Having no needles left when you’re jonesing is the worst thing in the world. Last night I was shooting up with my last syringe and it broke. The needle snapped right in two. I was dying for the fix so I was just trying to cram the broken stub into my fucking vein…gouging and ripping at my skin trying to force it in. The blood was spurting all over the closet and I was just slamming the drugs any place under my skin, praying they would take the pain away. Thank God that they did.

• DOC McGHEE: By this stage, Nikki wasn’t taking heroin to get high–he was taking it to try to stay normal. That’s the way it is with junkies after a while: they use it in order to not get sick. It takes away the withdrawal symptoms, the aches and the pains, and it’s clear to me now that Nikki was taking heroin to stay out of the pain that he was in every day of his life.