Confessions Of A Former Child Prodigy Turned Heroin Addict [Ch. 1: The First Time]

Chapter 1: The First Time

"This is fucked up man, I'm over here sweating bullets even though it's like 40 fuckin' degrees, I've got fuckin' diarrhea, and you keep telling me it's gonna be an hour but..."
"Chill the fuck out man, soon as I hook up you gon' be my first stop."
Andy ended the call, during which both he and Jeff were speaking loudly enough for me to hear every word of the conversation even though the speakerphone wasn't active, hanging up as he threw his phone at the pillows on his unmade bed. It had been nearly 36 hours since we snorted our last OC80s and the withdrawal was getting to be pretty intense. I felt like bugs were crawling up my skin, my body temperature was repeatedly going between extreme heat and bone-chilling-cold, and I had puked at least 3 times already that night. I knew that withdrawal from snorting oxy usually peaks somewhere between 48 and 72 hours after the last dose, and considering that I already felt like death would be a more bearable alternative, I had no intention of finding out just how sick I would eventually get. Andy had nearly double the habit I did at the time, so I knew he was hurting badly, even worse than me.
"I hate that fucking nigger, man, he's a terrible drug dealer. All a decent drug dealer needs to do is have shit and show up reasonably close to on time, and that fucker can't seem to do either."
As a person of color, Andy's frequent use of racial slurs did bother me, but I had never brought it up to him and this was certainly not the time to do so. After all, I was furious with Jeff as well. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if Andy referred to me as a sand nigger or towelhead behind my back. Granted, we were supposed to be friends, roommates, and "business" partners, but when you have a serious opiate habit, everything else becomes secondary. At least at that time, Andy had an oxy habit that was bigger than anybody else's that I personally knew.
What really had me angry at that moment, however, was the fact that Jeff was supposed to bring over 200 OC80s at noon, and it was now past 11pm. Drug dealers are stereotypically never on time, and Jeff was no exception, but this was unusual, even for him. I had spoken to him several times on the phone that day as well, and he kept telling me to "sit tight" while reassuring me that it was still going to happen today. Had I known it was going to get repeatedly delayed like this, however, I definitely would have tried to track down a few pills just so we could avoid going into withdrawal while waiting for the rest of our order. Unfortunately for us, however, it was nearly midnight, and 2 non-black kids roaming the streets of West Philly seeking out drugs at that hour was nothing less than a recipe for disaster. Besides that, I had given Jeff all of my cash for the re-up last night. I knew that spending all my available cash on a drug deal was a terrible idea, but my twisted-addict-logic kept returning to the fact that OCs, like many other drugs, get cheaper as you buy in higher volume. I had a rapidly growing habit to support, but at the same time had to make sure I would be ready and able to put back the money that had been taken out of my company plus the agreed upon return. As such, I had put all my available cash towards the re-up - in fact, I had done so almost without a second thought, thinking that I'd have the drugs the next morning, and given that I knew four relatively large buyers were waiting on me, thought I'd have at least a grand in cash by lunchtime.
I swore under my breath, feeling a chill shoot up my spine in nearly perfect synchronicity with the ongoing lightning storm happening directly outside my window. I absolutely love heavy rain storms when I'm high and find them far too depressing to even acknowledge when I'm not. I longed for that feeling of seeing the beauty in each individual drop of rain, accompanied by that almost tangible hybrid of euphoria, contentment, and warmth, that kept me coming back for more. I knew there was no way I would sleep until I got some oxy in me, but I was tired anyway, and decide to hit my bong a few times and close my eyes for a few minutes, praying that Jeff would hurry.
I wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed when I heard Andy knocking at my door, but I figured it must have been a few hours.
"Hey, you mind if I hit your bong?"
"Go ahead man, there should be a little left in there." My eyes were still closed when I heard that familiar click of a lighter followed by a couple seconds of deep gurgling.
"Do you still have any of that xanax powder?" Andy asked, while he coughed and exhaled a large cloud of smoke.
"It's in the top drawer of my desk, but be careful with that shit, you won't need more than half a match head's worth."
I should have known right then that giving Andy unsupervised access to a quantity of drugs that large and that potent was a bad idea, but somehow it didn't raise any flags in my addict brain. I was focused on one thing and one thing only: the re-up that I was waiting on. Had been waiting on for nearly 16 hours now. Waiting... for those beautiful green bundles of joy that were practically happiness in a pill - but only until you're strung out, at which point even the thought of the inevitable, looming withdrawal becomes almost too much to bear.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Andy remove a small key bump from my leftover bag of pure alprazolam powder, and raise it to his nostril to snort. I had tried numerous times to explain to Andy that (with a couple of rare exceptions) snorting benzos was no better than swallowing them. In order for a drug to be absorbed into the mucous membranes of the sinuses, the drug needs to be water soluble. Alprazolam was not, and snorting it was therefore a terribly inefficient and wasteful method of ingestion. If one were to snort it, it wouldn't actually get absorbed until it dripped down the user's throat and into his stomach, eventually resulting in the very same absorption process that occurs when the drug is taken orally. Not to mention that when snorting, some (albeit small) amount of powder is likely to be wasted entirely when it gets stuck in the nostrils before dripping down. I didn't see exactly how much alprazolam Andy had snorted, but I would soon find out it was well past the upper limit on a safe recreational dose. Furthermore, this upper limit gets very difficult to estimate when multiple CNS depressants were involved. On their own, it is actually quite difficult to overdose on either benzos or opiates, especially when considering the tolerance that heavy users like myself and Andy had built up. In combination, however, all bets are off. About ten minutes had passed and Andy seemed completely oblivious to the fact that I wanted to be alone... That I just wanted to curl up in fetal position under my comforter and close my eyes until Jeff arrived. Either the withdrawal-induced insomnia or the xanax was making him more sociable than usual. Probably a little bit of each.
"You know, I've never really understood why, but I really... I mean, really enjoy country music... when I get fucked up on benzos." He was now noticeably slurring his words, and his eyes were half-shut, despite the fact that he was fully awake. I also just now noticed the cowboy hat atop Andy's preppy, side parted haircut. He began flipping his hat back and forth, as he whistled the melody to "Sweet Home Alabama". Oh yeah, he was definitely very high on xanax. I knew I shouldn't have let him eyeball a dose.
"At least Andy is experienced enough to handle his high," I thought to myself. I was in no mood to babysit him, but I dragged my aching body out of bed, my blanket still wrapped around my shoulders, and sat down on my couch next to Andy, who was struggling to queue-up the next episode of Lost - his latest obsession.
"I got it man, you look really barred out."
"I jes wan sum fuckin, fuckin... Some fuckin oxy, dude." He was slurring his words pretty strongly now, and I was immediately thankful we were already at home and that Jeff was meeting us here, because I don't think I could have handled getting a half-conscious, wholly-fucked-up Andy home safely at the moment, particularly considering my own severe nausea, which was now reaching a climax.
I stood up and ran to the bathroom, trying to aim my vomit so that it was contained entirely within the toilet bowl. I wretched a couple more times, despite the fact that I hadn't eaten all day and my stomach was empty. I suppose my body was just trying to expel any-and-everything it could - which in this case was mostly bile. It wasn't until I reached for the towel rack to help me steady my balance, that I realized the slight shaking sensation I was experiencing was actually my phone vibrating in my pocket, not simply my body shaking post-vomit. I quickly grabbed some mouthwash and began rinsing, silently praying that it was Jeff calling to tell me he was finally here. I spit the mouthwash out and toweled my face off, not even bothering to rinse my mouth with water afterwards. I can't imagine swallowing any amount of mouthwash, no matter how small, is healthy, but then again I was currently waiting for what was essentially the pharmaceutical equivalent of heroin. Clearly I was not terribly concerned with the dangers of putting unsafe substances into my body.
My phone rang again. It was Jeff.
"Yo my bad, Jeff, I was in the bathroom when you called. Where you at?"
"I'm on your porch, dog... but I got some good news and some bad news. Come let me in, I gotta holla at you for a minute."

