(As told to Katie Roberts. Names have been changed to protect patient confidentiality.)
I started dabbling in drugs when I was 15 or 16. I was drinking a lot and smoking marijuana.
Then I met my boyfriend when I was 18. He was taking pills and influenced me to take them, too. The pills made me sick, but because my boyfriend was taking them, I continued. Pretty soon I got dependent on them.
As the years went on, my addiction got worse and worse. From the ages of 18 through 25, I was taking pills. And then when I was 25, it became much harder to get my hands on them. The next best thing was cheaper and gave me a better high: heroin.
I started snorting heroin in July, 2012, and then injecting it in November of that same year. Things got bad really fast.
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