With shaking hands and a full syringe, he calmly searches for a vein to inject his poison of choice. After deciding on a vein between his right index finger and his wrist, he tightly squeezes his makeshift tourniquet made from the belt around his waist and closes his eyes.
Seconds later, the syringe falls to his side, and he drops hold of his arm. Eyes that were once closed are now half-opened and rolling into the back of his head. His girlfriend rubs his arm lovingly and whispers to him under her breath.
"We've lost so much to this devil, this demon inside of us," she says sorrowfully as she shyly pulls her sleeve down to hide her own needle tracks.
Jake and his girlfriend of three years, Anna, are two of 9.2 million people in the world who are addicted to heroin.
"An estimated 13.5 million people in the world take opioids, and 9.2 (million) of those users are addicted to heroin," said Ryan Mullins, a heroin crisis hotline counselor. "This is becoming such a major crisis in our society among young people that it is almost overwhelming. It's everywhere from the streets to the suburbs and anywhere in between, and it's killing people - it's killing kids."
Morning comes for Jake and Anna whenever their bodies start shaking, yearning, urging them to get their next fix. They go downstairs into the kitchen of the home they now share - the home in which Jake's mother died only months before.
Bypassing the orange juice and cereal, they opt for a package of heroin for breakfast instead - the last of the batch they had saved from the night before. After shooting each other up with the last of their supply, Anna frantically begins to dial dealers' numbers she has saved in her cell phone, but the early morning hours leave them empty-handed.
Keys in hand, they head toward their car on a mission. They drive the streets of North Memphis in an effort to find someone who can supply them with clean needles and heroin.
"Our whole lives are based around heroin," Jake says as he squeezes Anna's hand tightly. "We spend the first part of our day finding heroin, and we spent the second part of our day getting high off of heroin, and at night, we put ourselves to sleep with heroin. This is our life. We are living in a prison, screaming to break free, but there are bars everywhere we turn. I just pray to God this prison won't become our tomb."
Jake and Anna are 22-year-old heroin addicts from the suburbs. Anna grew up in a Christian home and was heavily involved in gymnastics from an early age. Jake grew up with his beloved mother in a large home in an upscale East Memphis neighborhood. Both good students and popular with their peers, they started experimenting with alcohol and marijuana in the ninth grade. Shortly after, Anna started using Oxycontin, and Jake turned to hallucinogenics. For Anna, the jump to heroin wasn't a far one.
"Once I wasn't getting my desired high anymore, I was searching for something to take its place. An ex-boyfriend finally introduced me to heroin, and I tried it. I had never experienced such a high before," Anna says. "At that point, I was snorting the stuff until a friend told me I could spend less and get higher if I used a needle. So that's what I did."
As Jake listens to Anna, tears well up in his eyes before he excuses himself from the room. Upon his return, Jake is noticeably more relaxed, and the tension has been swept from his upper brow. He sits down and stares at the beams on the ceiling as he slowly begins to speak of his mother, his voice barely understandable now.
"Her hair brush is still sitting in the same spot where she left it," Jake says. "Her robe is hanging on the bathroom door. We sleep in her bed. After my mother died, I just didn't care anymore. I didn't want to deal with the real world - the real world hurts too badly."
He takes a deep breath as he and Anna lock eyes - there is an unspoken communication between them. She rises from her seat on the ottoman and joins Jake on the floor. After sharing a passionate kiss and a cheek stroke, she continues where he left off.
"His mom left him a lot of money after she passed," Anna says. "We have been unfortunate because we can easily afford this drug. We spend roughly $200 a day on heroin. We don't have to borrow, pawn or steal. That's the biggest problem."
After the death of Jake's mother, he hired an accountant and financial advisor to be responsible for his money. Most of the inheritance was transferred into trusts and investments to prevent him from going through the money quickly.
However, he is given a monthly allowance of $2,500 to spend on necessities such as gas, food and bills. For Jake and Anna, heroin comes before any of those.
"We are given the $2,500 at the beginning of every month," Jake says. "After about two weeks, it has all been spent on heroin. I can't hold a job to save my life, so I'm calling friends I haven't talked to in years asking for money. It's humiliating."
