bullet. No way was I going down THAT rabbit hole again. Using just to stave off the sickness, using just so as you’re well enough to eat - that’s no fun at all.

But withdrawals aren’t fun either, as any junky will tell you.

More tomorrow…