Heroin use has always scared me, so much so that it and the people that use it never show up in my life, even at the edges. I never understood how someone could use it, get addicted to it and shoot it up.

Krieger writes about his heroin use in a way that leaves me with a "so that's how it happpens".

He also writes in a way that is clever, using a rhythm that goes along the lines of, "and there was no way that would happen to me. Then it happened.".

Following is a brief excerpt from the chapter "Chasing the Dragon" from his book Set the Night on Fire.

They say addiction runs in families. So maybe the drug problem that plagued me from my late thirties well into my mid-forties was something I inherited from my mom. Or even my grandmother, who popped a steady stream of red and green pills: one for going to sleep, one for waking up. My brother and I used to steal her meds here and there, but the more I saw the effects of narcotics on my mother and grandmother, the more scared of drugs I became. I went a little wild in high school and college for the sake of mischief, but by the time I was in my twenties I rarely drank, and I treated weed more like an occasional sacrament than a regular hobby. I left acid behind in the sixties, and I was barely smoking any weed at all by the end of the seventies. I never saw myself doing hard drugs.

Then I started doing hard drugs.

Cocaine was the drug that fueled the eighties. It was a party drug. It brought people together. And it was everywhere. I hadn’t seen it take anyone down the way I had with alcohol, pills, and LSD, so it seemed relatively harmless. The only time I had a bad experience with cocaine was when I snorted something that wasn’t cocaine.

I was about to jam at some club when a guy gave me a bump of white powder. When I got onstage I couldn’t move my fingers. I tried to will them to press down on the fretboard, but they kept sinking through the neck of the guitar like I was in a bad dream. After struggling through the embarrassing set, I asked the guy what he had given me. Angel dust. I figured as long as I didn’t make that mistake again I could keep doing cocaine occasionally without any real consequences. I told myself I’d be fine, as long as I didn’t start doing heroin.

Then I started doing heroin.

My usual coke dealer was a Middle Eastern guy everybody knew as the King of the Valley. He was a skinny, bearded, shifty character, but he was also boisterous and entertaining. They called him the King because he would always be holding court at his house, regaling a circle of drug patrons with stories of his exploits. And he always had the best stuff. His wife was a hilarious ballbuster, and when we hung out socially, his teenage daughter got along well with our ten-year-old son. The family allegedly came from great wealth back in their home country, maybe even royalty (another reason for the nickname). One day Lynn and I were hanging out at the King’s castle when he taught us how to "chase the dragon." He used a lighter to melt some opium on a piece of tin foil, and as it liquefied, he "chased" the vapor with a little glass tube to inhale it. An amusing little party trick from the King.

I didn’t particularly enjoy the high. It was mildly relaxing, but that was about it. But one night soon after that, Lynn and I went to see Etta James at the Troubadour. We were friendly with the guys in her backing band. All very talented. All junkies. Lynn and I went to an after-party where everyone was chasing the dragon, but they were melting heroin instead of opium.

We felt so cool fitting in with the jazz guys, and we loved the taboo vibe of the whole thing. Usually heroin is portrayed as a lonely, shameful drug that people do by themselves in a locked bathroom stall. But we had a lot of friends who were into it, and it was done openly in certain social situations. Didn’t seem so scary or dangerous. As long as we only did it at parties and not on our own, at home.

Then we started doing it on our own, at home. Not every day. Maybe once a week. We didn’t need it. We just liked doing it every few days. And then every other day. Then I left for a two-week tour with my solo band and got sick. I didn’t realize I was going through withdrawal: I thought I had some sort of stomach bug. I’d wake up every day with cramps and diarrhea, wondering why I didn’t feel any better than the day before. I was miserable for the full two weeks, until I got home, took one puff of the magic dragon, and was instantly cured.

A non-stupid person might have said, “Oh, I was going through withdrawal. I better stop doing this drug before I develop an even deeper dependence.” But instead I said, “Oh, I was going through withdrawal. I better keep doing this drug so I don’t get sick again.”

Lynn and I were spending so much time with the King that at one point we invited him and his family to stay at our house for a while. Our kids hung out together and on the surface it was almost like we were living in a wholesome sitcom. But we soon realized that the King was more than a little crazy. We took a couples vacation with the King and his queen and there was some issue with the King’s ticket at the airport. He threw a fucking fit. Today a Middle Eastern man screaming and throwing things and stomping around at a U.S. airport would be so harshly profiled by security that the whole country would go on lockdown. The eighties were a more innocent era, but even back then his tantrum had me convinced we were all going to get busted. The whole time he was ranting and raving he was in possession of a suitcase full of illegal narcotics.

Somehow we were able to board the plane without being swarmed by federal agents, and we headed to Vegas. Or was it Tahoe? Didn’t matter: once we arrived and opened the King’s suitcase, we never left our hotel room.

After we got back, we found a polite excuse to kick the King and the royal family out of our house, and we made it a point to gradually lose touch with them. But spending time with them had kept up the illusion that drugs were all part of a fun, party lifestyle and not a descent into addiction.

If, from the beginning, someone had said, “Hey, here’s a needle; try this,” I never would’ve touched the stuff. But it was all so innocent. Just friends hanging out. It’s not like we were shooting up.

Then we started shooting up.

After the King moved out, we met a new dealer, Bhodi, which is not his real name because his dad was some powerful, politically connected figure from an unspecified Asian country and I don’t want that guy mad at me.

Bhodi was able to supply us with China White. The good stuff. You could snort it, but it was better to smoke it because you could tell how pure it was. The vapor didn’t smell like burning sugar or any other cutting agents, and there was no telltale residue left on the foil. So it made us feel safe injecting it.

We started using so much that it only made sense to buy in bulk. Bhodi would import bricks of China White from his home country, and we’d buy half a kilo from him directly while another friend of ours put up money for the other half. This was the uncut stuff, straight from the factory. It was even imprinted with a little tiger logo. Normally dealers would step on it and resell it, but since Lynn and I were using it all personally, we could just chip away small but potent amounts. We only bought the bricks a couple of times: twenty grand worth would get us by for more than half a year. What a bargain.

Strangely, Jim’s and Pam’s fates did nothing to deter me. I rationalized that Pam had been too overcome with depression to think clearly, and that’s the only reason she overdosed. And if Jim died from heroin, which wasn’t proven, it was likely because he was mixing it with liquor. Why would anyone drink when they’re on heroin? It’s not only dangerous; it’s redundant.

I thought I was being so fucking smart. From my perspective, Jim and Pam were rare exceptions. What happened to them couldn’t possibly happen to us. We knew tons of people who were doing heroin, and none of our friends were overdosing.

Then our friends started overdosing.

One of the people who taught us how to shoot up was Jimmy Kardashian, a distant relative of, yes, those Kardashians...

Read Krieger's full story:

Set the Night on Fire