so, you can browse my comment history [0] for more detail, but here's the gist:

- heroin addict for ~20 years, smoking and iv injecting, plus crack cocaine

- senior software engineer at startup, contributing to open source and speaking at conferences and meetups

- now trying to quit, using methadone replacement provided by uk national health service

my work situation helped by very supportive boss who knows about my problem, and encouraged me to take steps to fix it when he saw my work was suffering (time management for things other than 'obtaining heroin' often suffers as a heroin addict) but not told anyone else.

there was a bad situation at a previous job where i had good health insurance that enabled me to enter a private rapid detox program (then naltrexone implants to stop opiates having any effect for the next six months, plus CBT/counselling) but then my immediate manager got me fired essentially for completely arbitrary and made up reasons, but i was unable to do anything about that due to not wanting anyone else to know i was an addict.

various interesting things happened to me while travelling to conferences or remote customer offices, often in other countries. it's actually fairly easy to buy heroin on the street anywhere in the world, it turns out, even without speaking the language.

if you'd like more information, feel free to ask me anything and i'll try and reply if i can.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tmp-20150107

thanks, I'd like to email you to the address in your profile, ok?

no problem...

This is odd to me - how would a four year old develop a fear of needles? At worst they're an instantaneous sharp pain that lasts milliseconds, most of the time they aren't even felt...

Heh, heroin does cost about that much, same for methadone, at least in the UK. I can get 100ml of 1mg/ml methadone for GBP 10 which will keep me stable for a day or two; a GBP 10 (i.e. 'tenner bag' or 0.2g) of heroin is enough for a single IV shot for many users. Of course, depending on your tolerance, that may well not be enough, but my point is that 'legal' heroin would probably be much cheaper than current 'street' prices. I'm not sure how cannabis prices have varied in places where it's legal in the US, though - do taxes bring the price back to parity with the old 'street' level? I'm guessing it's going to be complicated by the fact that it's still illegal in other states?

The point of medical heroin, or other harm reduction programs, is to allow people to get on with their actual life without the all consuming addiction being front and centre all the time. I'm currently on a methadone program in the UK (there aren't any heroin based programmes as far as I know here) and it lets me keep up my job as a software engineer without daily worries about having to make sure I can score and not be 'sick' (i.e. withdrawing) and unable to work or go to the office. A heroin prescription would accomplish the same thing for me, and for people in a worse situation - perhaps unemployed or homeless - it would mean even more, since they could devote their energy to rebuilding their life.

Personally, I don't really need a safe injecting space - I own my own home and have a pretty stable lifestyle, but again, I can see how for other addicts it would be incredibly helpful. Again and again, as seen in other comments, it can be seen how despite objections these places provide an objective positive benefit to society.

I'm curious to hear about your program. Is the goal to get you clean? Slowly wean you off heroin?

Heroin addiction is 90% looking for or doing something to get more. It’s an incredible time sink. It’s impossible to have a meaningful life like that.

What medically administered heroin does is allow people to get that time back so they can rebuild their lives. Once they see that things are better, they become more successful when finally coming off of it. Even if it takes forever, they are still productive members or society instead of a drain.

Like 'skellera says in the sibling comment, heroin is an incredible time-sink. The methadone programme I am on (provided free by the UK NHS) is something that will let me gradually reduce the amount of heroin I'm taking, and eventually yes, get clean. After a couple on months in, I'm down to ~25% of what I was taking daily before, and that should reduce further to zero over time.

A methadone maintenance program will gradually increase the amount of methadone prescribed, while the user reduces the amount of heroin they take, until the user is 'stable' and no longer using heroin. After that I certainly would like to then stop taking methadone too, but in some cases the maintenance can continue indefinitely and it would still be considered a net positive outcome...

Indeed, it's entirely possible for people to take heroin at the weekends or similar, and put it down without problems, and I know several friends who do it irregularly without getting addicted - although only smoking, I've never heard of anyone injecting IV heroin who wasn't an addict...

Injections are apparently much more potent than smoking, so it makes sense that people already addicted prefer that to keep the required amount lower. For recreational uses, smoking would just be much more practical.

Indeed. The bio-availability from 'chasing the dragon' on tin-foil is something like 50% or even less, although in the UK at least powdered heroin is adulterated with things like caffeine (which causes heroin to vaporize at a lower temperature) to make smoking more effective. Obviously IV injecting gives 100% bio-availability, though.

I’d like to take the opportunity and thank you for posting here. It’s hard enough to find reports of people that are going through a withdrawal, so being able to engage in a discussion is a rare opportunity. I wish you all the best in that process.

