*

One week ago I sat in a room that smelled like fish and learned how to shoot heroin.

“Where are you all from?” the robust woman in purple inquired as we reached the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center. Desperation throbbed from out of her, desperation and devastation that I could almost tangibly see from her.

“Ohio. We’re here to learn about community development and community organizing,” someone answered. The door to the Harm Reduction Center in Manhattan opened, and we filed in one by one.

The woman’s sharp, parting words to someone beside her rang in my head as the door closed behind me. “Why are they here? Huh? You tell me. They’re only here because they want something and they get something. That’s it.” 

We had entered her pain—not just her pain, but also the pain of all of the participants at the Harm Reduction Center. Here, the Center gives heroin addicts access to clean needles through needle exchanges, reducing the risk HIV transfer through dirty needles. We had entered her pain—we being a bunch of privileged college students—pain that for her might be associated with shame and desperation. 

I remember turning the corner off of Chinatown (with the crowded jewelry shops and the foreign chatter) and being hit with a wall of damp silence. People walked the gray sidewalks in silence. Newspapers blew across the solemn street like tumbleweed. The cold air had decay and desperation clinging to every breath I inhaled.

“You know what? I can’t even think right now about my major or why I’m here or anything that you just asked us. All I can think about is how we turned the corner from the main road and the atmosphere just changed. It was like smothering desperation. Just like that. In like, a split second. I didn’t even know what had happened, but it was there. I can’t wrap my mind around it.” I confessed to the Center presenters after a long pause.

Looking in their eyes I could see that they understood exactly what I was referring to. The heaviness--the weight of the struggles of the Harm Reduction Center participant's brought with them. The weight of addiction, something I had never been in that proximity with before. 

“They’re smart. Drug addicts are really smart,” one presenter said, an ex-addict himself. “This little cotton ball is used to filter the heroin, catching anything that shouldn’t be in there.” 

I remember how he showed us where the best entrance veins are for the heroin, explaining exactly why one vein would be better than the other. I remember him talking about why people turn to drugs, and how many times it is a learned coping strategy. I remember him relaying his journey to the Harm Reduction Center, and being amazed as his story. I remember hearing the Center's door close behind me, feeling like I had been given a small glimpse into someone's day-to-day reality, so different than my own. 

One week ago I sat in a room that smelled like fish and learned how to shoot heroin.

Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center

http://www.leshrc.org/