I don’t know if I’ll ever forget my first date. It was messy and secretive and beautiful. It was warm. It was comforting. Yes, I don’t think I’ll ever forget my first date with heroin. August 17th, 2012. I told myself it was just another day. I was slowly getting over what I dubbed the worst year of my teenage life, slowly gaining confidence within myself, and finding a friend group I thought I’d be around until I was old and senile. That day began a three year journey I still struggle with, even with the clean time I’ve racked up.

It came to me. A boy, his girlfriend, and little sister hopped out of their 90’ something Lincoln. They all had sunglasses on, accompanied by baseball tees just long enough to cover their arms. They had crooked grins and husky laughs. I remember stepping out of my best friend’s house and being so intrigued by them, little did I know how much of a play they would have for the next years to come. My boyfriend at the time, a 19 year old who lied about pretty much his whole life, came up to me with a wide grin. He told me they could get dope, he told me a bundle was cheap; he told me we should both do it. I was 17, recently heartbroken and desperate for anything that could be considered love. I went up to the boy. His named turned out to be Brian*, and he told me he’d run to get it for just three out of the 10 glassine bags. I looked at my boyfriend. He was so excited he could barely stop jumping. What was I to do? Follow my parent’s footsteps, and get high? Or turn my head, call them crazy, lose what I thought would be the best relationship I would have? Obviously not. They came back 15 minutes later. The writing on the bag was ‘La Cura.’ My hands shook while I put it in my purse.

To be honest, I forgot I had them in my bag. I forgot I could’ve gotten arrested while my best friend sped up and down I-95 in his '95 Honda Accord. I forgot I was about to ruin my life. So when Christian* kicked our friends out of my room, I was confused. When Christian went in my purse and pulled out a bundle of heroin, I was taken back again. When Christian asked for a knife, I was confused. He had told me he was a heroin addict. He told me he had been using for months prior to this day, so when I saw him struggling to open the glassine bag, and when he asked for my help, I was confused. It turns out it was his first time, too. He was about to be doing 3 bags of dope for the first time in his life, too. They were small in my hand. I remember holding it up to the light and seeing the powder sway inside the bag, thinking to myself that this couldn’t possibly be what drove so many of my friends mad. This couldn’t possibly be what ruins lives. But what did I know? I was young, dumb, and impulsive, so after many minutes when I finally opened the damned thing, I wasted no time in pouring the white-ish brown powder on my dresser, the same dresser I had since I was 10. I was ruining my childhood; I was becoming what my family feared.

It burned my nose. It made my eyes tear. It made Christian have a menacing smile his otherwise fragile face and body couldn’t bear. It made my life go before my eyes. It made me hold the straw I used in my palm fiercely. Christian sat on my twin sized, pink sheeted bed and I followed him, muttering something how my head felt light. I remember staring at my cigarette stained walls, thinking every twitch that flowed through my body was the opiate kicking in. It wasn’t until I felt warmness trickle up my spine and my eyelids close without my knowing it truly began to hit me. It wasn’t until cigarette after cigarette, each one burning my skin or sheets that it began to hit me. I was hooked, and even though it was my first time and I thought it wasn’t a big deal (I was in denial until March of next year), I had tried heroin for the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be my last. I don’t remember falling asleep that night, or the next few nights after that. I just remember every night until the first bundle disappeared in my bloodstream that I went to sleep peacefully. No night terrors, no PTSD episodes, no depersonalization episodes. I was free, I was happy, I was in bliss.

Me, deep into addiction. 2013/2014

My parents were addicts, and so were my grandparents. My father and mother were both hooked on heroin, leaving me to be taken care of by my grandmother from the time I was five until I was nine. Those are very important ages for a young girl to be left without her mother, and for her to be raised by her drug addicted father. Those years focused on me being eight and finding my father overdosed, naked, and in his own vomit; waking up to run to his car and putting on shoes that were covered in vomit because he got too high, meeting strange people all times of the day and night that locked themselves in my father’s room with him to get high. Although I was under my grandmother’s custody, my father took me away from my cozy home in a highly populated New Jersey urban area, and moved me to the social island of Staten Island, New York. I remember crying a lot, and making up excuses such as ‘my appendix hurts’ when he had R-rated movies on I knew I wasn’t allowed to watch. My mother came back into my life following my father’s overdose stunt. She took me into her arms and a year and half later moved us to New Jersey.

My life besides that was normal. I lived in a nice neighborhood, and besides being bullied and getting into a lot of fist fights my childhood wasn’t so bad. In seventh grade I began to have PTSD episodes, along with depersonalization episodes. My depression sank in along with anxiety; I was 12 years old and prescribed Clonopin, Trazadone, Zoloft, Geodone, and Abilify. I quit everything cold turkey when I was visiting my dad and grandparents on Staten Island and found all my Clonopin gone. I don’t think it was a surprise when I became a drug addict. Addiction, which I strongly believe to be a disease, is passed down. I can only pray for my children, as it’s a thought that scares me every day.

While Christian and I did not last, my addiction did. It started August 17th and ended April 21st, a few years later. Every addict has a different story and I am no different. I have stories upon stories of me nodding out in front of my mother, her crying while confronting me with empty dope bags in her hand. Stories of me being dope sick and riding out to Trenton, New Jersey, with the same people who first introduced me to dope; stories of being jumped and hit with a gun, stories of me crying in my own throw up.

I like to believe if I could go back in time, I would stop myself, but I don’t think that’s the case. My years of addiction were one of the most amazing learning experiences I could ever go through. But, if I could grab everyone else who was about to begin by the shoulders and try to persuade them not to start, I would. I know they wouldn’t listen, though. I know my efforts would be futile.

I am now 21 years old. I have just gotten two years clean. I am now in a loving relationship with my fiancé. We are both on a maintenance drug that has also helped him receive a year and a half clean. My father just received three years clean, and my mother has 10 plus years. I live with my fiancé, I work full time, and we’re looking for our first apartment together.

Getting clean was the best decision I could have ever made. I have a strong support system; I love life because I wake up not sick. There’s help out there. Please don’t make the mistakes I did. This all started because I was lonely; I was lonely, I wanted love, I wanted my head to be quiet. Please believe me when I say there is help, and in case anyone hasn’t told you today: I love you.

My husband and I on our summer trip to Atlantic city, June 2016. Over 2 years clean.