I used to work as a stockbroker, until I lost my Series seven license, which is another story altogether, though it is related to drug use. You may have heard stories about Stockbrokers and cocaine, but for every 2 or 3 cokeheads in a brokerage, there is one scag addict.

After a few weeks working as a legitimate broker, I opened up a bathroom stall not realizing one of my co-workers was cooking up his morning fix. He didn't say a word, just kicked the stall door closed and I assume shot his wad. Which is a major facet of addiction. No matter what, you will get your fix before dealing with even the worst and most urgent of happenings.

Anyway, at the end of the day I let my co-worker know that I didn't care and wasn't going to rat him out, provided he would hook me up with some, which I would gladly pay for. Previous to that point I had never even seen heroin, though I knew a lot about it. The strongest opiate I had done was methadone, which of course is a synthetic version used to treat heroin addicts. I had a hook-up who sold his methadone--which was prescribed for his back--to buy dilaudids, which I later had the pleasure to try.

That's just a little useless backround.

Anyone who has done an opiate in large amounts has felt the 'pins and needles' effect. This is basically your body telling you it is completely numb, or as numb as it is going to get anyway. And this is what I felt the first few times I shot up H. However, there is a big difference between slamming and ingesting or smoking. The biggest one is the immediate rush, as soon as you push the plunger in you feel it, as soon as you pull the needle out, you are HIGH. On a number of occasions I was too blasted to pull the needle out, and I would often find used syringes on the floor and in between the cushions of my couch. Not to mention my pathetic blood stains that could be found literally everywhere in my home.

Most people who use opiates combine them with marijuana, and they claim that opium and pills and whatnot simply boost the high. Which is true in a sense, and other than the feeling in your gut, the mental meanderings, and the longevity of the drug, the high is similar to that of marijuana. Which is to say they are only slightly similar.

This is the key to the heroin high: Nothing matters, hot or cold, fun or boring, big or small. When one is high on smack, one looks at the outside world and has only one thought: Who gives a fuck? You feel as if you've been wrapped in the most pleasing, warm, and comfortable blanket in the world. At high doses, you fall in and out of consciousness, and getting this 'nod' is what the veteran user prays for everytime he shoots up; to sleep the sleep of angels is the ultimate goal of the heroin addict.

Even though I didn't regularly shoot, I slowly built up a tolerance, and eventually I spent a quarter of a paycheck for one high. The stuff I got was damn pure, a half gram would put me virtually right to sleep, which is no small feat considering my weight. But of course after a while I would have to shoot 2 grams, then 3 then 4... then I started shooting the dilaudids, no.4's.

After a while the stuff just wasn't doing it for me anymore, and I started eating a lot of Xanax in combination with shooting the dilaudids. This lasted for a while, until I started goofballing, which is what led me to shooting straight cocaine and also led to a real addiction. Before I knew it I was not only shooting every day, but shooting every half-hour. I would shoot up a gram of coke, and immediately start loading the vial with another gram and pouring in the distilled water for the next shot.

I'm not trying to downplay addiction, it sucks, but I think most people know that. You start shooting once every while and the next thing you know your whole life revolves around the needle. After I got clean, I still occasionally shot up stuff, amino acid, whiskey, and other things. Not for the effect, but just to use the needle. I worshiped the damn things, if I saw the color orange that diabetes needles have on the caps I got excited and checked to make sure it wasn't a needle.