The glassine heroin bags in Graham MacIndoe’s photos have been emptied of their poison, removed from their context and illuminated in a professional’s studio, but they remain powerfully haunting. They become even more so when you learn MacIndoe shot all the junk those bags once contained.

MacIndoe’s been clean about four years. But he's kept those bags because, even in the depths of his addiction, he saw something compelling about their names and logos. Even drug dealers understand the power of branding, and these crude efforts at it summarize the drug world MacIndoe inhabited for five years. “The promises that some of the baggies offered was just really intriguing,” he says. “References in the names reflected the addict’s illusions of grandeur (So Amazing, Rolex, High Life) but also the insidious destructive nature of drugs and the ultimate end game (Flatliner, Dead Medicine, Killa).”

The collection, featured in the book All In: Buying Into The Drug Trade, is a typology of misery. MacIndoe says the dark, occasionally comic branding epitomize black-market entrepreneurship and risk. Names like ‘9 Lives’ and ‘Black Jack’ are a sick nod to the risks inherent in a daily heroin habit.

These bags contained the smack MacIndoe bought from drug dealers in the Gowanus and Red Hook neighborhoods of Brooklyn during an addiction that started in 2005. Some of the brands were available citywide. Others were brought to Brooklyn by dealers from the Bronx, Queens, and beyond as they sought to expand their markets. Many dealers would offer free samples to build brand awareness. “Inevitably, it would be really good and would knock the pants off the regular stuff,” MacIndoe says. “Being an addict you’d move over to it, but sooner or later, though not always, you’d find it was not as strong, and wouldn’t hold you as long.”

In time, the dealers would begin cutting the product to increase their margins. Addicts would need ever more to maintain the same high, further boosting dealers' revenues. “But when people drifted off to another brand the dealer would stop cutting and put something better out on the street to bring their clients back.” And so the cycle continued.

Beyond collecting the glassine bags, MacIndoe made self-portraits chronicling his own descent. I first saw them in early 2012, and MacIndoe and I have since become friends. New York magazine published a collection of MacIndoe's photos alongside an interview by Susan Stellin—his domestic partner and professional collaborator—in which he frankly discusses the highs and lows of five years lost to addiction.

MacIndoe, who is from Scotland, earned a good living as a photographer before becoming an addict. His work combined vast technical know-how with an intense work ethic and was widely published. MacIndoe says he’s still unsure just how drugs crept in. It was a slow fall, one known to most addicts. The drugs got harder, their use more frequent. He started lying, denying and pushing people away. Then he lost the house, wound up in public housing and then in jail. He did four months at Rikers Island, where he refused methadone and went cold turkey. As a non-resident, MacIndoe was passed off to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), shipped to York County Prison in Pennsylvania, and faced deportation. Eventually, many of the charges against him were dropped and he was allowed to stay in the US if he sought treatment while serving his sentence. The program helped him kick his habit and understand his addiction.

“It completely changed my way of thinking and ultimately laid the groundwork for my recovery,” MacIndoe says. “Detox will get the drugs out your system but it doesn’t change the addict in you. That takes a lot of work. It took me a long time to work that out.”

Today, MacIndoe teaches at Parsons New School of Design and has won grants for his work. He’s working on several projects, including a long-term series about how new immigration laws and the threat of deportation impacts families.

All In is a pretty little book that chronicles an ugly topic, and it is neatly packaged and smartly branded — just like the heroin MacIndoe consumed. That irony isn't lost on him.

“Addicts are just as much part of the consumer culture swayed by branding and product placement as those who buy iPhones, gym membership or the latest Lycra whatever,” says MacIndoe. “But heroin is the ultimate product because you really have to come back again and again.”

UPDATE: 09/08/14 12:55PM ET: This post was updated to clarify where MacIndoe was incarcerated and treated.