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Diacetylmorphine is a semi-synthetic opioid drug. It is for the most part used for recreational purposes and frequent use is usually associated with moderate physical and severe psychological dependence and tolerance which continually increases. Diacetylmorphine is the most powerfully addictive drug in the world at the moment and the depressant inhibits the central nervous system , the recovery process may take years.
If you’re an addict to the drug Diacetylmorphine, some of the long term effects and consequences may include clogged blood vessels that in turn can lead to infection of the heart lining and valves, liver - and kidney deceases, pulmonary complications, skin infections and abscesses; especially among chronic injectors who suffer scarred or collapsed veins. Users of the drug have a higher risk of contracting the hepatitis virus and an increased risk of catching human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in addition to other blood-borne viruses.
Harry once wrote a paper on heroin for his Social Sciences class. He got an A.
***
The walls are off white and there are flowered curtains in the window. The colours are light blue, yellow and orange. It’s the kind of curtains that look absolutely hideous when you take a glance at them, but get some charm if you look closer.
Harry has looked for quite a while now.
There’s a plant in the windowsill, it’s small and forest green and the sun gleams at it. It’s oddly pretty, even if it is boring and bland. The golden strips of light fascinate Harry and it feels like years since he experienced some on his own skin.
His concentration slips away and he screams, he screams as loud as he can. His mother jumps in the chair she’s sitting in, her expression timid and tired.
“Baby,” she mumbles and moves closer to him, almost shyly, but Harry can’t concentrate. He’s burning. His skin is literally on fire and he’s so cold. He screams again, but it’s muffled by the pillow he brings up to his face. There’re more sobs and he can blindly feel his mother’s cold hands up and down his back.
He knows he’s drenched with sweat and he’s shaking with sobs and cravings.
“Mum!” He wails, and he doesn’t even care about how pathetic he sounds.
“Make it stop. God. Just– just make it stop, mum. I’m sorry. I’m so– so fucking sorry. Please help me; make it stop.”
He turns around and grasps for her hand and her face is so, so worn. She shushes him and hums a song he doesn’t know, albeit it does sound familiar.
“I love you mum,” he whispers and he squeezes her hand.
“Just help me. I’ll- I’ll be good, I promise. I love you mum. I’ll be good. Just one hit. Please, please.” He almost squeals at the end, because she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand that he needs it. His body is on fucking fire and she doesn’t understand. His body contracts and his mind is screaming at him. He can’t sit still.
“It’s okay H,” his mum soothes him. “It’s just a craving, it’ll go over. It’s a wave. Remember what Dr. O’Leary said?”
He wants to hit her. He wants to hit her and run and do something, because he can’t think straight. Whatever he does he thinks about his last dose, the pure bliss of it, the euphoria.
“I’ll- I can snort it mum? That’s not dangerous. I – will that make you happy?” He looks up at her through misty eyes and she’s stoic even though there are unshed tears in her eyes as well.
“No, it wouldn’t, babe.” Her voice is controlled and sad and she’s still soothing him. He can’t concentrate; it’s a pounding in his ears and he’s stuck in this room, with no way out and nothing to do to take his mind off of it; not even for just one second.
“Why don’t you try to work out a bit?” Anne offers helplessly and Harry doesn’t even know how he’ll manage that, but he can’t sit still; his body is taut as a rope. There’s too much of him and he feels like he’ll combust; like all of his atoms are stretching and thinning and fucking disappearing.
He moves away from her and onto the floor and he does a few push ups. He works at a rapid speed that surprises even himself, but it’s so relieving because the only thing in his mind is one-two-three-four. Harry can almost feel the moment where his body releases the endorphins; his own drug because suddenly the desire, the want is in the back of his mind; not crushing his skull. He almost cries with the relief.
***
Harry was six when he first met Louis. Louis was soft and loud and quite obnoxious. He was insane and mischievous and kind and almost like a god. Louis knew everything, Harry knew because he would often quiz him just to see if it was true. He would sit around the kitchen table with his mum, Louis and Louis’ mum and he would ask him about everything under the sun.
When Harry asked why there were holes in the cheese Louis patiently explained it was so the cheese could breathe and get a nice flavour, when Harry asked why the sky was blue Louis would tell him it was because it was just like the sea; just upside down, when Harry wondered if Spider Man or Superman was the best, Louis would tell him that the day Spider Man got better than Superman he would run down the street butt naked.
