What is heroin? Heroin is an illegal, highly addictive opioid made from morphine. It looks like a white or brown powder, or a black, tar-like goo. Heroin can be smoked, injected or snorted. How does heroin work/what does it do? Heroin works by quickly entering the brain and connecting to the receptors associated with sensing pleasure and pain, and with regulating sleep, breathing and heart rate. Users report feelings of euphoria and/or numbness when high on heroin. What makes heroin…
After calling a few places, I selected a rehab facility that would allow me to pay on a sliding scale and a monthly payment plan. It was the only way I could afford to go to rehab since I had hardly any money and no health insurance. I remember now how desperate I felt at that moment, but I wasn’t going to become one of these homeless migrants. I don’t know what exactly led me – the belief in a…
Once I moved in with Katie, life was just one big heroin blur. With little structure other than having to show up for our serving shifts, we were free to smoke and waste our lives away all the time. I don’t know how she managed it, but Katie always made it to work, no matter how high she was. I started missing shifts because I was asleep, or coming down, or so out of it, I didn’t even know what…
The next phase happened so quickly, and I was high so much of the time, that it is a little difficult to remember. My memories of this time are blurry and faded, but I will describe what I do remember. My pattern became wake up late, meet up with Katie, get high at one of our homes, work at the restaurant, hang out with Katie and get high some more, then go home to sleep next to Suzette. Suzette had…
So there I was, in a foreign country, with a job I hated, knowing very few people and rarely getting to spend time with the woman I had moved across the ocean to be with. I was at a house party after a shift one night having a few beers when Katie, another server, passed me a pipe. I thought it was pot, which I had smoked with the other servers a few times. It helped me relax and unwind…
I described in my last post how I moved from Poland to the United States a few years ago, giving up everything I knew to be with my American girlfriend Suzette. I had a hard time finding work in my area of expertise, and reluctantly accepted a job as a waiter at a local restaurant. One of the difficult things about working at the restaurant was that I worked opposite hours from Suzette. She had a traditional 9-5 job at…
My name is Aleksander, and I am from Wieliczka, Poland. Most people call me Alek. I moved to the United States from my hometown in Europe a few years ago to be with my American girlfriend at the time, Suzette. We met while she was on a student trip with her university. All the students in the group had gone out to a bar, where my friends and I spoke with them to practice our English, which we all grew…
