METHADONE
Steve
Steve’s father was abusive to him and he became homeless as a teen. He was able to get into a halfway house to avoid living on the street. The first time he did heroin was with some friends who were older. Steve has a son who is 23 years old. He told me with joy on his face that his son bought a house in Vermont. When I asked him if his son knew where he was, he fought back tears and asked me if we could talk about something else. I asked Steve what is the largest problem with Methadone Mile? He told me it was being robbed by other addicts.
PJ
Heroin used to help PJ with his depression and mental health Issues. When I met PJ his cousin was with him. His cousin was eager to tell me he was visiting PJ to check up on him and that he was not a user himself. Once PJ’s cousin walked away PJ said his cousin used just like he did. PJ doesn’t think there is a point in lying about using, because no matter what you’re going to hurt the people that love you. PJ has two daughers, 11 and 3. He has not seen either one of them in a while. PJ told me that everyone on Methadone Mile is being used. People don’t care if they live or die. Addicts are pawns for making money.
Dustin & Matty
Dustin was in a car accident, his doctor prescribed him opiods and he became addicted. Once the doctor stopped prescribing, he began sniffing heroin. Dustin was full of anger as he told me that the biggest drug dealers are the doctors and big pharma. I asked about his family, he had a wife, he paused swallowing heavily to fight back tears and said he had a restraining order on him because of the things he has done. Only one of his three kids still talks to him. “I am a slave to the needle, I have hurt, stole, broke and destroyed everything around”. He could not fight back the tears, he just let it out and Matty put his arm around him. We took a break, just sitting in silence listening to the noise of the street and chatter of others around us. I then asked Matty, what is your experience interacting with people who were not homeless or addicted to drugs? He said, “they dont understand at all and that most people look at us as less then human, but something that they dont know is this could happened to any mother fucker it is so simple and easy to get hooked to this shit”.
John
John hurt himself on a dirt bike, was prescribed oxycodone and then got hooked like many of the other stories I have heard. He started using heroin when they stopped filling his prescription. I was with him and his girlfriend and he told me “I am so in love with this woman”. John is a roofer and works when the weather gets warm. He has plans to start work again and get them a nice place to live, because he wants to get off of Atkinson Street. He ask me if i would like to photograph him shooting up. I was a little hesitent, and he said “if you want people to really understand what this is all about you have to show them”. We sat on the sidewalk and he explained to me how you shoot up and how you find the vein. After sitting there with him for through the process, I witnessed the change in his behavior, as more and more heroin was entring his vein he doze off, and was have trouble forming sentence. After a couple of minutes he just became silent. The last thing I told him “I hope I never see you again down here in these circumstance, he smiled and said, “I hope so too”
The images and the text do not correlate with one another. The images are not the same people that are speaking within the text. For confidentiality reasons some of the names are nom de plume.