We talked to a freelance journalist about his aunt who suffers from heroin addiction. She has been arrested for it multiple times as you will see her mugshot below.

This story might help you see your life or that of an addicted person’s life differently. Because this disease affects everyone in the family, whether you or they know it or not.

Addicts do not understand that their addiction not only hurts themselves, but hurts everyone around them.

They never take a step back and look outside of themselves, even when it’s too late.

A Face of Heroin Addiction

Jeremey C, Midwest

Meet my auntie. In the streets they call her ‘Half-Pint’. She is currently missing. She has not picked up her SSI (Social Security Income or welfare) check on the first of the month, which is unusual for her since she uses it to buy heroin and get high.

Half Pint started her life off as a bad kid. Like, a REALLY bad kid. It’s not her fault though. She was raised like that. One time she approached her sisters about murdering my great grandmother because she was being abusive to them.

Luckily, none of the sisters agreed with the plan, but Half-Pint did get admitted into a group home after getting in so much trouble. That’s where she got exposed to heroin for the first time.

Half-Pint, now in jail, gave birth to her daughter, who was taken away from her and put in a group home as well. Eventually, other family members would adopt her.

I was told by an addictioncenter expert that addiction is mostly genetic. That reminds me of my maternal great grandfather who died in the hospital from alcohol abuse. My mother witnessed him spitting up blood and passing away right in front of her eyes.

Half-Pint is not a stranger to the hospital either because she experienced several overdoses in her life, but a serious one happened in the early 2000s where she allegedly got hold of some bad drugs laced with fentanyl. This was before fentanyl became a big problem in the United States.

She stayed in a coma for 3 months and after the second one, doctors suggested “pulling the plug.”

All her sisters, my aunties, said yes among each other to “pulling the plug,” while my mother was the only one who went to the hospital and told them no, don’t pull the plug. About a month later, Half Pint woke up from her coma. My mother saved her life!

But a dedicated drug addict does not give a f&%k about anyone saving their life. They don’t care that they just spend three months in a coma. Getting is what matters to them.

As you could have guessed, Half Pint did not stop doing drugs.

No, she continued her abuse long after that. When she lived with my mother, she stole one of my mother’s paychecks and her ID and cashed it at a check cashing place (They both looked alike). She most likely bought drugs with the money.

My auntie and her girlfriend would often act belligerent, erratic and downright annoying. Classic side effects of a heroin addict. Half-Pint would leave needles and burnt spoons in the bathroom. The only reason my mother let her stay there was because that was her sister and she had nowhere else to go.

The ambulance was called twice to my mother’s home due to my auntie and her girlfriend overdosing. The city sent a letter to my mother stating that if this keeps happening they would report her address to the police.

But that’s Child’s Play compared to what Half-Pint used to do. She would ask my mother for clean urine to give to her probation officer, so she would not go back to jail. My mother gave her the urine because, in her mind, she was helping her sister. However, my mother regrets doing that till this day.

Half Pint would call my mother a ‘retarded, ugly b$%&h’ when my mother did not want to enable her anymore. Half-Pint would say these hurtful things because all she cared about was heroin.

Even now, when we see Half-Pint in the streets, she is leaning, half-sleep, scratching invincible drugs off of her body. She would tell us that her blood pressure is high and she is sick. Yea right, sick off of heroin.

She would be so high that she could not visibly see us. Her eyes are squinted. She really thought she was fooling everyone.

People in my mother’s building thought my mother was high on heroin because her and Half-Pint looked alike.

Half-Pint would pop up at my mother’s home unannounced and when my mother let her in, something always ended up missing: canned goods, music CD’s, even my mother’s blood pressure medication; Clonidine. Half-Pint would use the Clonidine to get high.

My mother was rushed to the hospital shortly after that because her blood pressure was 210/113. She did not have any Clonidine and the doctor would not refill because it was too early.

When Half Pint gets arrested for drug possession, sometimes the judge forces her to go to rehab. Does Half Pint go to rehab to get clean? No. She goes there to meet women.

Half-Pint had nowhere else to go after getting out of jail and losing her apartment, so she eventually moved in with her estranged daughter Daniella.

Recently, however, Daniella died from an overdose.

I guess addiction IS genetic.

Before her death, Daniella kicked Half-Pint out of her home because of her behavior. Since Half-Pint had nowhere to go because she burned her bridges with my mom and everyone else in the family, she is now a resident of a nursing home.

We have no idea who is planning Daniella’s funeral. Half-Pint can’t.

Word on the streets is that Half-Pint would buy heroin for Daniella, which might explain how she got hooked. Did Half-Pint do that to her daughter?

Half-Pint offered my mom heroin once, “just try it. It feels good. It’ll calm you down.” My mother declined her offer.

Did Half-Pint offer the same thing to her daughter?

Daniella smoked weed and drank liquor – a lot of liquor. She was proud of her liquor bottle line-up sitting on the dresser. Maybe that contributed to her death as well.

Final Word: Heroin Addiction Affects the Family in So Many Ways You Wouldn’t Believe

Disclaimer: I was on the fence about exposing this story to the world. I was told by family members not to write it, not to use her pic, not to talk about these things. But since her daughter is dead from the same drug that plagued my auntie, and since anyone who runs in Half-Pint’s circle will NEVER read this article because I know for a fact that NONE OF THEM want to get clean, I felt like it was ok to post this story. My philosophy is that if this story can help one person get off that heroin s&%t, then it was worth writing about.

Heroin is an evil drug that affects many people surrounding the person who chooses to engage in substance abuse. Once hooked, they need it to function in life.

If you are a heroin addict, it’s not too late.

Don’t wait till you end up in jail to get clean.

Don’t wait till you end up in a nursing home to change.

Don’t wait till your daughter or son die from the same disease that plagues you before you even think about living a different life.

If you’ve made it this far in the article, then you’re already on the right track. Continue the marathon…

Make the call to change now!