i cannot speak for everyone, so i will try to explain to you how it felt for me.. i started doing heroin at a time where nothing in my life seemed to be going right, and i felt like i hit rock bottom and i was all alone.. i thought doing heroin to get me thru the stress would help, i told myself i'd quit once things settled down a little but by then it was a little too late..

all i wanted to do was crawl into a little hole and die. but i didn't have the guts to kill myself, so heroin was the next best thing.. it killed me on so many levels..

physically: i'd be so relaxed like i was heavily sedated.. it didnt matter where i was or how uncomfortable my surroundings where because i was relaxed.. i could be sitting on the most uncomfortable couch, i could drop a cigerette on my self and burn myself and i wouldnt really feel it or well wouldnt really notice it.. because i keep dozing off i had no concept of time what so ever.. i could be starring at a wall for two hours and not feel the time fly because i'm so relaxed.. and i wouldnt notice it because i most likely have a blank mind no thoughts constantly running thru my head stressing me out.. if i am thinking about someting then it's something simple and basic like a song i feel like listenin or daydreaming about a better future..

emotionally: i honestly can't say i really cared about anything or anyone including myself while i was on heroin.. all that mattered was the moment i was in, being relaxed.. for me, i'm naturally an emotional person, i'm dysthymic borderline bipolar, and i have adhd.. so it felt good not to have mood swings, get emotional over stupid things, being hyper active to the point of feeling anxious, having all these thoughts that feel like they're going to swallow me whole.. the only emotion i seemed able to display after months and months of heroin addiction were either depression because i loved heroin but i hated it, i loved to hate it, i was unhappy because i was on heroin and i was on heroin because i was unhappy.. but then i'd do more heroin and i'm back to not caring.. and anger.. anything that got in the way of my relaxation, anything that made me taste reality, which at the time was the fact that i was a heroin addict (which i so desperatly did not want to believe, i wanted to think that i could quit whenever i want) and when i got angry i had a tendency to become very violent and aggressive which i normally would not even have the guts to do around certain people.. but like i said, i didn't really care about anything, so wen i was angry, i got angry, and i did not care if it meant resulting in a fight with someone or losing a close friend, or even a family memeber, i felt like no one understood me or what i was going thru, and i just wanted to shut everyone out...

there are so many things i never would have imagined myself ever doing, and maybe i didn't do alotta bad things, but i allowed people around me to do bad things to obtain heroin.. see once you're addicted, the only thought on your mind becomes obtaining your next fix, because you know if you don't get it you will become extremely sick.. there were moments where i could barely stand up and breath, and i managed to drag myself to a very uncomfortable bus, drove 2 hours thru the snow and military checkpoints (huge risk i could have been arrested if i had gotten caught) up a high mountain not even sure if i'll have a ride back home later on that night and if i dont do i have a place to sleep for the night? because if i dont then i'm kind of stranded on a snowy mountain with no where to go till morning (if the nxt morning a bus was available because once it started snowing roads tended to get blocked and checkpoints wouldnt allow any cars to come and go)and i'm not exactly in the safest area ever, it's an area full of druglords and dealers, people gaurding their houses with ak47's and snippers, the slightest wrong loook at the wrong person and they might aim at you and try to shoot you, and guess what, if i got shot no one would probably ever find my body.. and yet, despite all that, when i was sick i still managed to get there.. because it meant even if just for 15 min. i'd be warm at my dealer's house.. we'd have tea and talk, i'd sample all the drugs he has, feel better, and if i'm lucky, go home, or better yet, sleep there.. it was comfortable waking up warm in the mountains so quiet away from the noise in the city so relaxing.. the way i saw it, risking my health and safety was just a small price to pay for the ultimate nirvana.. and once i'm on my way back home, it was a high of its own, knowing i did something wrong and got away with it, passing thru military check points with large amounts of drugs and not getting caught, i was like a kid with a secret no one knows.. and i didnt care because i felt "good"...

what are the best things to say and what not to say to a struggling addict? there really isnt a list.. addicts are ticking time bombs you never know what might set them off..

how can you help your friend and loved one.. everyone is different, i can tell you what helped me...

being in the hospital knowing i could lose my liver and die any day.. full support of my family, a lot of tough love they never let me give up, no matter how much pain i was in they didnt give me painkillers or sleeping pills because chances are i'd become dependent on those, total lock down in the hospital, ie the only visitors allowed were my family during visiting hours, no friends allowed as to not let me become encouraged to think about heroin or how to obtain it, limited phone calls, and limited supervised internet access, total 24/7 supervision, and what helped me the most, the fact that i was not in a rehab clinic.. instead, i was in a psych ward called "behavior correction" because rehab clinics here are not that great.. i didn't go thru the usual mind-numbing anti-drug brain-washing that i did not want to hear, i did not go thru the guilt trip of i'm an addict and i screwed up, rather, everyone was there to listen and help, provide me with lots of therapy and love, and best of all, i wasnt judged.. thats the one thing that bothred me was people judging me because i felt no one had a right to since they did not understand what i was going thru.. also, i wasnt surrounded by other drug addicts, in all honesty, i dont know how rehab clinics work, but i think in my case surrounding me with more junkies like myself would have done me more harm because i would have allowed myself to make up excuses like it's ok that i did drugs because i was depressed im not the only one and so on and so forth.

i hope i helped in some way... i mean we can all easily look up what heroin does to people scientifically but it never really explains how you feel when you're on it..