VIEWPOINT By Shara Clark
Heroin, the Thief
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I lost my friend to heroin. It was not quick and painless. I lost my friend to heroin this week. her insides churning, wanting more It was not quick and painless. She did and more and more of the drug. She not push the needle in and float off on took a bunch of generic sleep aid and a peaceful cloud into the ether. The last ibuprofen, hoping it’d knock her out; sound she made was with her body — perhaps she wanted to dream through heavy and limp, falling to the floor with the worst of it. She slept for days, but a thud. Someone she was with went the urge remained. to check on her. She had overdosed I lost my friend to heroin a decade on a batch cut with fentanyl. First ago. It was not quick and painless. It responders arrived 20 minutes after started when her dad died from cancer. the 911 call was made. She was without She couldn’t cope, and his pain pills oxygen for too long. helped. It progressed with an ATV She went into cardiac arrest and had accident. Major surgery, metal pins in to be resuscitated four times that first her leg. Doctor prescribed pain pills. day in the hospital, her chest and ribs They helped, maybe a little too much. broken to bits from the compressions. She took them for too long; now she She spent nearly a week on life support needed them. When the doctor said as tests were run. Scans showed severe no more, she got what she could from brain damage. She was completely a methadone clinic. At some point, unresponsive. A week, unable to it became easier to get drugs on the communicate, twitch a toe, or even flit streets. Heroin felt good — even better an eye. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. than the pills. I sat at her bedside, I lost my friend to talking incessantly about heroin. It was a slow death, everything and nothing, and it hurt like hell. Her joking and crying, and mother lost a daughter. Her holding my phone up sons lost their mother. The to her ear, playing some drug took her from them of our favorite songs. long ago. We mourned her Her family gathered, her in life, for years. The urge mother and children, writhed through her blood, friends, women from guiding her every move for church — praying, Kristin Burge, more and more and more. 1982-2020 pleading, mourning a life Her kids were taken away, cut short … hoping for she couldn’t hold a job. She a miracle. ended up on the streets I lost my friend to heroin two years with who knows who doing who ago. It was not quick and painless. knows what, all for more dope. She was running from a contempt of She was a good person. She was court warrant for a bogus case that smart but made bad decisions. Her just wouldn’t die. She’d go to jail, 30 path kinked along the way and days, 60 days, be released. Repeat. rerouted her aims. In moments of Fines piled up. She couldn’t pay them. clarity, she tried damn hard to kick She was buried by an endless cycle, a it. She loved her kids. She wanted to broken legal system. get better and spend time with them. She was running from a man who She wanted to help people with her wanted to hurt her and wound up in story of recovery. She’d been in rehab Louisiana. She fell ill there and went (this time) since December. A couple to the emergency room. Diagnosis: of weeks ago, she snuck out. The endocarditis, likely a result of shooting urge won. up. Doctors performed emergency I lost my friend to heroin this week. open heart surgery to replace a valve — It was not quick and painless. We they gave her a pacemaker. She came watched her die, slowly, for a decade, back home to heal, but didn’t stay long. but she pushed the needle in for the I lost my friend to heroin four years last time. We watched her body swell ago. It was not quick and painless. and convulse on life support as it I drove her to Heroin Anonymous shut down day by day. As I write this, meetings. Sometimes she’d be high, doctors are doing the necessary work but I’d pretend not to know; showing to find donor recipient matches for up was the first step. Once, after her her salvageable organs and tissues. boyfriend beat her badly, I took her By the time you read this, she will be into my home, where she detoxed at peace. Shara Clark is managing editor of the Flyer. for a few days — angry as a hornet,