Interesting. This is very similar to my story, I use heroin for much the same reasons as you describe, but I've only started on the recovery phase. Now I'm a little worried about what might happen once I finally move onto methadone for good ;(

> list of New Year’s resolutions [from 2014] and in red marker, the word “quit.”

This is so true. Most addicts actually DO want to stop, but it's fucking hard. And trying to explain to an employer "Hi, I'd like a month off, so I can start quitting heroin. Oh, and when I get back to work after that, I'll be unpredictably angry and depressed, with an uncontrollable sleep cycle..." I have notebooks with TODO lists going back a decade plus with the words "Quit Heroin" somewhere near the top, and I'm still trying. I don't know how to get employers to be sympathetic towards what is, after all, just another (mental) health issue - well, maybe that answers my question ;(

I'd be interested in how many software engineers have drug addiction problems, I don't know how common it is. And there should really be some kind of self-help group for us to discuss issues and provide support for each other, since most addiction support networks assume you are homeless and unemployed, and focus on providing that basic structure and stability to their lives. As an employed engineer, I have that, it's the next steps I need help with.

You might be surprised. I've been sober almost seven years now, and the fact that I still had a job kept me suffering for a hell of lot longer than necessary. You can be "high functioning" and still be pretty damn miserable.

The number of people I met in the rooms who were also high functioning when they stoppedbelied my assumptions completely. There's an old saying "the bottom of the hole is the point you stopped digging".

I don't know your circumstances, but most large employers at least pay lip service to having substance policies in place explicitly to encourage employees to come forward and get help. It's worth looking into.

If you think "irritable for a month" is a disqualifier, what about being high at work? Or sick? Or some combination of the both -- forever. You're addicted now, you don't come with a good default state. I know which, as employer, I'd pick. As much as I thought I was holding it together, when I look at old pictures of myself, or the days missed because I was too sick, or simply talk to friends I worked with and have them tell me stories about me, my temper, how erratic I was...

I wasn't getting away with nearly as much as I thought, and what I thought of as "high functioning" was a a lot more "barely squeaking by". Seems like the subject of the article had a lot of his own "barely squeaking by", too -- the conflicts about him "working from home", etc..

Quitting may be hard, but it was a hell of a lot less hard than what I put myself through for so many years.

There's a reason why so many alcoholics and addicts being unemployed and homeless, it's goddamn hard to live up to any other responsibilities when you're carrying such a heavy load.

Odds are if you're good enough to succeed as a software engineer despite your addiction then what you'll be able to do when you're freed from having to feed that monster will be pretty extraordinary.

I can only speak from personal experience, but man, it's worth it.

Separately, as a software engineer, it might be easier than for others. . Even if your employer isn't helpful, finding a new gig as a software engineer is a lot easier than many other fields. As an employer, I'd not even think to ask about see a month or two gap in a resume. I've happily overlooked much, much larger for a good candidate. Other professions have much different expectations.

I'm pretty sure the "quit" was in reference to his job...

Not how the article was written. The job was seen as hard but good.

This is one of the things I'm frightened of. I'm a successful software engineer, you've probably heard me speak at various conferences, I contribute to popular open source projects, but ... I have a twenty-year heroin habit. So, any minor interaction with law enforcement has the potential to spiral into a drug related cluster fuck, just as happened in your case. I'm fortunate that my employer is aware of my situation, and I'm working my way towards being clean long-term, but if I was in the US I think my situation would be far more precarious. I wish you luck getting yourself back together, and you have my utmost respect and congratulations for kicking the heroin cold turkey - nobody who has not been there themselves can ever properly realise what an achievement that is - keep up the good work, I know it will be a struggle every day from now on. I hope you get the rest of the help you need.

So you're suggesting that anyone who is addicted to heroin should be jailed, as long as the prison system is trying to rehabilitate them from this alleged 'anti-social behaviour'? Surely a better system is to treat the addicts symptoms with programs that provide methadone or buprenorphine replacement and management, and also provide therapy or counselling as required.

Sounds about right. As a heroin addict, I have seen people who are completely clean relapse after maybe three days of taking it daily again, and I have even noticed signs of withdrawal in people who have only taken the drug a couple of times, but on consecutive days. In general, it is the repeated consumption without giving your body time to return to its baseline state (which can take up to three days, depending on the drug and its half-life) that causes the physical addiction - all the scare stories about 'one hit and you're addicted' are just that; stories.

For anyone needing opiates as pain medication, I would suggest taking them only in response to acute pain, not as a regular dose, although this may not be possible for chronic sufferers. It's a difficult situation, the best painkillers are horribly addictive and socially stigmatized.