6.20.2004
Our Heroin(e)
Reprinted from Chickenlegs.net - 1/13/03
One thing they don't tell you when you are being forced to take drug awareness classes in high school is the effect of heroin on your skin. Now, my girlfriend is in the middle of what you might call a major relapse, so I've watched her skin go from silky and smooth to scab covered and bumpy. Mind you, this is not where she is injecting herself - this is around her shoulders and chest.
See, apparently, heroin isn't as pure a drug as people think it is. It gets mixed in with dirt, meat tenderizer, whatever is sitting around the dealer's house. Whatever is in the heroin, goes into you. It has to come out somewhere. On her, it has chosen to come out in areas she usually likes to reveal to the public. Basically, it looks like she had horrific chest and shoulder acne and scratched - perhaps with a cheese slicer.
Another thing they don't really mention is the collapsed veins. She has a bunch of them. When she has had to go to the hospital for non-drug related things, they have had to draw blood from her neck. Dude - that just gives me the willies.
Still, she is lucky, since most people her age (28) who have been doing heroin as long as she has have pretty severe limps or withered arms. Her brother, who is the cause of this current relapse and who had best avoid the apartment lest he be pushed over the balcony by yours truly, looks like his arms were burned with gasoline. She is lucky because she has been with me for a number of years and, thus, has been clean for seven of the eight years we've been together. Every day is a little intervention with Mr. Michaels!
Also, many junkies stop taking care of themselves. See, compared to getting that little fix, brushing the teeth and combing the hair aren't quite as important. Tooth ache? Kill the pain with another hit. Basically, what I'm saying, is that when you stop taking care of yourself, your body starts to disintegrate. Many of the people at the methadon clinc I take her to (even when she is relapsing) look like villagers out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail or, more accurately, Jaberwocky.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't do heroin or anything, because it is your right to choose to become a drain on society and a burden to those that care about you. No, far be it from me to suggest that drugs are bad or anything because you have the right to become a scab covered cripple with bad teeth and severe B.O. I'm just saying I wish she had never started doing this "boy."
On the plus side, being co-dependent ROCKS.
One thing they don't tell you when you are being forced to take drug awareness classes in high school is the effect of heroin on your skin. Now, my girlfriend is in the middle of what you might call a major relapse, so I've watched her skin go from silky and smooth to scab covered and bumpy. Mind you, this is not where she is injecting herself - this is around her shoulders and chest.
See, apparently, heroin isn't as pure a drug as people think it is. It gets mixed in with dirt, meat tenderizer, whatever is sitting around the dealer's house. Whatever is in the heroin, goes into you. It has to come out somewhere. On her, it has chosen to come out in areas she usually likes to reveal to the public. Basically, it looks like she had horrific chest and shoulder acne and scratched - perhaps with a cheese slicer.
Another thing they don't really mention is the collapsed veins. She has a bunch of them. When she has had to go to the hospital for non-drug related things, they have had to draw blood from her neck. Dude - that just gives me the willies.
Still, she is lucky, since most people her age (28) who have been doing heroin as long as she has have pretty severe limps or withered arms. Her brother, who is the cause of this current relapse and who had best avoid the apartment lest he be pushed over the balcony by yours truly, looks like his arms were burned with gasoline. She is lucky because she has been with me for a number of years and, thus, has been clean for seven of the eight years we've been together. Every day is a little intervention with Mr. Michaels!
Also, many junkies stop taking care of themselves. See, compared to getting that little fix, brushing the teeth and combing the hair aren't quite as important. Tooth ache? Kill the pain with another hit. Basically, what I'm saying, is that when you stop taking care of yourself, your body starts to disintegrate. Many of the people at the methadon clinc I take her to (even when she is relapsing) look like villagers out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail or, more accurately, Jaberwocky.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't do heroin or anything, because it is your right to choose to become a drain on society and a burden to those that care about you. No, far be it from me to suggest that drugs are bad or anything because you have the right to become a scab covered cripple with bad teeth and severe B.O. I'm just saying I wish she had never started doing this "boy."
On the plus side, being co-dependent ROCKS.
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