heroin friends (2015)

a story about friendship

The other day I met a friend. He was from an affluent background, and despite our cultural and financial differences we managed to form a friendship in the short space of 24 hours. First meeting him at a friends house, I and another long standing friend conversed until the early hours of morning with the aid of the old ice breaker that is cocaine. Instead of going to sleep we migrated to his house located in East London, where we ended the night on a couple Xanax pills procured from the dark net.

2015 was an interesting year, unresolved traumas and unsolved addictions had manifested themselves in full force, talking hold of my life in the most gripping and intense way possible. I had become a full blown benzo addict, there was a near constant presence of alprazolam circulating through my system at pretty much all times, this lead to a myriad of issues one being, my perception of time and events are no longer as linear and structured as they once were; rendering my storytelling abilities to those of Alzheimer’s patients.

I awoke around 4pm on a Wednesday, and had an oven pizza and brewed coffee, it was at this point I believe he mentioned he was going to pick up some heroin, I wasn’t really weirded out by this, and didn’t really think this was a shocking phenomenon. Mainly from remembering a brief mention of an opiate dependency, in what had been a deep conversation that was most probably lost to the Xanax, and I not being the best role model, didn't think I had any clout in persuading him to commit to a life of sobriety. In retrospect, if I were to grasp anything positive from my former lifestyle as a benzo addict it would be the newly developed tendency to judge people based on their character rather than their personal vices. To psychoanalyse myself, I think my contrarian genes had manifested a certain morbid curiosity to try heroin, likely stemming from an internalised self-destructive urge or just the inner psychonaut coming out to play.

He ripped a square of tinfoil the size of a long rizla sheet and folded it softly, making sure the foil did not commit to a crease but was still morphed. He had then put a small amount of heroin on it. The heroin itself was a fine powder, golden brown almost resembling brown sugar but with many more fine grains surrounding it. He grabbed a plastic Biro pen and wrapped foil around it, making a metallic tube he put in his mouth as if it was a sort of steampunk e-cigarette. Grabbing a lighter he ran it across the bottom of the foil, the heroin immediately pooled into a black tarish liquid, that yielded fumes smelling like a farmers market— a real fishy smell. He inhaled the fumes until there were no more to inhale, and then prepared a heroin for me and my friend.

Now to make things clear, at no point was this guy imposing his habit on me, it was out my own free will and volition as a consenting adult that I chose to smoke heroin that day. I distinctly remembered telling him that this day alone is the only day I will try this substance and when we cross paths again I will never accept it, and for him also, to respectfully never offer me heroin outside of today. He obliged and I smoked.

What was partially puzzling is that my friend who was also offered this substance didn’t really feel it, but I chalk it up to him generally having a high tolerance to most drugs, so it was no surprise that it didn’t hit him as hard as it hit me, and boy did it hit me.

I don’t think there is any literary way to accurately articulate what the feeling of heroin is like, so I will resort to a series of hyperbole and narcissistic platitudes. Heroin is the antithesis of displeasure, it is the final boss of drugs. You begin to understand the sheer strength of this drug. You begin to understand the context for invasion and occupation, the idea that this substance could be one of the main motivations of maintaining control of poppy fields in the middle east.

Heroin unironically slaps.

My prior experience dealing with opiates had been codeine. Codeine simply pales in comparison, codeine is a twos on a cutters choice rollup and heroin is a spliff of sour diesel smoked in a luxury apartment in Amsterdam. I rarely partake in the recreational consumption of codeine simply because I find opiates incredibly boring. Thanks to heroin, I don’t think I’m ever going to touch codeine again knowing what true opiate pleasure can feel like. Thanks to heroin I think I can safely sleep at night knowing I will never be a syrup sipping codeine demon, pouring double cups and listening to half hour long DJ Screw mixes.

It was impossible to conduct myself normally, I was incapacitated by the weight of this drug. We smoked throughout the day, lazily listening to music until the host eventually nodded off at around 11 or 12pm. My heroin smoking skills had improved, I was proficient, I being able to run the lighter accurately across the bottom the foil, not wasting any smoke, I could of been cast for Trainspotting by the end of the night. My logic was bizarre but made sense at the time, knowing that this was going to be my only legitimate chance to ever try this substance in a safe environment I was going to go all out and achieve the most maximum heroin high.

The host wasn’t exactly the most pleased with this premise and we had consumed a significant amount of his personal stash, but I compensated him with couple 2mg Xanax pills I had to spare. It was at this point where nausea had began to creep in. This was the norm with new users, with the case being that they would often throw up their first time using it. I requested a bucket because knowing my gut way too well there was a high probability that I was going to throw up, and later on that night you can guess what had happened, I threw up in bucket, went back to sleep and then when I woke up I threw up again.

After that I was sweet, so I met my friends in Soho and bought the new Supreme x Comme des Garcon long sleeve t-shirt to resell on depop later that evening.

The End.