Something was definitely off tonight - Jeff almost always has me come outside to grab a pick up, after which he drives me around the block. But something was definitely different about tonight, I could hear it in Jeff's voice. At the moment, however, I really did not give a fuck. I just wanted, or rather needed, to get my sick off. Whatever the "bad news" was, I was pretty sure he had at least SOME of my 80s, even if not the whole amount. He knew both Andy and I were sick, and I doubt he would bother showing up if he was empty handed.

"What up, daddy-o," I said to Jeff as I opened our front door.
"Shit, man, you ain't got no idea what I just went through to get this shit. You mad sick, huh?"
Jeff stepped inside, and took a seat at our kitchen table. We had done a lot of business at this very table, and I was about to be put in a position which could vastly increase my profits without much, if any, increased effort. All that would have to wait, however. Getting out of withdrawal was a much more pressing issue.

"I'm sick as a dog, man. Break open whatever you've got for me and toss me one."
Jeff pulled out a pill bottle that looked to be holding maybe 100 pills max and slid it across the table towards me. I was expecting double that. And, they did not appear to be the "brand name" turquoise OC80s that I, and my clientele, had become accustomed to over the past few months. These were considerably smaller and orange.
"The fuck are these man? Generics or some shit? I can't work with these man, everybody knows the generics gel up when you crush them."
"Reese, relax, my nigga. They ain't generics. They just 40s, not 80s, but they crush up and snort just the same. Check this shit out... See?"
Jeff pointed to the imprint of the pill, which read OC40. So they weren't generics, but since these were 40s rather than 80s, that also meant that Jeff only had about 1/4 of the total amount of pills that I was expecting. That did need to be sorted out, but first I had to put some oxy in me.
I threw 2 pills into my mouth, allowing my saliva to uniformly distribute itself across each of the pills, and grabbed a tissue from my pocket to remove the coating responsible for oxycontin's time release and anti-abuse mechanism. It was probably nothing more than a placebo effect, but I swear I could feel the oxy enter my bloodstream as soon as I sucked most of the coating off. I spit the pills out, and proceeded to wipe the remaining coating off with a tissue. Many drug addicts, particularly those who use their drug of choice intravenously, claim they also become addicted to their ritual of dosing - which usually includes emptying the drug into a spoon or "cooker", mixing with water, tying off near the injection site with a tourniquet, inserting the needle and verifying you're in the vein, and eventually pressing down the plunger. I'm not exactly sure why or how, but even after I started shooting up, I never particularly enjoyed that ritual. Perhaps it's because of my naturally small veins, or perhaps simply because I prefer the longer lasting (but less intense), "dreamier" high of snorting. If I was ever addicted to a ritual, it was definitely that of preparing opiates for insufflation: crushing it up, cutting it into lines, and alternating nostrils as I inhaled each line with a rolled up dollar bill. On days like today, however, the ritual was entirely irrelevant to me. I just wanted, no needed, to get the drug in me as quickly as possible.

I finished wiping the coating off and stared at the two pills on my dining table in front of me. For just a moment I was overwhelmed with guilt, disgust, and self-loathing, and thought that maybe I should quit now before my addiction spiraled even further out of control - after all, I was already a day and a half into withdrawal, which normally lasts around 5 days. That feeling quickly passed as I felt my stomach rumble, and realized that I was about to puke again unless I got some oxy in me. I let out a heavy sigh of relief and silently cursed myself for letting my addiction get to this point. I stared at the two now white, circular pills before me and pulled out a card from my wallet, under which I crushed them. As I pressed the card down, quickly but deliberately grinding the pills into a fine, white powder, I noticed that my hand shook slightly. Jeff noticed as well.

