A/N: I wrote this for the Huffington Post, but they decided not to run it.

By nature I’m not a very cheery person. Nor am I attached to life, not really. I first attempted suicide (via choking myself) in the 1st grade. As you’ve probably figured, this attempt failed and scared the crap out of all the responsible adults in my life. That didn’t stop me from trying again… and again… and again over the next few years. Visiting a psychiatrist and therapist made little difference. Though I eventually decided I wanted to live, sort of, I remained intensely focused on death. None of the available medications or treatments helped. Some made me much worse. By age sixteen, I was quite used to talking myself out of all kinds of nastiness. I’d heard all the usual arguments from friends and relatives, too. I even knew the inside of the local emergency psychiatric clinic as well as my granny’s beach house. Luckily, I’d also managed to develop a rather morbid sense of humor about my situation. This made the internal battle — the fights between the suicidal part of me and the bit that wanted to live — slightly more bearable.

Still, I often struggled. My gloomy nature and overprotective parents isolated me socially. Eventually I became ridiculously desperate for companionship. In my senior year of high school I joined a Meetup for writers. There I met Matt, a 34-year-old with a thing for depressed underage girls. Using a combination of kindness and threats, he managed to persuade me to do all kinds of disgusting things. I soon became absurdly frightened of him. Of course, my attempts to escape our twisted “relationship” always failed. He enjoyed bossing me around and making me cry. So, I began looking for another way to escape. Killing myself wasn’t an option because he seemed oddly keen on the idea. I didn’t want the old bastard to win, you know. Eventually I decided to take drugs whenever he came over, to make his visits more bearable while I worked out a long-term plan. At the time I was incredibly naive. Everything I knew about intoxicants came from Wikipedia or The Velvet Underground. I somehow came to the conclusion that opioids were a safe, sane option… and began “borrowing” Vicodin from my parents medicine cabinet.

Before long I’d amassed quite the stash. I stored them in a peppermint tin I’d covered in vibrant fragments of old fashion magazines. Using them whenever Matt came ‘round to torment me really did help. However, they weren’t very strong. Even if I took about five at a time it just wasn’t enough. So, I decided to switch to something stronger. I knew from googling that heroin is incredibly easy to aquire, if one just finds a needle exchange and asks around. To me it seemed perfectly sensible. I figured I’d use it until I figured out how to get rid of Matt. Surely I wouldn’t need drugs after that, right?

As you’ve probably guessed, I was quite wrong. Heroin made me wonderfully cheerful. For the first time in my life I felt properly happy. Before I’d always been happy and suicidal, or happy and terrified, or just plain miserable. The contrast was astounding. I mean, it was like switching on a light. For the very first time I understood why normal people wanted to live. It all made sense. Life didn’t have to be agonizing and terrible. It could actually feel sort of decent, if one were properly medicated. Yet I still planned on quitting as soon as I’d gotten rid of Matt. Getting ahold of the drug on a regular basis was something of a hassle, obviously, and I didn’t want to waste all of my allowance on something so scandalous. So, a few months after graduation, I devised a plan. I decided to block all of Matt’s social media accounts, refuse to let him in if he visited, and cut off all of our mutual friends. And I did. A few days later I also stopped taking heroin. I felt slightly ill for a week, though it really wasn’t so bad. The first time never is.

That should’ve been the end of my habit. Yet it wasn’t. I went back a few weeks later, to make my least-favorite college course more bearable, then stopped again. For the next few months I used on and off. I didn’t see why I shouldn’t. After all, I was only smoking… and it really did make me more agreeable. My sense of humor can be incredibly nasty when I’m sober. And the suicidal thoughts could get sort of unbearable at times. So, by Halloween, I’d begun using dope regularly again. Nobody seemed to notice… save for my therapist, who was apparently quite proud of how well I’d been behaving. Life actually seemed worth living, for once. I was happy. That’s when I decided that, perhaps, using heroin could be incredibly beneficial. Of course, I still thought I ought to quit eventually. By then I’d read Trainspotting and knew that heroin-users were often viewed as the lowest of the low. Like maggots. If I got caught, I thought, I’d be screwed. Nobody would believe that drugs improved my behavior and kept those suicidal thoughts at bay. In popular culture, Heroin is sort of like a powdery dragon or a chemical Voldemort or something equally terrible. Also, many people who use it become absurdly fond… and lose everything. Those sorts live to use instead of using to live. They talk about the damned stuff — a mere chemical, you know, a totally inanimate thing — like its a girlfriend, calling it “she” and droning on about their undying love. I always found that incredibly irritating and vowed never to do such a thing myself. So far I haven’t.

Over the next few years I cycled through phases of using and periods of sobriety. The latter were often pretty unpleasant. I often had terrifying nightmares in which a Matt-like figure raped me… or smothered me to death. Still, one must take breaks if one wishes to keep one’s tolerance from becoming annoyingly expensive. So I did. Before long I also began telling people. My parents reacted with horror, while my friends accepted the situation. They understood. After all, nothing bad ever happened because of my drug use. Even after I began injecting, I remained healthy and employed. That’s partly because I always use clean equipment and sterile water. Good hygiene and a proper diet can save one from the nastier effects of taking illegal drugs. And I’m extremely careful.

Being physically dependent on heroin hasn’t stopped me from writing, acting, painting, dancing, directing, and eventually starting my own film production company. My life isn’t perfect, but it’s much better than it used to be. Yet strangers often tell me I should quit. I don’t really understand why. Before I began using, I attempted suicide on an absurdly regular basis. Death seemed like the best solution to virtually every probably. My relationship with Matt traumatized and trapped me, making simple tasks like buying groceries seem almost too terrifying to fathom (they still are when I’m sober). To me heroin is merely a medication that helps me function… a way to tone down the pain inside, a simple tool that happens to be relatively effective. It enables me to work and live like everyone else. Sure, I do have to take breaks to keep my tolerance down. Of course, I really don’t mind. The withdrawals only last for a few days anyway. If you’ve got something to distract you, like a season or two of The Sopranos, being dopesick is tolerable… or so I’ve found. It’s not as if it’ll actually kill you.

While I wouldn’t recommend using incredibly dangerous illegal drugs on a regular basis, I don’t plan to quit anytime soon. In my case sobriety just isn’t worth the hassle. Quitting forever might not even be possible (I tried a few times — it really wasn’t pretty). Being a junkie isn’t fun or pleasant, either. Staying functional and productive requires vast amounts of discipline and planning. Finding a doctor that didn’t treat me like scum was surprisingly hard. Going to the phlebotomist for drug tests is always a real hassle. Strangers who notice my track marks still glare at me in disgust. Even though I test every bag for Fentanyl and always carry Narcan, I may overdose someday. Yet it’s still better than the alternative. At least I’m alive, for now.