It took a few moments, actually.

The first was seeing my friends get arrested, get put in treatment, and then continue using heroin while selling me the suboxone they were getting for treatment.

The second was getting evicted from my apartment and losing my job in the same night, all because I and my group of friends got fuck up, thrashed a four-plex, picked a fight with the landlord's son. The landlord happened to also be my employer. Picking a fight with his son and trashing his investment property was enough to convince him that he didn't want me as a worker anymore. Double-whammy.

The third was my girlfriend at the time admitting that she didn't love me and actually, really fucking hated me for a laundry list of totally valid reasons reasons. This really hurt because I had been madly in love with her for years and we'd starting dating about a year earlier. Turns out she was just taking advantage of my feelings for her in order to get get free drugs and booze. She actually thought I was an insufferable prick, and as conniving as he was at the time, she was also right about that.

The final straw was the reaction of my so-called friends when I confided in them that I was unhappy and wanted to get clean so I could move out of state to pursue an opportunity that had been presented to me. Their response was to make fun of me for "going square" and insisting that "jsabbott thinks he too good for us."

I lost all my friends because I didn't want to be a junkie for the rest of a very short, miserable life.

So I moved. Very, very far away where no one knew me.

I haven't spoken to any of those people in years, save for a couple who also got wise and left the lifestyle.

Life is worth living now.