Day 93/16 – “Five Letter Word (Part 2)"

Saturday, 24 February 2007 – Day 93/16 – “Five Letter Word (Part 2)”

Continues from Part 1…

I couldn’t believe it. He was clean for 3 months, 3 whole months and now he was worse off than I was. He told me, and I figure this is true for a lot of people, that he hates the withdrawal. He can’t stand the pain and he will rather keep on taking than ever feeling it again.

Despite that, he decided to quit again. He took the last time the weekend and then stopped. He got sick the next day, as he predicted he would. He looked like I imagined I looked every time I tried to stop. Like a sadistic killer was pulling every part of your body from your bones, bit by bit and explaining to you how he was doing it. A torture that goes on forever. Only… he got worse and worse as the week progressed showing more symptoms than just withdrawal.

The following day he was admitted to hospital and a few days later he passed away. A few months later the autopsy report stated he died from ‘blood poisoning’. I guess this happens when you inject something into your veins that doesn’t belong there. We all knew it, we all know it – but this really puts it into perspective.

This story of his life, his death makes me so sad. He was about to quit. And whether he would have succeeded or whether heroin would have been the victor – we’ll never know. His story makes me sad not only because of his death, but because of his addiction. This wasn’t the first drug he used and it wouldn’t have been the last. This is true of so many our friends and even of myself. That is the scary thing, that is the sad thing. He honestly only got rid of his addiction, of drugs, of heroin – through DEATH!