Heroin - a slow and expensive way to die (My Experience of Substance Abuse)

Member Name: Biffa

Product:	My Experience of Substance Abuse
Date:	29/05/01 (79 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You are joking???

Disadvantages: Everything is a disadvantage when it comes to being addicted to H

Heroin addiction. What does it mean to you? It probably conjures up some scene out of a film where everyone is doing it, having fun, feeling great etc etc.

How far from the truth can you get? One of my friends son's is an H addict. He's on the dole - he can't get a job because of his convictions for theft as a result of his habit. Because he's on the dole, he doesn't have enough money to support his habit - and so the circle continues. On a 'bad' day he can do £50 - which is funded by stealing from his friends, family, relatives etc etc.

No one leaves him unattended - ANYWHERE - for fear of him stealing something that isn't nailed down. His 9 year old sister has found him in her bedroom with the flex from the TV tied around his arm just as he is about to inject himself. His mum is at her wits end - to the point of considering suicide to get away from it all.

He's lost everything because of his addiction. He's lost his friends, his money, his looks, trust and most of all control of his life. He isn't allowed to see his 2 year old daughter anymore because of the mess he is in.

He's been in tears about it all - but feels there's nothing he can do. No-one is prepared to help him - there's a six month waiting list to get onto the local health authority's treatment programme - or he can pay £3000 and go into private rehab. £3000 isn't a lot to get his life back but it's not the sort of money he or is family have. The doctor has basically told him to go away and stop wasting his time.

And it's not like he isn't clever - he is! Given the right guidance and treatment, he could be the best car mechanic ever to have set foot on this earth, but he can't get that chance.

Until the cycle is broken and proper help is made available to addicts, their only option seems to be to carry on until they die. What a waste!

If we giv
e addicts the help that they need, they can be brought back into society as productive people and not left to die in some dark dingy alley after getting a fix. The crime rates would reduce - afterall they wouldn;t be stealing to fund their habits, but most of all we could give them back a sense of purpose and reason for living.

The next time you see an addict, or hear of someone who has lost a friend or loved one to the cycle of substance abuse, don't be too quick to condemn them as useless druggies.

For anyone thinking of trying heroin - PLEASE don't!! It's not worth it - financially or in terms of your health.

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