“Stop it Lou,” his mum would chide him gently sometimes. “You’re lying so much your nose will start growing soon.”
“It’s not lies!” Harry would say affronted on Louis' behalf.
Louis would only smile smugly. “It’s not my fault I’m all-knowing.”
***
After two days Harry wants to die. He wants to jump out of the window and hit the pavement and die. What’s life anyway? It’s eating and sleeping and working and growing old. It’s exhausting, is what it is.
His entire body is aching and his back and legs are itching. He’s so damn tired, but he can’t sleep. His head hurts all the time because of his crying and he’s so, so worn out.
His mum tries to be cheerful and brings him a book, it ends with him throwing the book at her while screaming and he can still hear her cries from outside, he knows she’s trying to hold them in to spare him and that only fuels his anger more.
He’s so sorry he’s such a fuck up. He can’t even begin to understand how she can even love him, after everything he’s done to her.
He curls into his duvet, even though he’s covered with a sheen layer of sweat. He tries to drown his cries but secretly he almost hopes she can hear him, that he can hurt her as much as she’s hurting him with hers.
***
When Harry’s dad died Harry felt something like panic in his veins. It’s odd having someone with you every day, to have a face memorized so completely; just for it to be gone like that. At first it was okay. It happens, life goes on. He only saw him on the weekends anyway, had since he was seven and his parents divorced. He managed quite well, sometimes he didn’t even miss him. Then. It became an ache, a need. There was a hollow feeling in his body, in his soul and something was just missing.
Suddenly life wasn’t as appealing as it used to be, getting up in the morning was a chore and the days in school were spent counting down until he could get home. He slipped under the covers in his room and he read and watched TV-shows in crappy quality on his computer, listening to Elvis Presley and The Beatles and all the other artists he associated with his father.
It’s horrible wanting something so bad and knowing that you’ll never get it. It isn’t the same as yearning for a job or a lifestyle or wanting to achieve a dream, because you can always dream and hope about those things, there is always a possibility, no matter how small it is. What Harry wanted was not enough and no matter how hard he worked or dreamed he would never get it back.
Harry slept so much the year after his father died, he slept and stayed inside and only saw his friends at school. His attention could never be on something for too long and he was always wired, annoying and loud; it was odd, he used to be so calm and collected, now he got a strange satisfaction by pissing his friends off.
It is a strange realisation discovering there is no purpose of life. One day Harry woke up and he realised that he had nothing to look forward to; he had graduation, a job, buying a house, marrying a girl, getting children and…die. It seemed like such a waste and he couldn’t believe that was all.
He couldn’t understand that was all there was to it. He felt so empty sometimes and he didn’t even have anything to look forward to. Sometimes his mum would smile and say “Do you remember?” and Harry wouldn’t even feel the rage like he would before, only a slight irritation at her tears. He had forgotten most of his childhood memories and he couldn’t help but think that that’s the reason a child should never lose a parent, not because of all the things they’ll miss, but because of all the things that they had and that somehow doesn’t matter anymore. Harry doesn’t even remember his dad properly and he can’t help but think how sad and disappointed Des would be if he knew that.
One day school wasn’t dragging him out of bed anymore, he just continued to sleep; again and again. The odd day he was there he looked out of the window whilst his teacher told him that she understood, that she’d give him some extra time on the project, silently thinking it’s been nearly two years, move on. And he didn’t even think of his dad that much anymore, sometimes it could go days before he even remembered that he used to be there, that there used to be a callous hand holding his when they walked over the street, that there used to be a lap to sit on when practiced fingers played the guitar.
Sometimes it’s frustrating not feeling anything. It was frustrating seeing his mum twist her mind trying to get an honest and gleeful smile out of him, to see her desperation and sadness because whatever she did it wasn’t good enough. Harry didn’t feel. He was hardly angry, rarely sad, seldom truly happy. He was numb. He was hollow and numb and sometimes something was lacking in his life. Harry used to cry all the time, they all teased him and called him a cry baby, now his mum whispered why don’t you feel anything to him when it was dark and he couldn’t see her features, like that would make her disappointment less obvious. Harry only cried when he had bubbled it all so much up that he screamed that he couldn’t feel. That no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t be happy or sad in anything but fleeting moments. He was so scared and she held him and shushed him and told him they were getting help, that everything would be okay.
