There is a stigma that surrounds heroin addicts. I wish that there wasn’t.

I did heroin.

Yes, I did it, a few times. And I stopped. I was able to.

I did heroin before my twin even touched heroin. And guess what? She became addicted and I didn’t. She died and I survived. Why is that? I don’t really know. But no one wakes up one day and decides, “I’m going to completely destroy my life and become addicted to heroin.” I know I didn’t and I know she didn’t. All I know is that we did make the decision to get high. But we were so lost. And I know that’s not an excuse but sometimes when you’re young; you think there’s no way out. No way out of your turbulent past, no way out of the abuse, no way out of the mental or even physical pain, and you decide to numb yourself. And you feel good. But it turns dark real fast. We can’t help the lost youth; if we continue to shun them and tell them they should die when all they’re trying to do is recover. I am tired of it. I am sick of hearing “Well she was a junkie, it was her choice.” No, it stopped being her choice. And we need to begin to understand that. How is anyone supposed to recover when the world is against them?

While I was clearing out our room, I found a paper in our closet that my twin sister wrote. In her paper, she confessed, “I used to do drugs to forget everything bad, but at the same time I forgot everything good…I know now that all I needed was support…now when I look up, all I see is hope.”

Let’s support our lost youth in getting their lives back. Let’s put an end to this heroin epidemic that is wiping out our generation. We can, I know that we can.