How a Friend's Overdose Changed My Life

I typed the title of this article and my fingers froze over the keyboard before I could type the first word of text. A cramp is forming at the base of my neck and my stomach feels a little unsettled. I'm revisiting a memory I tried like hell to avoid these past two years. I'm about to tell the universe that is Associated Content how a friend's overdose changed my life.

I'll call him Craig, though that's not his real name. And I'll begin by telling you that Craig is dead; he's been dead these past two years. He died in my apartment, in my living room, on my sofa. In front of my television, watching on mute my Trainspotting DVD, listening to my Alice in Chains CD on my Sony stereo. Drinking my beer from my favorite stein. The last thing he ever heard was my voice.

I don't remember what I said.

The only thing that wasn't mine was the heroin. That was his. He sniffed it, thought it was safer that way.

It was a chilly Thursday night near the end of the year, and I had spent the early evening at a local watering hole getting myself good and drunk, because that's what I did back in those days. I usually left my office in downtown Manhattan right around Happy Hour and drank my way home. There were a good fifty bars between my office and my apartment, and I knew them all as well as I did my clients and case files. Maybe even a bit better.

I lived a fast life. I made good money and I spent it twice as fast. I drank, I did the things that often accompany hard drinking. I woke up sick most mornings but I was usually fine by the afternoon. I traveled to Europe, Mexico, and anywhere else I wanted to party. I made friends, I dropped friends. It didn't matter. People weren't really important. People couldn't get me drunk, get me high.

I thought I was living the life of a rock star even though I'd never even held a guitar.

And then came that night. I called Craig around ten, asked him to meet me at my apartment. I'd had enough of the bars that evening, and I simply wanted to kick back with a few beers but I didn't want to do it by myself. So, Craig came over and he brought with him his little plastic bag.

I don't remember much.