***
When Harry realises what has happened he starts crying; big, fat tears. His nose is running chronically and he shakes when he walks unsteadily over to the attached bathroom from his assigned room. He peels off his clothes trying not to make it messier than it already is.
His thighs are wet and uncomfortable and he leaves the clothes on the floor, hopping in the shower. He closes his eyes hard as he takes the shower head and rinses himself off, feeling slightly cleaner after the excrement is washed off of his body. He tries to be quick, the stomach cramps hadn’t stopped even as he (unintentionally) relieved himself and the diarrhoea is only worsening, it feels like he’s getting stabbed from the inside.
After he’s cleaned himself up he gets out of the shower, finds a towel and dries himself off with clinical movements. He puts on loose jogger bottoms and a baggy t-shirt before calling the nurse and asking for a plastic bag. He’s ashamed and he’s blushing furiously but she only smiles and says she’s got it, shooing him off to his bed so he can rest in peace. He almost stumbles over the empty bucket by his bedside, thanking God he hasn’t thrown up for some hours now. He’s tired and achy and he hasn’t eaten properly in days, tired of everything coming back up. He looks at the banana and the yoghurt by his bedside table, but takes the bottle filled with water instead, swallowing his Pepto-Bismol with it and drinking until it’s almost empty. This, he thinks sadly as he yawns widely, is by far his lowest point.
***
When Harry and Louis kissed for the first time they were thirteen. Harry’s pulse was thumping and his heart was beating loudly. His mouth was dry and his movements were slow. It was romantic, nerve wrecking and quiet and it was almost okay when Louis whispered “our little secret, yeah?”
It’s not okay. It’s not okay not feeling content in your own body. It’s not okay hearing others make crude jokes, it’s not okay watching Louis laugh at them with ease. It’s not okay when his mother says she’s so happy Harry isn’t like that, that he doesn’t deserve those troubles with everything else he’s got. Harry wants to tell her not to assume things are the way she thinks they are, just because he hasn’t said anything yet.
It’s not okay loving someone so much, being in love with someone, just for it to be hidden away, only acceptable behind closed doors.
“You know my parents, Haz,” Louis sometimes shrugged. “Why do you always have to turn every problem into a discussion about social justice?” Harry apologized slowly and they both knew he didn’t mean it. Louis let it slide anyway.
One Monday Niall Horan came into school with black eyes and crutches. Harry’s throat constricted and he tried to get Louis' attention to no avail.
He wanted to ask if Niall was okay the entire day but Louis snatched his arm when he was just about to walk to his locker.
“Maybe you should stay a bit away from him?” he suggested quietly. “I don’t ever want you to come to school looking like that, not because of us. Please Haz?”
Harry nodded with tears in his eyes and he turned toward his own locker. Louis left and Harry sent Niall a text instead, telling him he was sorry.
He was – is - so fucking sorry. For Niall was brave. And Harry is a coward and still it’s Niall that gets beaten up, still it’s him who has to be afraid every time he hits an alley or people look at him just a tad too long.
***
The problem with insomnia, Harry soon discovers, is that the less you’re able to sleep the more difficult it gets to finally do so.
Harry is living in a fever haze, sweat pools gather in his armpits, at the back of his kneecaps and in the jut of his collarbones; he can’t stomach any food and his body tries to get rid of every little bite he does try to swallow. He’s agitated and in pain, his body is achy and his joints are sore. He has cramps and his mood swings exhaust him so much he sometimes just cries out of fatigue.
And he can’t even close his eyes for just one second to get away from it all.
***
It happened in the most dramatic way possible. They were in the locker room, the only two left, grinding and kissing up against the wall when a couple of the guys on the football team came back in. They didn’t notice them until it was too late and Harry honestly still can’t tell who were more shocked, them or Louis or him.
“Get the fuck out of here, faggots” one of them snarled and Louis tugged him by his wrist. He let go as soon as is was clear Harry was going to follow though, and Harry remembers he wanted to laugh at the bitter rejection and the look of pure terror that was frozen on Louis' face.
The next day everyone looked at them and it was probably the most juicy thing that had happened at the school since the pregnancy scare of Danielle Peazer in ’11. Harry wanted to be sick.
Louis tried. He’ll give him that. He tried for nearly a week before he patted Harry’s bed one Tuesday afternoon and took his hand.
“It’s not forever, Harry,” he promised. “Just until we get out of this village, yeah? Just ‘till we’ve finished school.” Harry nods stiffly and Louis looks so guilty.
