Confessions of a Chronic Enabler: Watching the Needle Go In

I felt like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, rolling through the moonlit, maniac streets of Syracuse’s Northside. It was well past midnight, and I had a nagging, unsettled feeling in my chest. A sketchy area, teaming with crime, poverty, and rundown properties, this part of the city is always in the news: brawl with multiple stabbings at a Butternut Street bar; man shot in a vehicle outside a seedy strip club; murder in the parking lot of the abandoned KFC. There’s even a rogue sect of Alcoholics Anonymous—the Butternutters—that dispenses dangerous and loony advice, encouraging people to stop taking prescription psych medications. Two of the group’s members have committed suicide as a result.  

I was meeting Naomi. We’d known each other for a few months and been on a handful of dates, but we had a powerful connection, and I’d become mildly obsessed with her. We’d been keeping in touch by text and Facebook, but hadn’t actually seen each other in over a month. The last time we hung out I had driven her to her parent’s house, where she’d spent the night. She planned to go to rehab the next day, but it fell through. After that, she vanished, leaving me worried, with a feeling things had gotten worse.

I looked around trying to find the place, but in the darkness I couldn’t see any of the house numbers. Golden leaves were falling and the midnight breeze was swirling them up in the street along with litter from the sidewalk. An eerie quiet surrounded me as I looked down to the market on the corner, dark and lifeless with its barred windows. Di Lauro’s Bakery sat on the other side across from a small desolate park. The bakery—legendary for pizza and butter rolls—has been there for over a century, a bustling place during civilized hours. But that night there wasn’t a soul in sight, except for an old man down the road pushing a shopping cart overflowing with empty bottles and cans.

I parked the car and texted Naomi. She messaged back, saying she’d be out in a few minutes. My anxiety was growing. “This is no place to be sitting idly,” I thought. A knock on the car window jolted me. I snapped my head around quickly.

“Any change to help a brotha out?” the cart man asked slowly in a low moan, almost like singing.

“Sorry, I don’t have anything,” I replied, in a tiny voice, nervously.

A few minutes later Naomi walked out from between two ramshackle houses. I unlocked the passenger door for her. We hugged, and I held the embrace for a second or two after she began to pull away. She was wearing a hooded green winter jacket and red pants. Her alabaster skin and wavy brown hair glistened in the fragmented moonlight coming through the car windows.

“Great to see you,” I said. “How have you been?”

“Not good.”

“What do you mean? What’s going on?”

“I’m just in a tough spot,” she said. “Come upstairs and we can talk.”

I followed her down the sidewalk, along the side of the house, to a door with a light above it. We walked up a narrow set of wooden stairs in a dimly lit hallway to the kitchen of the house, bags of garbage on the floor, dishes stacked in the sink, and a small stove covered in crusted splatter stains. I could hear a woman in the living room arguing loudly with someone.

“She doesn’t like me,” Naomi said. “She’s trying to get me kicked out of here.”

We walked into a small bedroom and closed the door. Naomi sat down on a sheetless mattress on the floor. I sat next to her on the matted carpet. There were cardboard boxes in the corner of the room, but no furniture, and the walls were a dingy off-white, darkened by fingerprints and dirt smears.

“What happened with rehab?” I asked.

“They wouldn’t take my insurance.”

“Damn,” I said as I shook my head. “Well, what now?”

“There’s a place downtown I’m going to try. It takes a little time to get in, but I’m going to call this week.”

I handed her the food I brought: pasta fagioli and a grilled cheese sandwich.

“Thanks,” she said.  “I haven’t had real food in forever.”

“So what’s the deal with this place?” I asked.

“My friend, Slim, lives here. I’ve been staying with him.”

“Slim,” I thought. That’s not the kind of name that engendered warm and fuzzy feelings in me. That and this hell pit of a house had me feeling uneasy.

“The last month’s been really hard,” she said, digging into the sandwich with a greedy bite. “My life’s been turned completely upside down.”

I shook my head slowly and let out a long sigh. “I want to help,” I said. “What can I do? Tell me.”

“Just be there for me.”

“I had been there for her,” I thought, and I was going to continue to be. But I didn’t understand any of this. “Why was she here?” I asked myself. I cared about her deeply, but what was I doing here?  It didn’t seem safe for either of us.

“I just need help with a few things until I can get into rehab,” she said.

“Financial help, you mean?”

“Yeah. It’s been a struggle lately. I’m not working and haven’t had money for food or anything.”.

I reached into my pocket, took out my wallet, and handed her two twenty-dollar bills. “I hope this helps a bit,” I said.

She thanked me. We chatted for a few more minutes.

“I’ve gotta step outside for a second. I’ll be right back,” she said as she got up and walked out, closing the door behind her.

I sat on the floor, ruminating on the situation, debating the wisdom of my decision to give her money. I heard people scurrying up and down the steps. Doors opening and closing. Conversations with different voices.

A young, lanky Black man in a tee shirt with a skyscraper-sized afro popped his head in the door. He scanned the room and gave me a vacuous stare. “Got a cigarette?” he asked.

“I don’t smoke,” I said, meekly.  

Naomi came back a few minutes later with Slim. Rail thin, dark-complected and dressed in a baggy flannel shirt, Slim had an ageless look about him. He could have been twenty or forty, or anything in between. He greeted me with a firm handshake and a friendly smile. Then he handed Naomi two small bags of white powder, chatted for a minute, then turned around and walked back into the kitchen.

Naomi sat back down on the mattress, fumbled through her purse, flipped it over and jangled out its contents: a plastic water bottle, cotton swabs, several insulin syringes, a lighter, and what looked like a small metal shot glass. She placed some of the powder in the metal container, added water with the syringe, flicked the lighter, putting the flame to the bottom of it. I heard a sizzle as the liquid started to bubble. She drew the fluid into the needle and leaned her head back against the wall. Then she rolled up her right sleeve, tied a phone charger cord around her arm above the elbow, and started pumping her fist.  

With the tips of her fingers she massaged her arms, looking for a vein. Then she pressed the tip of the needle up against the skin and gently stuck it in, pressing the plunger down with her thumb. The fluid in the needle sunk slowly into her flesh.

I sat there—hypnotized. “Holy fuck,” I thought. “Did I really just witness that?” I didn’t try to stop her. How could I? I didn’t leave. I just sat there and watched, expecting her to slip into some kind of stupor, dazed and drooling, but when she took the needle out she was perfectly lucid, maybe more than before. You’d never know she had just shot heroin.

As awful as it was to watch, there was a tranquil grace to the ritual. She didn’t hesitate. No awkwardness in her movements. You could tell this was something she had done many times. The whole thing had an air of unreality to it, but what did I know about heroin addiction? I’d read Miles Davis’ biography and watched Trainspotting, and I knew a crazy musician who was banned from a bar downtown when he was caught in the bathroom with a needle in his arm. But this was my first close encounter with IV drug use, and it was a massive groin kick. Like an oncologist giving you a cancer diagnosis—a moment that permanently changes your reality—when you realize you’re dealing with something more serious than you’d ever imagined.  

Naomi and I hung out and talked into the early morning hours. I cared about her tremendously and vowed that night to do whatever it took to help. Her addiction was progressing and entering a more dangerous phase. But I knew I could help pull her out of this mess. I was convinced of that. There was no doubt in my mind.