Myths About Heroin Addiction Distort Its Severity

People from all walks of life can fall victim to heroin addiction, regardless of their income or social status. No matter how or why you fell into heroin addiction, don’t view yourself as a lesser person, as this frame of mind will only prevent you from taking the positive steps toward treatment.

Janice, a former model, explains her struggles with heroin abuse and its ability to take control of any person’s life.

I was a high-profile model and intravenous heroin addict. I copped on the street. Heroin doesn’t discriminate. It is unbearably wonderful for suppressing pain and generating a false sense of well-being. I loved heroin. Addicts who say “I hate heroin” are lying to themselves. We wouldn’t stick needles in our arms daily if we didn’t love the way it made us feel. But when it wears off, you’re in a hole so big it’s impossible to climb out. No one sets out to be a heroin addict. It’s not a lifestyle choice.

Heroin use has increased across the United States among men and women of all income levels. Interestingly, it has evolved from a primarily inner-city problem among minority groups into one that affects more affluent, white areas. A recent study sheds light on this change, revealing a shift in the demographics of heroin users toward suburban white men and women. The reason for this shift lies in prescription drug abuse: although prescription pills are still the drug of choice when it comes to opioids, heroin is much cheaper and thus becomes an ideal alternative. In addition, the study highlights the fact that the majority of the heroin-using population—approximately 50 to 52 percent—is made up of Caucasian women. Ultimately, heroin addiction is much more than a problem that simply affects poorer communities, and continuing to feed into this myth does nothing but disservice to the many different kinds of people who are caught in the grip of heroin addiction.

Heroin addiction, and addiction in general, is a gradual, complex process, and the myth that it is something that can happen after just one hit undermines its complexity. Many people can do heroin for years and never become addicted, while others can fall from casual use into addiction in a matter of weeks. The physical and psychological addiction of heroin takes time and can happen without you even realizing it until it’s too late. It takes repeated exposures to heroin to create the lasting changes in the brain that underlie the disease of addiction. These changes take place primarily in regions of the brain that govern the processes of reward, motivation, pleasure, and self-control and center around dopamine, one of the major neurotransmitters in the brain that is connected to activity in these regions. The first time you use heroin, your brain is flooded with dopamine, creating the feelings of pleasure that constitute the high. However, with repeated uses, dopamine levels diminish and it takes more and more of the drug to get high, heightening the reward threshold and altering the way that heroin users feel and react when using the drug. It is after these repeated uses and the subsequent changes in the brain that addiction takes hold.

Heroin users are commonly portrayed as injecting the drug in movies and television shows. The problem with this stereotype is that after becoming so familiarized with injection through repeated media exposure, many people become ignorant to the fact that there are other methods of using heroin that can just as easily lead to addiction. Injection is a popular way to use heroin for addicts due to the fact that it provides the most intense heroin high, with the peak experienced mere seconds after injection. However, whether you’re injecting, snorting, or smoking, the end result is heroin making its way into your brain, being converted into morphine, and activating your opioid receptors. After consistent use over time, this activation, no matter where it came from, can still lead to addiction.

The association between needles and serious levels of drug use is one that seems to downplay the severity of other forms of use such as smoking and snorting, and heroin is no different. No matter what way heroin is used, it is just as dangerous and addictive. The only risk that is exclusive to injection is the risk of transmitting diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, but this risk is purely circumstantial and has nothing to do with the dangers of heroin as a drug. Furthermore, smoking and snorting pose their own unique dangers including asthma attacks, breathing problems, and nasal passage irritation.