"Damn boy, you hurtin', huh?" said Jeff.
It was less of a question than a statement, really. Jeff had a larger habit than me, and mostly did heroin rather than OCs, so obviously he knew exactly how I felt. I didn't bother answering - instead I just pulled the cut up straw from my pocket and placed it next to the pile of white powder in front of me. I didn't even bother cutting it into lines, just placed my straw next to the pile and began inhaling. In order to maximize absorption of the drug inside the nasal passages, one should ideally snort small amounts at a time (e.g. a line or key bump), and wait at least a minute between consecutive snorts up the same nostril, but again, I was far too impatient for that. Nearly half the pile went straight up my left nostril. I coughed, briefly, and immediately felt like a huge burden had been lifted off my chest, and I smiled ever so slightly.
The word euphoria doesn't even begin to describe the relief I felt. Instinctively, I allowed myself to slump slightly in my chair as I closed my eyes and felt my chin drop to my chest. I knew that it usually took at least 10 minutes for oxy to kick in after snorting, but almost as soon as I felt that familiar taste drip down my throat, I began to feel a warm, fuzzy, sense of calm and well-being start inside my chest and slowly spread throughout my body. oxy is one of the few opioids that provides a strong rush when snorting. On the other hand, while heroin and morphine certainly produce a noticeable feeling of "coming up" immediately after insufflation, one really has to IV them to appreciate the rush. I would later learn that there was little difference between snorting and shooting oxy.
I knew that I should really wait a few minutes for my first bump to completely kick in, but my body was still going back and forth between feeling hot and cold, and my stomach was still churning. I leaned forward and put the remaining powder up my nose. I now felt the drug really start to kick in. My rapidly oscillating body temperature had begun to stabilize, and the feeling of alternating chills and sweats was soon replaced by a warm glow that had become all too familiar to me over the past few months.
"You slowly comin' back to life, dog?" Jeff asked.
"Yeah man, I've never seen these 40s though. They actually snort a little better than the big boys, break up easier too."
What I was really thinking, though, was that I could probably charge more per pill than I had been for the 80s. Everyone knows that smaller quantities generally cost more (per milligram, in this case), and always have higher profit margins. I figured I could mark them up at least a little. It was time to get down to business.
"So listen man, is this all you got for me today? When can I get the rest of my shit?" I asked.
"That's the thing, Reese, we got some bad news on that front. Shit's drying up man, you got no idea what we had to go through just to get these, you feel me? Me and Black done waited all night for this shit, man."
This was just about the worst news imaginable. I already had 4 of my larger customers waiting, each of whom always asked for at least ten 80s, which meant twenty 40s. I was likely going to be sold out by the end of the day.
"What the fuck you expect me to do with this, man?"
I was already going through my dealer contacts in my head, trying to figure out who else might be able to get me some weight. Andy would probably know someone who could at least get enough to tide me over.
"Yo Andy! Get in here bro."
"Oh shit, what's up, Jeff? I didn't realize you were here, we've been waiting on you for hours man,"
Andy said as he slowly walked in to the room, pausing at the doorway to steady himself, briefly covering his mouth as he burped. I could tell he had just puked, and he was sweating profusely.
Obviously I had not yet told Andy that our order was significantly short, but I knew he needed to get his sick off before we could discuss the business issues at hand. I handed him 2 pills and watched as he mimicked my prep routine, or rather, performed the same routine that I had learnt from watching him.
Andy finished crushing and snorting both pills in less than a minute, while I watched Jeff split open a cigar and begin to roll a blunt. One thing I had always noticed about Andy's routine was that he preferred to ingest his entire dose at once, whereas I preferred to do so over a more drawn out period of time - for example, while watching a movie or TV show. Of course, things were different on days like today - I'm sure I inhaled my dose just as quickly as Andy did.
"Andy, man, can you maybe call somebody else and try to get us some more of these?" I asked Andy while extracting another 2 pills, dropping one of the light orange circular discs into my roommate's palm, and tossing the other into my mouth. Given our rather limited supply, I really should have been more disciplined about rationing our pills, but I still hadn't completely come back to life, and I fully intended to continue snorting until I did.