A longtime friend of Jake's, who asked not to be identified, because she doesn't wish to be associated with his drug usage, described her despair about the once happy, outgoing person she used to know.
"I have known him for almost 10 years. He really meant a lot to me, and it has been so scary watching him go down this path," she said. "He used to be so much fun. He was a caring, hilarious, warm person. I really miss him."
Though this addiction has taken hold of this couple and currently refuses to loosen its grip, they have tried desperately to get clean and sober in the past. Separating in these times in order to avoid the other being a trigger, they maintained a clean and sober lifestyle for six months before falling back. However, this sobriety did not come without its challenges.
"Your whole body shakes," Jake says. "You wake up in the middle of the night and have to wring out your sheets from being soaked in sweat and urine. You have to keep a wastebasket next to your bed because you never know when the uncontrollable vomiting will come. There is nothing worse. Hell, I'm sure, could not be worse."
Anna describes what recovery during those six months did for them.
"After we both got out of rehab and were clean, it was the most incredible part of our relationship," she says. "We were so happy - so proud of ourselves. We had finally begun to remember who we were. We were laughing again, smiling again, until one day when we both decided to reward ourselves for being so good. We thought we could control ourselves. Now look at us."
Greg Williams, an outpatient therapist for La Paloma Treatment Center in Memphis, said addiction is treated as a "chronic illness" that lasts during the patient's entire life.
"It permeates throughout your whole life," he said. "It grabs hold of you and affects every aspect of your life from jobs to school to relationships. Heroin is a very isolating drug. Heroin users become shut off from society and from the world and fall deep into themselves."
A relapse after a period of abstaining from heroin has its own set of dangers, according to Williams.
"Once a body has been clean for a while, they think they can do the same amount they were used to doing before sobriety, but they don't realize that their tolerance is back down," he said. "It becomes too much on the system. This is one of the leading causes of people overdosing, and sadly oftentimes dying, from this drug. Heroin is so dangerous that when a person detoxes, we highly recommend a supervised setting with a highly trained medical staff and medication. The average withdrawal period is seven to 10 days, and it's going to be rough."
He said patients should fully commit to a two-year recovery program, which includes educational cycles, process examinations, group aftercare programs and intensive therapy sessions.
"It's not easy, but it saves lives," Williams said.
In an effort to become sober in the past, Jake revealed his addiction to his accountant. Jake asked him to cease all monthly check allowances so that he will not be able to buy heroin. Instead, Jake and Anna depend on a credit card - something that can buy all of life's necessities, except heroin.
"Not having that monthly check in our hands to go out and cash and subsequently spend on drugs has helped. However, when we are feening, we will find a way to get it. There is always a way," Anna says.
Jake often turns to his father whenever money is low.
"I hate to say his father is weak, but that's what he is. He is too afraid that by not giving (Jake) the money to buy heroin, he will push him away," Anna says. "What he doesn't think about is that he is aiding in killing him."
Anna's family knew little about her heroin use until her 2010 arrest for buying the drug caught up with her in recent months.
"They are constantly worrying about me. I know that I have taken years off of their lives. They are just waiting on that phone call telling them that I'm dead," Anna says.
She is now faced with the hard decision of seeking treatment since she is currently on probation and faces a monthly drug test. When asked about the possibility of treatment, Jake and Anna look hopeful.
"I think about recovery every single day, but then there is still that voice in the back of your head that is saying, 'You would feel so much better if you would just get high,'" Anna says. "I have forgotten who I am without it. What did I do before?"
She pauses and does not speak for several moments. When she does, her tone has changed.
"I have never heard myself say any of these things out loud," Anna says. "I have spoken bits and pieces here and there to counselors and therapists but never like this - upfront and brutally honest. It is making me realize how pathetic I am and what a waste of a life I have been living. I sound ridiculous."
Editor's Note: Anna and Jake are not the real names of the heroin users in this story. Since they are engaged in illegal activity, they would not submit to an interview without The Daily Helmsman agreeing to give them anonymity.
