What Heroin Feels Like: Three Addicts Describe the Feeling That They Were Willing to Die For

In response to a question that I've been asked several times: Three addicts describe what it feels like to inject heroin.

One plant sure has caused a lot of trouble. Poppies naturally contain the opiates codeine and morphine. Semisynthetic opiates such as heroin are refined from processed poppies, whereas fully synthetic opioids such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and fentanyl are produced in a lab based on variations on the chemical backbones of the alkaloids found in the plant.

A person's drug of choice says quite a bit about them; chemical preferences can be used as a sort of personality profiling tool, a psychotropic Myers-Briggs.

You've got your stimulant addicts, adventurers drawn to coke for the confidence and the conversation and the white-knuckle fury, or to amphetamines for the focus and power, the marathon darksex (at the end of such a session, you don't throw away the condom; you become the discarded condom).

Then you have those who prefer psychedelics, creative souls who want their worlds painted more vividly, their thoughts taffy-twisted into more intriguing shapes.

On the other end of the spectrum of inner activity are those who crave barbs and benzos. They seek tranquility, then unconsciousness; a blank and blissful state.

Finally, there are those of us who pine after opioids. I've heard heroin described as a hug in a needle, and that is perhaps the most succinct way to put it. Withdrawal from heroin, we are told, elicits a neurochemical reaction indistinguishable from grief.

We junkies crave safety, belonging, family, home.

***

I'll be the first one to admit that dope isn't the drug to choose if you want your socks chemically knocked off.

If you're looking for a jaw-droppingly intense chemical experience, drop acid. Your whole world will warp into Starry Night, your thoughts as free and bright and swirling as Van Gogh's evening sky.

In terms of the sheer intensity of the experience, pure MDMA floored me more than any other chemical adventure (save, perhaps, injecting coke, that terrible, jet-engine takeoff thrill).

E began with a high-voltage glow that raced along my backbone, waking my spine up, reminding me of its function as the chief power / communications cable of my body, carrying voltage and messages to and fro.

From there, tingling waves rushed outward, carrying with them a vibrating pleasure and energy that permeated every bit of my body.

Eventually, the feeling would reach the top of my spine and spill over into my brain, at which point my pupils would suddenly blow up and a radiant filter would be applied to the entire universe.

I was a newborn again. The softest sound, the simplest texture became cause for joy and wonder.

I remember walking through a house party where half a dozen E-tards ran their fingers up and down the satiny wallpaper in the upstairs hallway, pausing from time to time as they discovered new miracles.

"Try this one!" one exclaimed as he ran his fingers along the lining of his coat; "Hey, try this one," another replied urgently as he popped a mini rice cake into his mouth, closing his eyes as he adopted the devout and waiting expression of one receiving Holy Communion.

"I love you, bro," one confessed to the boy next to him.

"I love you, Stacy."

"...You're so f*cking beautiful!" (Exclaimed a moment later, surprised, as though seeing her for the first time).

"Oh my God..."

"Oh my... oh..."

Someone had discovered Velcro.

The synesthesia was extraordinary on E. I didn't just hear the music; I felt it and I saw it, too.

Literally.

Bass beats became deep blue bulls-eye patterns that spread outward like ripples in a pond, the trance melodies accompanying them manifesting as glittery yellow and green lines dashing up and down my field of vision in ridges and valleys like EKG lines.

When the feeling peaked, it was all I could do not to moan: That warm flood of serotonin and dopamine heightened by the clenching of every muscle, the caressing of every nerve.

Everyone calls hard drugs orgasmic as a kind of shorthand for the most intense pleasurable feeling they've ever had, but it's rarely the most precise way to describe drug-induced sensations.

With E, though, the peak was truly a feeling of literal, sustained orgasm.

***

Dope, again, isn't half so impressive. At least, not at first.

I'll explain it to you in two ways. But first, if you're wondering how injecting heroin compares to, say, snorting oxy (or even drinking half a bottle of cough syrup with codeine).

All of these drugs are full-agonist opioids whose primary action is at the mu-opioid receptor, meaning that by the time they reach your brain's opioid receptors and activate them, your brain doesn't know or care which chemical flipped the switch to "on."

As you'd expect, the highs that they create are closely related, their differences chiefly a matter of suddenness, duration, and intensity.

Think of shooting heroin as eating the most exquisite filet mignon at a Michelin-starred restaurant, a cut of meat prepared so perfectly that it needs hardly to be cut or chewed. Oxy is a comparable cut of meat at Ruth's Chris Steak House in NYC or Baltimore. Hydrocodone is a New York Strip or a T-bone cooked in the backyard by your Uncle Eddie, who's a whiz on the grill.

And codeine is a quarter-pounder at McDonald's, safe and comforting but bland and unexceptional.

The Metaphorical Approach

Heroin is Christmas morning when you are young and your family is perfect (as far as you can tell). You wake up and rush downstairs, pausing on the landing to appreciate the golden fairy-trails of light spiraling down the Christmas tree in the center of the living room. There is a hearty fire smiling in the hearth, and the lights on the tree seem almost to have drifted up to it from the blaze.