"Ain't nobody got 'em, Reese, that's what I was tellin' you," Jeff chimed in while pulling out a Zippo lighter and drying out the blunt he just rolled.
"I didn't fucking ask you, Jeff. Obviously I know you don't have shit. That's why I'm pursuing another avenue, you idiot," I thought to myself, while Jeff ignored the thousand yard stare I was giving him.
I could tell I was still a little dopesick based purely on the fact that I was more irritable than normal. "Maybe I should just get out of the game now," I thought, "I don't even know if I can move anything besides brand name OCs. My clients tend to be very particular and..."
Andy cleared his throat, interrupting my train of thought.
"He's right, man. I called Rick and Tim a few hours ago, they've only got percs."
Fuck that noise. Most don't really understand what makes oxycontin so unique, and by far the most sought after pharmaceutical opioid. oxycodone essentially comes in three forms: Percocet, which contains heavy amounts of acetaminophen, commonly known as Tylenol or APAP; generic oxycontin, which has an anti-abuse mechanism that causes it to turn to gel when crushed; and finally brand name oxycontin, oft considered the "holy grail" of oxycodone-based painkillers. Unlike Percocets, or the generic stuff, brand name oxycontin does not contain APAP, nor does it have any sort of anti-abuse mechanism that cannot be removed by a toddler. This makes it possible - easy, in fact - for users to snort, shoot, or smoke the drug. On the other hand, Percocet pretty much has to be taken orally. There does exist a fairly simple procedure called a cold water extraction in which users can remove the drug's APAP, but you still can't snort the purified result, and oxy is simply not nearly as euphoric when swallowed. Generic oxycontin seemed to be making the rounds more and more these days - I had heard from several friends in different parts of the country that their supply of brand name OCs was drying up as well. Sure, generics are a little cheaper, but they turn into a gel either as soon as they are crushed, or the second that the crushed mixture touches water. I had tried to snort generic OCs once when nothing else was available, and I can tell you firsthand that a pill gelling up inside your nasal cavities is incredibly painful. Because of the sheer number of pills that I was moving, I did not once, until now, really consider the possibility of my supply being cut off. I was bringing Jeff and Black so much business that I just figured they would take care of making sure that a supply was always available. Sure there might be delays, but given the fact that Black was pretty high up on the drug dealer food chain, I figured he would always find a way to make it happen.
"It's all good, baby. I brought y'all something them college kids gon' eat right up," Jeff matter-of-factly stated while lighting his blunt, and threw another sandwich baggie towards me on the table. I had seen, sold, and been around many different kinds of drugs over the years, but did not immediately recognize what I was staring at. Inside the clear, plastic outer bag were several stacks of neatly folded wax paper packets, separated into piles of about 10 and then rubber-banded. I pulled one out to examine, and quickly realized that these were "bundles" of heroin. I had only seen heroin maybe twice before at that point, and personally had tried it only once, but as I would soon come to find out, H is pretty much always packaged the same way in every large city on the east coast - in small packets of wax paper, each containing about 0.1g of product, about 10 of which were held together in a "bundle" by rubber band. Perhaps the most interesting feature of east coast dope, however, was the fact that each bag contained an easily visible and quickly identifiable stamp. This technique allowed dealers and distributors to clearly mark their product, and essentially created different "brands" of heroin. The bags I had just been handed were adorned with a tiny, blue rendition of the famous Playboy bunny logo, with the text "PLAYBOY" underneath it. I knew that switching from OCs to heroin was a big deal - after all, it was one of the "lines" I defined for myself, and vowed never to cross. But over time those lines had started to blur into everyday life, and truth be told, I loved it.
First it was, "I'll just swallow the oxy, I'm not going to snort it." That got boring within a matter of days, at which point I told myself, "I can handle snorting oxy, but I'm not gonna snort heroin or coke." Yet here I was, eyeing the bundle of dope in front of me. I continued staring at the wax paper packets for several minutes in silence, but I had already made up my mind. I was going to give heroin another shot (no pun intended). My previous experience with dope was a few months prior, and even though it had been somewhat underwhelming, the memory was still fresh in my mind.

