Paramedic here,worked in an area with lots of addicts for years: Most iv users don't have start fresh. They are already addicted to Heroin,etc. and consume via smoking it, etc.

When the addiction gets bad enough that they switch to IV administration they are usually well embedded into the scene. Which consists of more than enough IV users which usually are happy to help/often they the new user has helped another user how to inject before they do it on themselves.

And tbf it's not that hard when you just need to give a single injection with a rather small needle to someone who usually is on the younger side if the demographics, has thin skin, etc. But of course they miss (a lot), but that's no biggie - most of them know how to aspirate first and they simply try it somewhere else then. And they get pretty good at it.

But of course nevertheless paravasals and abscesses are a huge problem, especially in more experienced IV drug users.

There's a Dayz 'N daze song (little blue pills, pt. 2) that says "there's an abscess, goddamn we missed the vein". So I guess sometimes you miss.

Never tried myself (and won't, until I'm on my deathbed) but I don't know how I would do it myself.

I was on it for a few years. Started with snorting. Wound up injecting regularly, eventually. Kind of.

I preferred other intoxicants. Alcohol, specifically. Doing it drunk, of course is even harder I imagine. I don't even want to think about that.

I'm terrified of needles. The first time I tried injecting, I fucked it up. Once the needle was stuck in, I passed out, threw up, fell out of my chair and wasted $40 out of $80. Probably in that order. It was just like my first tattoo actually, come to think of it, except the tattoo was $60 and I didn't wake up with a painful lump on my arm from a sub-cutaneous disaster or dried vomit and heroin all over my pants.

I never tried shooting it myself again. I just closed my eyes and paid someone else do it via parting with some of my supply or providing the needles, since I wasn't afraid of ordering bulk B&D's online.

Sober from it since mid-2015.

To paraphrase the Beatles "they get high with a little help from their friends"

No personal experience here at all, but to anyone who finds this fascinating/crazy, I absolutely recommend a read of "Sing Backwards & Weep" by Mark Lanegan. It's a personal account of his struggles as an addict while being the lead singer of "Screaming Trees" during the late 80s - 90s "grunge" era. He doesn't hold back at all. Couldn't put it down.

Most people smoke heroin their first time or are already addicted to other opiates but don't have enough money for them. They probably do miss and blow veins occasionally or they have a friend with more experience who sticks it for them

Tiny needles make it pretty easy, if you can do phlebotomy you can shoot up with a 31ga needle. I was in lab tech school in the military and ended up shooting dope sometime in the 00s, but stopped before I got in any serious trouble. Those people who have to hit weird veins in odd places because they’ve ruined the rest blow my mind though. I guess if it’s between that and being dope sick it’s worth it in the short term.

What people are capable to do just to get high never stop amazing me.