Heroin's Tragic Toll, Part 3 of 4

JAIL FORCES HARRISON MAN TO RETHINK LIFE

"Joe" knew that heroin was tearing apart his life and the lives of his
family. It just didn't matter.

"You don't care about yourself, and you don't care about anyone else," Joe
said about being addicted to the illegal drug.

From inside the walls of the Allegheny County jail, Joe, who agreed to an
interview if his real name wasn't used, said he's going to try to kick the
habit.

"I've always wanted to go to college, and I'm not going to let heroin stop
me," Joe said.

But the 19 year-old Harrison man said he isn't naive, and he knows he has
an uphill battle ahead of him.

As proof of the drug's hold, Joe has about eight trips to rehabilitation
centers and three other stints in jail on drug-related charges.

"You have to give it the respect it deserves; heroin is a powerful thing,"
he said.

To a casual observer, Joe appeared to be living the American dream in a
picture-perfect middle-class home with his parents and sister.

However, heroin was beginning to control him, and his life was beginning to
unravel.

Joe said his parents did a good job rearing him, and he blames himself for
making the decision to become an illegal drug user.

Starting down the path

As with many drug addicts, Joe began drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana
at a relatively young age. He was 14 and in ninth grade.

But Joe said he grew tired of those drugs.

"Drugs get old just like everything else," he said.

Soon he moved to stronger and more powerful drugs such as LSD,
hallucinogenic mushrooms and Ecstasy.

Joe was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder when he was younger,
and he said he's always had a very addictive personality.

"If I get into something, I obsess about it," he said.

The next rung on his ladder of destruction was OxyContin, a powerful
painkiller given mostly to people in chronic pain. The drug has and is
being abused across the Valley and has been responsible for several deaths.
Joe said he had heard of the drug but wasn't aware of its power.

"I didn't know it was just like heroin," he said.

An acquaintance introduced Joe to heroin when Joe was 16, and the drug soon
replaced OxyContin and Ecstasy as his drugs of choice.

"Heroin was cheaper and easier to get," Joe said.

Life changes

For a year and a half, Joe snorted heroin. Last year, he switched to injecting.

He stopped his two favorite hobbies of wrestling and juggling, and his
friends were limited to other drug users.

Joe said everything that came out of his mouth was a lie, and he was
stealing and borrowing large sums of money to support his growing habit.

"Generally, I only hung out with people who I could use for a ride or
money," he said.

The first few times Joe used heroin he said the feeling was incredible -
the greatest high he had experienced. The high would last for three to four
hours.

However, after using the drug for a period of time, there was no more high
for Joe. He continued using it only to keep from becoming violently ill.

"It's like the worst flu you could ever have multiplied by a thousand
times. You can't sleep, you can't eat, and you vomit," he said.

At the peak of his habit, Joe said he was injecting the drug into his body
six times per day every day.

Thrill of the chase

When he started using heroin, he was buying the drug in the Valley, but it
was cheaper to drive to Lawrenceville, Highland Park and other Pittsburgh
neighborhoods.

The excursions often brought Joe to rough neighborhoods and into danger. He
has had a gun put against his head and a brick thrown through his car window.

But he said the thrill of the chase to get drugs became almost as much a
part of doing the drug as getting the actual fix.

"It's kind of sick. Part of me still likes the chase, it's like an
adrenaline rush," he said. "It (messes) up your head up so bad you don't
care if you die," Joe said.

The young man said he's confident he'll be out of jail soon and into a
rehabilitation center.

Joe has failed rehab many times but, he said, this time he's in the right
frame of mind. If you don't go to rehab because you want to be there, it
will never work, he said.

Jail provides no help

Other than optional meetings, Joe receives no drug treatment in jail and
hasn't used the drug for four months. But, he said, most of the
conversations among prisoners revolve around drugs, and he said if he
really wanted to get high in the jail, he could.

"Jail is no type of rehab. It's a total negative environment," he said.

Joe warns that heroin is a growing problem across the Valley, and he said
he knows of about 10 to 15 high school kids using the drug.

Joe doesn't want anyone to end up like him.

"If you haven't started using drugs, don't start," he said.

Joe said he'll attempt to work through his problem by using the 12- step
plan set forth by Narcotics Anonymous.

He said he doesn't know if he'll come back to Harrison, because he knows he
needs to stay away from his friends who are still using. He also knows
he'll have to stay away from all types of drugs, alcohol and the party
scene for the rest of his life.

But Joe is confident he can turn the corner on his life.

"I know I'm bigger than it. This is the last time I'll ever be inside these
walls," Joe said as a prison guard knocked on the window signifying the end
of the visit.

Part 4: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1258/a02.html