It was the day after Andy and I moved into our current house. I was already addicted to oxy at the time, and had tried many other drugs, but heroin held this particular stigma - a reputation for providing by far the most amazing, mind blowing euphoria you could ever desire, and for wreaking havoc on users' lives in the worst possible ways. I'm not sure exactly why that would make me curious, but it did. Perhaps my therapist is right and it can be chalked up to a lifetime of self-destructive tendencies that simply got worse over the years as I ignored my underlying mental health issues with depression, anxiety, and OCD. Or perhaps it was nothing more than a naive, youthful desire to "get fucked up" that I ended up taking too far. Who the fuck knows?

Andy and I had become friends over the past few months, bonding over a shared love of taking drugs, dealing drugs, and a few mutual friends that had told us stories of each other's exploits during our respective college careers. Though he was also addicted to oxy, Andy never bought OCs through me until we became roommates - he always had his own hookups. Besides that, he was personally bringing in a large portion of the cocaine on campus and was making a killing. I had pretty much cornered the market on weed and pharmaceuticals, but my former partner and roommate was moving out of state to go to medical school, and I knew that I needed a new partner. I thought I had hit the jackpot when I found out that Andy was looking for a new place and roommate as well, since I knew he was pushing a ton of coke. Between the two of us, we could pretty much create a "one stop shop" for all the popular drugs on campus. Living together was a business decision that just made sense. I knew in the back of my mind that there was a chance this would end badly - not because I didn't trust him, or because I thought his habit was already too far out of control, I just thought that each of us might end up being a bad influence on the other - which in the end is perhaps the same thing. A few of my close friends echoed the same sentiment, but I brushed it off. After all, I was pretty much living the dream - I had just finished my bachelor's and master's degrees from an Ivy League university, I was working as the CTO of my own venture capital backed startup, I had a steady supply of drugs that I loved, and as a result always seemed to have friends, along with girls who were more than friends, who wanted to be around me. I guess you could say that I sort of fancied myself to be something of a modern day Scarface - a Scarface 2.0 if you will - a successful, respectable, and brilliant high-tech entrepreneur by day, and an entrepreneur of a very different kind by night.

By no means was it the nicest place we saw - in fact, it was a somewhat old brownstone, in which we were renting the top floor. I'm guessing it was built around the 1960s. In fact, the place was almost totally bare when we first moved in. I barely even had the energy to put a single poster up, but the place was livable. We had spent the entirety of the previous day and night moving our stuff in, but I still did not have a bed. I had slept on an air mattress last night, and my back was killing me. I was too exhausted the previous night to put the curtains up on my windows, and was rudely awakened by the 7am sunbeams that were shining through my windows. I opened my dresser and grabbed a pipe, some weed, and my bottle of OC80s. I was never a huge fan of getting high in the mornings - it generally made me want to go back to sleep, but it was a necessity on some mornings. With oxy, I could turn our rather desolate house into what felt like a real home. It would bring a certain glow and warmth to the walls. The pale blue ceiling would radiate. My bed wouldn’t be so cold. When I got high, I often liked to imagine I was in a high-class opium den in New York City in the late 1800s or that I was drinking an ancient type of laudanum with royalty in Asia. Those light green OC80 pills were nice, sweet, and nostalgia-inducing. When I was younger,I often imagined there were these metal pipes in my body that carried emotions and feelings. The ones that contained anxiety and sadness just kept dripping. Opiates patched them up; it truly felt as if opiates fixed my body's broken pipes.

At the time, I was used to doing oxy, which while noticeably different to an experienced user, is still in the same class of drugs as heroin (opioids). Yet everything I had ever heard about heroin had taught me to expect some kind of amazing euphoria that was unlike anything else. Truthfully, I'm not sure anything could really have lived up to my expectations for it. Even though I was by no means opiate-naive, I was expecting something altogether different than the oxy highs I had recently become accustomed to.

