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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Philippa Perry

Should I worry about my recreational heroin use?

A drug syringe and a spoon with cooked heroinDrug syringe and cooked heroin on spoon
‘Your life, your heroin use, is not happening to someone else, it is happening to you.’ Photograph: Getty Images

The question I’m a woman in my late 50s. In my teens, like many others in the 1980s, I took a great many drugs – among them heroin. I never really became addicted. Unfortunately, I once overdosed. This scared me and with the help of methadone I finished with smack. I then became pregnant and had several children, so it seemed like a door closed.

However, every few years I feel the irresistible urge to go back – and I do, using a few times a month over a six-month period. Then I become afraid and I’m able to stop. Each time, I find the whole process of getting smack and all the paraphernalia (I inject) so tedious and anxiety-ridden. However, I honestly feel my use is not problematic or doing me any harm, although the strength and quality of it over time makes me anxious at the beginning of each period of use. Should I just stop worrying about this and accept this is me?

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