HE’S COMMITTED –
Oct. 16, 2025 – They installed his first pacemaker when he was 30, opened his chest three times for heart surgeries, and amputated all but one of his toes. Friends and health care providers have helped him secure permanent subsidized housing, prescribed medications to treat his addiction and sought to channel his energy into interests outside of drugs, including sewing and cooking. In hopes of avoiding another bout of endocarditis, Austin regularly picks up fresh supplies of clean needles and carefully disinfects his skin before injecting. But efforts to encourage him to quit injecting fentanyl and ketamine altogether have, so far, been unsuccessful.
Although many fentanyl users smoke the powerful opioid, the city collects an average of more than 150,000 discarded syringes a month. Austin prefers to inject, because he’s grown accustomed to the practice, he said, and it offers a stronger high. He describes his addiction as “the perfect relationship,” one that makes him feel safe from the outside world.
“Imagine if you had a partner that no matter what you did, no matter how awful you were, they were always there for you. When I use (drugs), it’s the equivalent of that for me,” he said during his most recent hospital stay. “The whole world could be falling apart around me, and I would feel fine.”