I didn't see much of Andy the previous day - he had pretty much just moved his stuff in as quickly as possible and left to go meet his ex-girlfriend, with whom I assumed he had spent the night, as I never heard him come in. I had only met Carrie, Andy's ex, on one occasion, but for some reason her interaction with me seemed to be particularly hostile. I wondered if she knew what Andy and I were up to in our free time. Practically right on cue with my thoughts, my phone, still on the floor next to my air mattress, began to buzz: it was Andy.
"What?" I answered. I had never been a morning person and was still exhausted from the previous day's activities. I was planning on going back to sleep for an hour or two after getting high.
"Damn, someone woke up on the wrong side of the air mattress," Andy joked. "Come let me in, my key for the outer door isn't working."
"Sorry dude, I'm still half asleep. You gotta pull the handle towards you while turning the key," I explained, despite the fact that Andy was standing right next to me when our landlord showed us how to work the locks.
"Hmm, it's still not... oh, there we go. You snort something yet?" Andy had this incredibly annoying habit of continuing phone conversations right up until the point that he was physically in the same room as the person he was speaking to, even if it was a matter of literally less than a minute.
"I'm just about to crush up an 80. You wanna match some lines with me?" I asked.
"Yo," he began, "don't snort that yet." I could now hear him climbing the stairs.
"What? Why? I've got plenty of 'em left anyw-" I began, but was cut off mid-sentence.
"No, no, it's not that," he said. I could now hear him unlocking our door as he spoke, "I got a little something special for us last night. I thought it'd be nice to celebrate our new place."
"Really?" I sat up and immediately sprang to my feet, my interest now piqued. I hung up the phone as I heard our door slam shut, and walked from my bedroom out to our living room, where I saw Andy remove his fraternity-insignia-inscribed windbreaker and throw it on the couch, before sitting down himself. Our living room at the time contained a black leather couch, an Ikea coffee table, an LCD monitor that we would use as a makeshift TV by connecting our laptops to it, and not much else. As I sat down next to him on the couch, Andy grinned at me and motioned towards a brown paper bag on the coffee table.
"What the hell did he have in there?" I thought. I was genuinely curious. I figured that it was unlikely to be some kind of oxy, since that was so "run of the mill" for both of us. I was fairly sure that it was some kind of opioid, since Andy knew I didn't have much interest in anything besides weed and opiates (for personal consumption, at least). My mind began to race through the possibilities.
"Fentanyl patches maybe?" I thought to myself. "Could it be dilaudid?" I wondered.
I had read online that dilaudid (hydromorphone) was often referred to as the "holy grail of opioids," but that it was relatively rare to come across. Andy reached towards the paper bag and began to empty the contents.
"I bet it's fentanyl patches," I thought to myself. I had recently mentioned to Andy that I had never personally come across fentanyl in any form, but that I'd be interested in trying it out. He replied that he'd gotten a few of the 100 mcg/hour patches a while back, but that he didn't find them all that euphoric. However, before I could finish my train of thought, my hopes and dreams of the past few minutes were shattered as the contents of the brown paper bag were revealed.
"Are you fuckin' serious man? You had me thinking you found some rare pills or something, what the fuck is this?" I asked, motioning to the two egg sandwiches that were now sitting atop our coffee table. Andy smiled and then began laughing hysterically.
"I thought you might be hungry, man. I know you're partial to Hemo's, but just try this. I'm tellin' you, man: Bui's. Best breakfast sandwiches in Philly. That's not what I was talkin' 'bout, though," he said, smirking in my direction. He pushed one of the sandwiches towards me on the table, before standing up and quickly walking down to our hallway towards the only furnishing that our apartment seemed to come with: a beautiful, framed, and intricately designed vintage mirror. He proceeded to pull it off the wall and carry it into our living room, where he placed it on our coffee table, and pulled out what looked like several small waxpaper bags, each one stamped with a “brand name” and then individually heat sealed in glassine plastic bags, all of which were held together with a small black rubberband. Though I had never seen it at the time, this was standard packaging for ECP heroin (east coast powder, in contrast to the “black tar” heroin that was usually found on the west coast).
“Is that what I think it is?” I inquired, nervously eyeing the dozen or bags sitting atop our mirror and coffee table.
“Oh, you betcha it is,” Andy replied, chuckling at my obvious reticence to try heroin for the first time.
“Look man, it’s honestly not even that different from oxy. I just thought you might like a little change of pace from the usual menu and figured this might be a good way to break our new apartment in.”
“Where the fuck did you even get this?”
I had enough connections through the campus-based network of drug dealers I had been doing business with to know that H was not really being sold, at least not in any serious volume, on campus. Hell, I probably would have at least considered the idea of breaking into that market if it was.
“Oh, some kid was trying to buy my last two eightballs last night, and I wanted to hold the last one for myself, but he offered me almost two bundles of H on top of the full price in cash, so I figured ‘why the fuck not?’”
Andy then proceeded to remove three of the bags, tear the plastic off, and empty the contents of the small off-white paper bags on to our mirror.
“I’d say that about 2 of these bags are equivalent to an OC80, so between the both of us, these 3 should do us pretty nicely.”
I continued to watch him prepare the dope for us; it was a ritual much different than preparing oxycontin for insufflation, and truth be told, I was mesmerized. I watched as Andy ripped the plastic off the first bag, unfolded the wax paper, and emptied the contents on to the middle of our mirror. I imagined the light-golden-brown flakes of heroin calling out to me, beckoning as if they sang a siren song, drawing me towards them until they would reach their penultimate destination in my nasal cavities, finally releasing their warm glow of happiness in to my bloodstream, which my veins would carry out to every inch of my body. I watched Andy repeat the process twice more until we were left with four empty bags in the corner of our mirror and a small pile of dope in the center.
"Most people just snort this shit like it is now - straight from the bag - but I prefer it more finely chopped up," Andy explained, while reaching for his wallet and removing a single-edged razorblade. That made sense to me - more surface area meant better absorption, and this was a technique I was used to practicing as part of my oxy prep. He began chopping the flakes of dope into a fine powder, the rhythmic tapping of the blade against the mirror creating a soundscape reminiscent of the musical "Stomp" - a production in which basically any and everything but instruments are used to create an immersive aural environment centered around the percussive abilities of trash cans, traffic signs, buckets, and many other everyday objects that have been re-tooled to function as instruments.

