Young Heroin Addict Speaks Out
NEW CARLISLE — Heroin addicts say once the poison enters your body, your brain falls in love with it.. And the habit’s almost impossible to kick. No one knows that better than 20 year old heroin addict April Erion.
“It’s like god’s angels massaging your whole body and mind,” Erion describes fondly.
The 20 year old remembers her first intravenous high well. At 16, April boasted 4.2 GPA and scholarship offers to multiple colleges.
While a hard partier on weekends, it wasn’t until she fell in love that her life took a turn. April started snorting heroin at age 16.
“We met at a party and we started rolling on x and stuff we considered party drugs,” Erion explained. “I was in a drug dealers house on the East side of Dayton shooting dope. For me it happened really quick. The first time I shot it I was hooked.”
April says she’s shoots up all day every day and a couple of hours without heroin makes her deathly ill, or ‘dopesick’.
“I’m homeless. I don’t have anything. If I knew when I was 16 and did that first line of heroin what was going to happen. I would’ve never touched it,” Erion explains tearfully.
The 20 year old was kicked out of her home for repeatedly stealing from her mother to buy dope. A high that only lasts minutes or even seconds.
The once vivacious ambitious teen says there is nothing she hasn’t done for a high.
“You think you can play with it and do it on the weekends because all your friends are doing it. It’s not.. You’re playing with fire and you’re going to get burned,” Erion added.
April’s last unsuccessful stint in rehab was in January. She says some days she truly believe she wants to quit. But most days she can only think about where her next high will come from.