Lou Reed’s Rock n’ Roll Animal is one of my favorite live records of all time. “Heroin” is the second song and actually was on the Velvet Undergrounds first record, recorded in 1966. Turns out a couple chords even opened a TV commercial for the Nissan Xterra in 2003… Hey, heroin has come a long way.

I remember back when I was 7 or 8 at my grandmothers triple-decker in East Boston. Uncle Mitch was cool. He had a drum kit and all the Beatles records. He also had Jimi Hendrix records and a heroin addiction to match. Heroin killed Uncle Mitch and it’s now killing two other members of my family. One of them left a treatment center yesterday after over 90 days of sobriety. I guess she couldn’t fight the craving any longer. That decision, combined with many other bad ones before it, will now likely result in her losing her young children. How can anyone choose a drug over their own children?

Well I guess I just don’t know.