“We’ll go to London. Or Manchester, to the cities where no one cares and we’ll try again, yeah? I swear.”
Harry guessed he should have seen it coming. He should have seen that Louis would do that to him. He’d always been so scared of telling the world he loved Harry, he’d always been so ashamed of him. Louis had always made up fantasies, he never quite learned to stop dreaming so big, he always told magnificent lies because the truth bored him. Maybe Louis didn’t know it yet, because he didn’t want to, but this was another one of his grand lies.
Harry heard the truth loud and clear. You’re not worth it. Not now.
Harry met Zayn Malik the next day.
***
The thing about depression is that you can’t remember how it used to be. You can’t remember a time before you felt the way you now do. Being sad and miserable and nothing, it morphs into your identity. It becomes who you are and it’s like the way you were before and the way you are now are two strings that are braided together and as time goes on they grow and become jointed and you can’t tell them apart. They’re merged. You don’t know how much of the depression is the depression and how much of it is you. You have no idea and suddenly the idea of getting better, getting well, terrifies you. For what if, after you’ve taken your medication and talked to your psychiatrist you’re all peachy and happy and it’s not really you. Because the real you disappeared somewhere between the delicate hairs of the string illness.
***
Zayn was. Something else. He took Harry in with open arms.
The next day was awkward and Zayn watched as Harry hesitantly walked towards Louis only to be sent a harsh look back. Harry halted his movements and Zayn walked up to him.
“Everything okay?” He asked throwing his cigarette butt on the ground. Harry nodded clipped and Zayn gave a sympathetic sound.
“You don’t really have a lot of friends, do you.” Harry’s mouth turned dry and he was surprised at how much the statement threw him off, it made his throat feel sick.
He laughed bitterly. “My friends and I are not really on speaking terms at the moment. And the few decent friends I did have, I pushed away.” He shrugged and Zayn smiled. It wasn’t condescending and Harry gave a small but genuine smile back.
He wasn’t really welcomed back to his old group of friends and he never quite understood how he became the queer kid who made a pass at Louis Tomlinson and in return got turned down. Some people looked at him like he’d got a disease, others just plain ignored him, Louis pretended it never happened. No one really did anything obviously malicious but Harry was down in a spiral and he couldn’t get up. He was too ashamed to go back to Niall and his boyfriend Liam and more often than not he sat on a table eating his lunch with kids he didn’t even know, feeling unwanted warranted or not.
It was relieving when Zayn asked him if he’d like to go to a party. It was relieving when Zayn later that evening told him that not everybody was as judgemental as the people in school. It was relieving when Zayn said there were people who cared about him. It was relieving when he escaped in the alcohol and it was very, very relieving when he was handed a joint and he smoked it sitting next to Zayn and his friends, letting the sensation sweep over his body, taking him far away from it all.
***
Louis visits after almost two weeks. Nearly all of the withdrawal symptoms are gone and Harry is surprised when he sees the familiar shape and hair. They’re both quiet and Louis is red rimmed around the eyes.
“I’m sorry,” his voice is timid and harry feels shame and embarrassment roll around in his stomach.
“For what?” he asks carefully suave. “S’not like it’s your fault, is it? That I’m so weak.”
Louis doesn’t answer. He moves closer to bed, as slow as a snail and bores his eyes into Harry’s.
“I am never going to forgive myself for this, but I’m going to work damn hard to make you do it for me, okay?”
They’re silent and harry nods, there isn’t a lot more he can do, because Louis broke him and made his last year a living hell, not even talking to him if it wasn’t for snarling at him in the hallway or telling him to get the fuck away from scum like Zayn and Nick or a few drunken ‘sorry’ texts every other month.
“I’m ‘gonna help you every step of the way. Rough nights, long days, whatever; I’ll be there. Just us and London, right?”
Louis looks nervous and hopeful and that sounds really, bloody nice if Harry’s perfectly honest.
***
Harry was high on the experience the whole next week. For a few lousy hours he forgot all about his dad, his mum, Louis, the school, himself. He felt like maybe he wasn’t this shitty excuse of a life that he thought he was, that he could try harder and Louis would love him, that he could try harder and his mum wouldn’t be sad, that he could try harder and his dad wouldn’t– well, he didn’t really think about his dad.
