“H” Stands For Horror

“We’re getting “H” tonight. Wanna try?” Shocked and confused, used to their beer and gin nights, he responded “Sure why not.”

When they all got together as usual, there was no gin or beer. Instead, there was a mirror and a straw that was cut down, a razor blade and a small plastic bag of heroin on it. They had chosen this option as first timers. The whole needle thing seemed really crazy, just too much. They took turns and put some in between their mouth and gums first, then they snorted. They were not prepared for what happened next. After all, it was their first try. It didn’t take long till that feeling rolled over them like a wave. Suddenly, all care, worry and anger…any emotion at all, was gone. There was only the high. The presiding quiet. They were hooked immediately, it didn’t take more than once for them.

For a long time, this group of friends still had money and were functioning in their jobs. When they were drinking beer and gin, they could do this. But once heroin took over, things changed relatively quick. They still held their jobs but everything went haywire. They were far more short and angry with those around them during the hours when they were without it. That’s when the overdoses began. On at least three separate occasions, one of them had temporarily died and been brought back to life. The group did not stick together, they could not. The drug had taken hold so that their every waking hour consisted of finding money and getting to the drug spot. Friendships and relationships meant nothing anymore. When they did see old friends, those friends did not recognize them any longer. A simple car ride now consisted of them screaming at their old friend to pull over so they could “roll the old guy” that was walking alone down the Highway. All of their old insecurities and jealousy, bitterness and distrust were magnified instead of disappearing like it did when they first met the drug. Each from the friend group had their own chaos. Much like the whirlpool of a flushing toilet, each spun down the same but a different spiral.

Not one of them stopped for a second to consider if the first try was even a good idea at all. They did not stop to consider why they were drinking so much beer and gin before all this either. Absolutely not one of them put together that their abused childhoods were dictating their every decision. They did not see where or why their addictive behavior began. They ignored the looming characters in their life, the alcoholic father who beat the mother, the emotionally manipulative mother who wanted to control every aspect of her son’s life, the drug addicted father who left early on, the emotionally and mentally abusive mother who continuously threw her 10-year-old son out of the house, shunning him, telling him he no longer lived there, then, after a few days, letting him back in for the process to begin again..they did not put these things together. Because that’s not the way it goes. People don’t just put things together first after they’ve been relentlessly abused and tortured. It usually comes after they cause themselves enough pain that they simply can no longer endure it and finally ask for help…if they are one of the lucky ones anyway.

~Janice M. Burke

Image by Tim Cooper from Unsplash