Hey itsok. Good to hear from you, and I hope you're doing well also. Since you were very frank with me, I'll return the favor. I very much did enjoy meeting you and hanging out. At no point did I doubt you're a good person who's just trying your best to make it through this painful thing called life, just like all of us. I've met a number of other heroin users whom I'd say the same thing about. But hearing you tell me your stories, I got the sense your choice to use heroin was one that you felt very conflicted about, at times deeply regretful, because it had changed you and your life in ways that could not be undone. I can't cite examples because this conversation was 3 years ago, but I remember getting the overall sense your use of heroin had involved sacrifices and losses of the sort you might not have been willing to endure before getting into this drug. If I recall correctly, your relationship with crystal meth, though a source of problems, did not have this "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave" sort of hold on you that heroin did. If I recall correctly, you were emboldened to try heroin because you'd successfully quit tweak, and you soon realized it wasn't the same ballgame at all. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I get the sense you try hard to live your life with no regrets, and I respect that. But you expressed a suspicion back then that you may never be free of heroin, or at least the yearning for it, and this has really tested your principle of living life regret-free. I know that if I ever tried heroin that I would enjoy it way too much, and end up in the same position. I think it's very hard for someone who's never tried this drug to understand this feeling (though I'm trying, through my memory of experiences with other opiates, and my capacity for empathy). And that's just it -- from talking with present and former heroin users, I gather that once you've had a heroin habit, connecting with people who've never had one becomes very hard. In a world where connecting with people is just hard to begin with, and most people never use opiates, that just doesn't seem like a very good tradeoff to me.
Lest you or anyone think I'm an elitist or conformist, I ended my last day in the office having a heart-to-heart chat with a young physically handicapped woman who lives with chronic pain and fatigue from her condition, lives in the projects in Philly on government assistance, has a number of ongoing sexual partners in the local disabled community. She came to see me for her oral herpes and candidiasis, to get her HIV test rechecked, and to refill her Adderall. She also sings in a rock band as a form of catharsis, and our encounter ended with me writing down her band's webpage and next concert date in my calendar. Trust me, I have no problem seeing the good in people that society has marginalized. In fact, the margins are where you find some of the kindest and most interesting people. I understand. I never had any friends as a child. It feels good to be among people who will never judge you, and you get that when you're on the fringes.
In this way, I see starting a heroin habit as something similar to extreme body modification, like the guy who split his tongue in half and tattooed his whole body to look like snake skin. If he ever had one foot in mainstream society, so he could pass as a "square" and temporarily reap the very real benefits, he certainly doesn't, and can't, anymore. It's an admirable choice in some ways, but a rather drastic one that should never be taken without full understanding of what you're likely giving up permanently. Unlike extreme body modification, though, an opiate habit creeps up insidiously in most people, before the user can come to terms with the fact that they've done something they might have great trouble undoing.
Bottom line, I understand that life is painful, for some more than others, but really for all of us, as the Buddha taught. I understand that for some people, life is so bleak and painful that heroin is really their only shot at bliss, at least for the time being. If they don't do me wrong, I don't have anything against someone just because they use heroin. But I think the potential future non-heroin joys given up by the choice to use heroin should be a real consideration.
