Well, I'll refrain from using the word junkie to describe my opiate/heroin using buddies, as I'm not sure how they'd feel about that, but I do like the subject of this post..
Having friends and/or partner's who use narcotics can be difficult. At times it can be downright fucking horrible, sad, depressing, angering, frustrating etc.. And at other times it can be nice, as you don't have to hide your "big dark secret". On a whole, I've found that I end up getting along really well with most other opiate users, and while these relationships may start on our similar addictions, the good ones turn into something much bigger than that. The main issue that I've run into is, get ready for this.....
DRUGS & MONEY!
Now, neither my friends nor I are money loving, materialistic, superficial pricks..quite the opposite actually, IME. However, in order for the friendship to really work, either both people have to be high on
something, or both have to be sober. Otherwise, no matter how hard anyone tries, resentments will arise.
Another issue I've found usually occurs due to the following situation:
Its friday and youre going down to pick up some Xanax and your friend from the clinic puts down some cash so you can buy 3 for him as well. You say, "okay, no problem", take the money and have no intentions of doing anything but right by your friend. So you end up copping your pills, 3 for you, 3 for him. You call up your friend at the agreed upon time, and tell then that you're at such and such street, and where can they meet up. They tell you that something has come up, and can you hold on to them 'till the next day when you'll be seeing them at the clinic. Once again, you say, "sure no problem", and hold onto the pills with no thoughts of taking any but your own.
Okay, so it's the next day, you've managed to only consume 1 of your Xanax bars, so you got two left for yourself and 3 for your friend. You go to meet up with your friend at the clinic to get medicated and to pass off the benzo's but due to some unforeseen weather/train problems, this becomes impossible. You call/text your friend saying that at the moment it's not going to work for you to meet up there, and that you're fucked 'cause you cant get dosed. Can they come to you? They respond that
No, they have a job to work on, and since they don't have a habit, they can wait until Monday, so just bring them then.
Now things become hard. You've missed your Methadone/suboxone, you're out of cash, you only have one Xanax left and you already took the other one to deal with the rage you feel at being fucked by the train/weather/clinic. Suddenly, the junky in you begins to work his trickery, and you start to think 'Hmm.. He won't mind if I take one of these, after all, I copped them and risked my freedome to get these things, PLUS, Im now missing two doses of methadone and I even tried to get them off of my hands yesterday to avoid this type of thing.
As the weekend passes you run out of your stash and try to make it by on the most humble doses of heroin you can, as well as some not so humble doses of loperamide. However, you're still feeling worse and worse, and those Xanax are starting to look pretty good. You hold out until Sunday morning, but by 12pm, the last shot of dope has worn off, and you're really feeling like crap. Fuck it, I'll pay him back. You dig into your friends stash and take 1 Xanax. A few more hours go by and the short-lived reliefe has worn off, so even though you really don't want to, you take another Xanax. Now there is only one left for your friend. You say to yourself, "okay, I'll just give him this one, and manage to make the money back so I only owe him too. Hell understand." Well you wake up Monday and by this poin, you feel like CRAP! It's the third day without methadone, and while you can finally get dosed again, you can hardly get out of bed. Suddenly holding onto that one last Xanax seems foolish. You stick it under your tongue and think "God I hate myself" and manage to get to the clinic and get dosed, all the while avoiding your friend, who calls you, but you ignore, or send a text that says something like: "Sorry, not feeling well, meet up Tomorow".
You continue to avoid your friend for another day while you try to scramble money together to cop, which is pathetically hard since you don't have a job and sold everything you owned of value from back in the day when you used to inject cocaine. Eventually you can't take this cowardly behaviour so you break down and call/text your friend and explain the situation. They're pissed, but glad your okay. You promise to hook them up in two days with not just 3, but 4 whole bars, and they're cool with that. In the end, because youre a good person, you stick to your word, but have suffered greatly due to your need and lack, of drugs and money.