I momentarily began to daydream about the first time I saw the musical - I was 10 years old, living in Los Angeles, and at the peak of what I fondly look back on as my career as a child actor. While I only ever appeared in a single film, it was a "big screen" feature that was produced and distributed by Sony and Paramount Pictures, in which I held a co-starring role. As I silently reminisced on my days as a child actor, I stared at the mirror before me - now containing a small pile of freshly and finely powdered heroin - and briefly considered what I was about to do. I had always thought of myself as unique - maybe because I had accomplished a few things that set me apart from my peers, or maybe just because I had always been something of a loner - but at that moment I felt like a walking cliche. I was just another former child actor who was about to try heroin for the first time. Just another naive kid who thought he could "handle it." Just another irresponsible drug user without the foresight to understand the importance of the moment I was in, or the multitude of ways in which my life would change.

I looked towards my roommate and instantly snapped out of my daydream; he was now leaning down, a rolled up 20 in his left nostril which slowly hovered over one of the powdered lines, and then another, and another, before Andy sat back on our couch and closed his eyes, the beginnings of a smile forming on his face. About 10 seconds later, he reopened his eyes and passed me the dollar bill.
"Go ahead, man."
"It feels more like morphine than oxy, right?" I asked. From a recreational user's standpoint, there are essentially two classes of opiods: those derived from morphine, and those derived from thebaine. oxycodone belonged to the latter, and everything I had read and heard placed heroin in the former, but I still felt the need to ask.
"I mean, yes, but... Just do a line to start with and you'll get the idea, man," he explained, while a wide grin spread across his face... And stayed there. My nervousness quickly turned to excitement as I anticipated the euphoria soon to come. I placed the rolled up bill next to one of the lines and inhaled sharply, dragging the bill across the mirror as I did so. The first thing I felt was an unfamiliar burn in my nostrils. Pharmaceuticals like oxy generally have little to no burn at all, in sharp contrast to street drugs like heroin or cocaine. The burn faded fairly quickly, but it didn't really turn into the incredible euphoria I was hoping for. Sure, it felt good... but I didn't quite feel the instant rush of euphoria and mild warmth that I always felt after snorting a line of oxy.

I leaned back down, once again hovering over our mirror as I inhaled my second line of heroin. Then, pausing only to switch the bill between nostrils, I immediately inhaled a third line. I figured I might as well go big or go home. But more than that, my tolerance to oxy (and thus other opioids as well) was high, and I wanted to make sure I actually felt something. Plus, I watched Andy do several more lines, and I was confident I could handle at least half of his dosage. Andy would later push this dosage a little too high, and would end up in the ER after overdosing.

