LOSING YOURSELF TO ADDICTION

George Zimmerman lost several close friends to heroin. He also lost
part of himself to the drug's vicious addiction.

Still, he found his first experience with heroin a memorable one --
an immediate speedball of grace, pleasure and euphoria.

"The first time is the warmest, safest, most pleasurable feeling you
will ever experience. All problems float away," said Zimmerman, a
middle-aged Porter County resident.

"It's the closest you will ever feel to being back in the comfort of the womb."

Zimmerman, who's unemployed and struggles with several health
ailments, said like many users, he also became addicted to lying,
scamming and rationalizing to return to that womb-like feeling --
over and over again.

Yet, heroin soon puts you in a "figurative jail," he said.

"There are no bars but when something owns you, there's no freedom either."

Each morning he'd wake up sick if he had no "wake-up dose," and it
only got worse until he scored a hit through another hustle, another
promise or another excuse to clean up his act.

"When you are very dope-sick, you do anything to get what you need," he said.

And when you get it again, it's like heaven's gate opens up only for
you, he said.

"You get a few bags, cook it up, draw it into a needle and put it
into your arm and shoot. All junkies love this ritual," he said.

"In a few seconds you go from very sick to being in a state of grace.
It's that quick."

This is why heroin is the world's most addictive drug, said
Zimmerman, who now is on methadone treatment.

"Where else can you go from the lowest low to the highest high in
fewer than 15 seconds?" he asked.

But after a while, that highest high became elusive, and heroin only
made him feel "normal" -- if only for a short time.

"If you're ever lucky enough to get off junk, your body never feels
right again," he said.

Zimmerman, who's in constant pain these days, has since swallowed a
pharmacy of prescription pills in an attempt to feel right again, and
desperately craves any affordable Vicodin or Xanax.

He's come a long way from that first taste of heroin. But now with
dramatically lower expectations.

"I want to feel," he said, with a pause, "something again."