When he changed crowds people started to be on his back, always telling him what a horrible influence Zayn was; how he hung with the wrong crowd and how he was a useless boy who threw his life away, Harry wouldn’t want to be like that would he?
At the same time Zayn laid on his bed, his upper body almost on the floor and smoking a joint filled with lovely marihuana, telling Harry that whatever he did it wasn’t good enough. That everyone judged him, judged his family, his choices, his past.
The truth was: no one understood. For the first time Harry was with friends who treated him like he was worth it. They respected him and cared about him. They hung out together and helped each other out. He didn’t have to tell them how suffocated he was, because they already knew.
When they snorted cocaine for the first time the euphoria was intense, the pleasure curled around Harry’s entire body, he felt like he could accomplish everything. He was magnificent. He was so energetic and he was the centre of attention, not afraid of saying something wrong, to mess up the delicate world Louis had made for the two of them. He was so full of energy he thought he might explode and his self confidence rose to the air and it was so fucking good. Finally being able to feel something, something that wasn’t crap or apathy.
The pills. They were different. When a random girl licked in his mouth and left a small pill Harry knew he shouldn’t. He knew. Unfortunately that was also the same day as an argument back home and a few hours after a drunken text of ‘ur still special’ and so what.
His pupils dilated and his heart rate increased, his mood swung so rapidly back and forth he couldn’t make sense of it, his body tremored. Later he hallucinated and he swears to God he saw his father, it disappeared quickly in pretty colours and sounds though and he forgot all about it until the next day. He found Zayn and gave his cheek a sloppy kiss, said: “you saved my life.”
***
After Harry’s eaten his dinner (a vegetable soup since his stomach is still far too uneasy for his liking) Caroline, his nurse comes in with a small plastic glass with a pill. This is Harry’s favourite part of the day, not because he thinks all of his withdrawal symptoms magically disappear once the pill hits his stomach; but because the illusion that it will, makes it seem like it happens all that much faster.
Caroline hands him the glass with the round, white pill and swaps it with his tray. Harry gives her a smile out of gratitude and tilts the glass so the small pill lands in his open palm. He picks it up with his index finger and thumb and places it under his tongue, he lays down on his bed while he waits for the Buprenorphine Suboxone® to dissolve.
Caroline smiles in approval and leaves him and Harry is hit with a sudden nostalgia and he almost can’t process that this has become his life. This, this half-life.
He swears to himself and to the God he hasn’t believed in for a long, long time (and he hopes he listens too)that if he could take it all back, that if he could erase all of his choices the last year, he would. He swears on everyone he loves and everyone he’s hurt, including himself; he swears on the maybe, possibly bright future he’s been promised that, holy God if he could, he would. In a heartbeat.
***
( Harry is gone. He’s drunk and high and in a dirty room that belongs to Nick. Zayn is lying next to him and he is more out of it than any of the others. There are both girls and boys scattered around the room; some awake, some asleep. Nick fiddles with a spoon and a lighter and Harry cranes his neck to get a better look.
“What is that?” He asks giggling, curious and wanting more, always more. Nick gives him a lopsided grin and Zayn laughs, it’s husky and it sounds like someone’s cut his throat with barbed wire but it still makes Harry laugh happily back at him.
“Here, let me show you,” Nick offers, he now has a ball of cotton in his hands and he drops it into the liquid filled spoon and Harry scoots forward, now even more curious, nothing can bring him down, not today.
“What is it?” He asks again as Nick puts the syringe tip in the cotton and pulls the plunger back, letting the liquid get sucked into it. Zayn frowns slightly and it almost seems like he wants to crawl over to them, put a stop to whatever is going on, but in the end he only groans and falls over, too high to manage.
“Diacetylmorphine,” Nick says with a wink as he taps a few fingers on Harry’s veins near the bend of his arm. Harry lets him happily but can’t help but crease his eyebrows, because that name sounds familiar, like something from an entire different life time ago.
Nick must see his confusion because he snorts a laugh at Harry’s face while adjusting his grip on the syringe.
“What’s that?” Harry asks, giving up; he can barely remember his own name, let alone something as complicated as that. He’s too confused and too dizzy, too great.
Nick lets the needle tip break Harry’s skin and pushes the plunge slowly down until all of the liquid is injected by Harry’s body.
Nick smiles again, this time more wistfully and it almost sounds like he’s in love.
Nick sighs and his voice is soft, he breathes it out like a lover:
“Heroin.”)