You know that beneath that tree is every present that you could ever have dreamed of (and more), and that outside - beyond the frosty panes - is a world and a future every bit as warm and promising and sparkling as the lights and the fire and the tree.

You also know, even at your young age, that the presents don't matter. Not really. Not at all.

You wedge yourself between Mom and Dad and Gran and your older and younger bro. Everyone that you love is here (the extended family to be arriving shortly!), and there is literally not one thing in this entire world that is missing or that could be added to make this moment better. Your Gran draws you backward into a hug, and the feeling of being safe and loved and encompassed is almost too much to bear.

The Somato-Sensory Take

I pull back the plunger and a mushroom cloud of plum-colored blood swells into the needle, assuring me that I've registered in a vein.

The intrusion of blood feathers out into the golden-brown dope solution in the needle, so that for a moment, before they are totally mixed, the blood-flux resembles the plumage of some magnificent firebird.

I press the plunger down - a subtle motion, a matter of a couple of millimeters, which I've performed not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of times before.

It's a myth that it hits right away. Did you know that?

No one dies with the plunger halfway pressed down.

It takes one heartbeat. Two.

Help is on the way.

With the third heartbeat, a warm wave of promised peace flows up my back and along my neck.

Within two more heartbeats, the feeling daisy-chains around and outward, enveloping my torso, my abdomen, my arms and legs and head (which becomes numb and buoyant, like a staticky balloon).

It is my quantum delight; I am massaged from within.

This feeling is worth dying for, I think for the thousandth time; it is my prayer to whatever sleepy Lords rule the realm of the poppy.

My thoughts are dampened, trance-like. As the waves of warmth cascade up and down my body, they build in intensity until finally, my head droops down and my eyes drift closed.

Giving into this feeling is a blissful surrender, a graceful bow before the Queen.

Forty-five seconds later and I rise up through the warm, amniotic waters. I open my eyes and feel surprisingly alert - indeed, almost stimulated, for a moment.

I think of the straight hockey player who is a year ahead of me in school, on whom I have the most desperate crush, which we both know that I will never be able to tell him about (he is in his fifth year of studying Spanish and still pronounces the "h" in hola).

I imagine myself telling a joke, and in my mind's eye, Jeff rewards me with his wolfish grin. I remember a day when he put his arm around my shoulder and my entire body from the tip of my nose to my toes tingled and for the first time in my memory I couldn't focus and felt like a fool.

Jeff smiles at me, for me again.

I envision what it will be like to write something truly special someday, what it will be like for my Mom and Gran to see me receive this or that award and to read the book's dedication ("To my mom and to her mom, who taught me how to read and how to love").

Now I am the one who smiles as my head drifts downward again, a small stream of drool gathering at the corner of my mouth.

There is no harshness when the feeling passes; it recedes gradually, like a tranquil tide, ebbing away by unnoticeable increments as I drift down into normal sleep in which are buried pearls of truth and beauty.

***

Nate's Description

Heroin feels like that first bear hug you receive from a loved one after a long period of separation.

Heroin feels like the warmest blanket draped heavily over your tired and aching body.

Heroin feels like sitting next to a big fire toasty and unbothered by the chill that surrounds you.

But most of all, heroin allows for the feeling of no feeling at all.

Will's Description

As I reach the vein, I wait to feel that “pop” that tells me I’m in. I check for blood return and see the cloud of rouge flow into my syringe. My entire body gets a flow of feel-good chemicals before I’ve even pushed the heroin. So now I know I’m good to go, and I push off.

Almost as soon as I see the last bit leave the syringe, before I even get the needle all the way out, I start to feel something… At first, it's a light tingle up the back of my neck. I take the tourniquet off my arm, and almost immediately the slow tingle up the back of my neck fully engulfs my head.

The rush of almost electrical bliss washes over my head and makes my eyes flutter and roll into the back of my head for a couple seconds. Your body loses autonomy for a few seconds as the drug takes control. Then comes the rest, the full body wave of orgasmic perfection…My head falls back as my neck "tightens” and then as everything releases my body melts forward, into a hunched-over position. This is called “the rush,” and it is a full-body orgasmic feeling, without the sex. Absolutely AMAZING.

It takes a few seconds to come back to “reality,” but when you do, everything is perfect. The feeling is almost indescribable, only to say again: perfection. Your worries fall away, any physical discomfort fades, and everything seems 100x more enjoyable. I look over and David has just finished pushing off; he is laid back, eyes closed, with the biggest smile on his face. I laugh and reach over and push him as we both float in a realm of absolute bliss.

Words of Warning

On any given day, trying heroin is probably the worst decision that you can possibly make.

It's not shooting yourself in the foot; it's shooting yourself in the face.

For more information on how experiencing states of ultimate pleasure can harm you in the long run, check out "What Is Hell?"