Heroin Saved My Life.Story time. Pull up a warm fuzzy blanket and some sour patch kids.Young Tracey was not the Tracey you know today. I was full of insecurity.I had gotten involved in a relationship with a man I barely knew.He swept me off my feet with his constant attention.He was also kinda sort of homeless.He had nothing else to do.He told me he loved me and fucked me ten different ways.He then told me I was fat, stupid, lazy.Kept me alone in the house for days.When that relationship ended, I was just on the border of suicidal. Perhaps you have experienced this type of suicidal. It isn't the post strung out suicidal when you low key wish you would die but maybe this hit will fix me suicidal. It was the type of suicidal when I actively went through the A,B,Cs of killing myself. Alcohol wasn't helping. Alcohol always seemed to amplify the worst parts of my personality. I am *almost* joking when I say a night of drinking would end in either 1. crying in a bathroom somewhere 2. trying to stab my friends 3. a combination of both. When heroin came along, I was beyond depressed. I was frequently contemplating the merits of running my car into a brick wall when those delicious powders came into my life.Heroin probably saved my life. It gave me a purpose. An incredibly dysfunctional one, true, but a purpose. What would have REALLY saved me was some adequate mental health treatment to deal with both my depression and PTSD. These options were not available to me. I found something that seemed to work until the solution became a much larger problem. In dealing with the broader issue of opioid use, it seems like our policy makers are completely out of touch with the fact that drugs play an important role in the daily life of users. Not only do they feel good, they replace what is missing- love, food, security, and at times even health. In any attempt to prevent drug use or discontinue it, we have to be providing some kind of solutions.I eventually got the care I needed many years later. I am proud to say I survived eight years of active heavy drug use. I am not embarrased by it. I get sad around some of the extremely poor choices I made but getting sad can't actually change a mother fucking thing. I have to put in some work around amending my behavior to not go down those roads again.I love you friends.I don't know why you are using.I just want you to be safe.