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taking painkillers wasn’t enough for Joey. He turned to heroin, a powerful illegal opiate, in order to feel the “high” that his mind and body could not live without. While addicted to heroin, Joey lost all his friends. His parents kicked him out of their house. His family stopped talking to him and inviting him to family events and parties. His old friends from school moved on to college and careers. He wound up moving from house to house, crashing on people’s couches, or sleeping on the streets when he didn’t have a place to stay. Even though he no longer lived with her, Joey’s mom still worried about him and cried for him every day. She waited for him to call every morning and prayed that he was alive knowing there were deadly consequences to his drug addiction. Heroin accounts for thousands of overdose deaths every year in the United States. She worried constantly that Joey would die from his heroin addiction.

Some people inaccurately refer to all drugs as narcotics, but only opioids can be properly classified as narcotic drugs. Pictured here is hydrocodone, an opioid pain medication sold under the trade name Vicodin.

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Understanding Drug Use and Addiction