I used drugs virtually every day of my life: cigarettes and booze by ten, pot by thirteen, then psychedelics, cocaine, and pain pills. When my pill sources dried up, I switched over to heroin. In my final year of using, I consumed a fifth of cheap booze, a gram of heroin, and eighty-seven milligrams of methadone a day.
I was thirty-nine when I finally decided I needed some help. Weighing 130 pounds and not having bathed in a week, I stumbled into a drug-treatment referral service. I expected to be placed in a nice detox center with clean sheets and plenty of medication, but I landed in an emergency room, where doctors offered to put me in what they called a “social-model” detox. I asked if I’d get any medications. They said I’d receive “support.” I wanted to know if that was the new green pill I’d heard about.
