Early in the morning, Tim Roland arrives at the methadone clinic. I meet him outside the unassuming building, and he greets me in a preoccupied manner.
“Just let me get my dose,” he says. “I won’t be much good to you until then.”
He is inside the building for half an hour, meeting with a counselor, as he must always do for a brief talk before receiving his usual dosage. When he returns outside, he is much more relaxed and composed. I offer him a smoke, and he begins to talk about his experience. He explains that he has to come here every day at the same time or he doesn’t get his medicine. The methadone makes him feel better, but it never makes him well.
“I can’t say when I got addicted, only when I first met heroin,” he says.
Roland, 25, grew up in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. He is not the product of a bad environment—a common misconception about the birth of addicts. He lived in a gated community with his parents, who are still married, and he never had to worry about a thing.
“My father has a high-powered job with the government,” he says, “and my mother held a high position with a corporation large enough to be a government.”
His high school years were a barrage of good times. He spoke of totaling two cars and immediately receiving new ones because his parents didn’t want him to be without. He never had to work. He had privilege, opportunity, and more options than most. But excess, though, can lead to waste. So one night during his senior year, when a friend produced a bag of heroin and offered him a line to snort, he didn’t hesitate.
“That first time… I’d never felt more wonderful in my life, like God was breathing on me,” Roland says.
Temptation stared him in the face. He didn’t just take a bite of the forbidden fruit—he bit the head off the snake as well. Heroin quickly became his drug of choice. These were the last moments he remembers having any control over his life. After that, he says, the great downward spiral began.
He talked about how quickly the drug took him over. He wishes he didn’t have to come to the clinic, but this is not his choice; he is an addict, and the cravings control him.
This addiction drove him away from reality and dreams of a future. He became empty and could never feel full. His parents were in denial for a long time, he says. Even though they love him, they are not very available, choosing instead to coddle him with money, enabling him to continue without really facing his problem.
Roland admits to stealing and lying to everyone around him just to get cash for a fix. Sometimes, in his stories of thieving and lying, it seems no one is immune to his actions, as if he means to say, “Don’t take it personally.” Responsibility always returns to the addiction, not himself. Admitting he is a junkie seems to make him feel better about the people he’s hurt, as if he were a victim, too.
These people cared for the person Tim Roland, but Tim Roland disappeared inside a haze long ago.
To see Roland, he appears very average, clean-cut—not the stereotypical Hollywood image of a junkie. During his lucid moments, he is very upbeat. But in his head, he says the addiction chooses his path. He isn’t looking at you—he’s looking at your pockets for a wallet bulge. If you invite him into your house, he’s assessing your locks, your stereo system—anything that might have value.
“I don’t like to be left alone,” he says. “I can’t trust myself.”
He made it to Richmond after his parents had enough and sent him to live with a well-intentioned cousin, whom he eventually betrayed.
“I am not Tim Roland anymore,” he says. “I’m just an addiction.”
People continually try to help Roland. They still see the human behind the affliction, but sometimes love is not as strong as a quick fix. After stealing checks from a friend’s mother who took him in, the law was finally called. This was his first offense. The courts took his addiction into account, sentencing him to community service, mandatory drug-rehab meetings at a local Methodist church, and enrollment in methadone maintenance treatment.
“You have to change your whole way of life to avoid falling back down,” he says.
Roland had a good upbringing, money, and opportunity. He had choices in life, as all people do. But at a very young age, he made the wrong choice. That choice has repercussions he will have to live with for the rest of his life. Now, each day, he must rise and return to the clinic just to feel normal again.
“I don’t see an end to this ever,” he says. “All I can do is look back and remember the beginning.”
Note: Names have been changed, and the identity of the clinic remains anonymous out of respect for all involved.
Illustration by Andre Shank