Though oxycontin and heroin feel quite similar, the fact that H is a street drug makes an enormous difference. Quality varies from batch to batch of dope, whereas with oxy you always know your exact dose down to the milligram. Obviously these problems wouldn't exist if the government would just step in and regulate the heroin industry via true heroin maintenance (as opposed to methadone), as has been done in Switzerland and a handful of other countries. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, and talking about programs for treatment, maintenance, and other types of social outreach is a discussion for another time and place. After all, I was a dealer, and that would've destroyed my profits and client base.
I sat back on the couch and tilted my head forward while sharply inhaling once more, trying to get all the powder into my sinuses without letting it drip down my throat too quickly. I had become a master of this technique over the past few months; clearly I was determined to get the full value of what I paid for.

As I sat back, the burn in my nostrils returned, but I was now beginning to feel quite warm and fuzzy. And sleepy - in fact, the main difference that I noticed was how much more sedated I felt. This disappointed me a little as I had come to really enjoy the energetic high of oxy, but I was now definitely quite stoned on H for the first time, and I couldn't help but let out a small giggle as I looked over at Andy, his eyes meeting mine with a knowing gaze. Andy had snorted far more than me and looked higher than I had ever seen him, which was saying a lot. We were only able to maintain eye contact for a few seconds before his eyes began to shut involuntarily, the nod beginning to come on. I grabbed my pipe, still full of weed, lit it, and inhaled deeply, holding my hit for as long as I could before breathing back out and passing the pipe to Andy. Because of their numbing and pain killing effects, opioids always let me take enormous bong rips or pipe hits. Yes, I'm aware that can cause oxygen deprivation leading to brain damage, but it gets you stoned so damn fast that I sometimes can't help it. The weed pretty much kicked my nod into get high gear, and we both spent the better part of the next hour glued to the couch, half-watching some DVD on my laptop. The rest of our high was spent listening to music, playing chess, and smoking a lot of weed.

At this point in my drug career, I had experimented with many different substances - some that produced wondrous, consciousness-altering first experiences, and others that took a few tries to appreciate and understand. Despite what you may hear in the media, heroin belongs to the latter category (unless you start with IV administration, which is quite rare). Drugs that are 'uppers' have the most immediately "obvious" euphoria. For example, uppers like adderall, coke, meth, and MDMA will give you this shining bright euphoria, self confidence, energy, and other pleasant feelings that are drug-specific - coke makes you feel like you are a king, MDMA makes you feel like you love everyone, etc. However, these drugs generally take back all that they provide. After a meth binge, or lots of MDMA use, or staying up all night on coke you will feel like absolutely awful. To an extent this aspect is similar to an alcohol-induced hangover. On the other hand, for many people who experiment with heroin, they are underwhelmed; I know I most certainly was. Don't get me wrong, I definitely enjoyed my first experience with heroin - but I was expecting more. It was a mellow high that felt relaxed, happy, and content, but was still quite underwhelmed. I tend to see most things in terms of a hierarchy, and as far as the drug "totem pole" went, all of my drug education up to this point had taught me to believe that heroin was at the top of this hierarchy; that it was the ultimate trump card. Yet when I actually tried it, I couldn't help but feel like this "spooky drug" with a high so strong that "one use can make you an addict," just hadn't delivered. It wasn't scary or uncomfortable, it didn't make me do stupid shit like alcohol, didn't make me stay up all night and grind my teeth like uppers, and didn't give me existential angst like hallucinogens. It was just a nice, clean, relaxing buzz.
I certainly enjoyed myself, and it was nice to feel a little different, but I still preferred sniffing oxy. To me, it was simply an inexplicably smoother, cleaner high - probably related to the fact that H is a street drug and contains all sorts of impurities. All in all, I was underwhelmed. The full gram shots of raw dope with a rush so euphoric my knees would literally buckle would come later.

"You good, Reese?"
Jeff's voice snapped me out of my daydream and I quickly remembered where I was. Jeff was trying to sell me several bundles of heroin; my roommate and partner in crime when it came to drug dealing was immensely fucked up on both pure alprazolam and oxy; and I was personally just barely ok after having spent the entire day in withdrawal.

Over the next several weeks, Andy and I took over the entire heroin market in the area that was catering to college kids and yuppies. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. The OC80 oxycontin pills that were once plentiful were no longer quite so available, and that left a whole lot of addicts searching for an alternative. While heroin was an obvious choice, there was simply no way that sheltered college kids or yuppies were going to make their way into the not so nice areas of West Philly to buy heroin on their own, and Andy and I were right there to fill a need. We both quickly became “the dope man” - you know who I'm talking about. The guy sitting at the end of the bar who's been nursing his drink just a few minutes too long – watching, waiting, lingering, and occasionally following an addict into the bathroom, being careful not to spook the potential new customer, while handing him a sample bag and a number to call. Before that, however, I was going to have to deal with my roommate who liked to push his high just a little too far at times. Tonight was one of those nights – he had taken far too much alprazolam, and was now nodding out uncontrollably. When I could no longer keep him awake and his lips started to turn blue, things took an obvious turn for the worse.