Eric Zimmer

It hurts.

And so somebody said, have a drink.

I said, sure.

And from that moment on, I was rarely sober again.

It was alcohol.

It was weed.

And then I was in, I played music in bands and I joined a new band and I was going to band practice.

And these folks were, I mean, more messed up than I was.

And I was like, what is wrong with these people?

Well, I mean, what was wrong with them was they were

heroin users.

And one of them said, you want to try it?

And I said, sure.

And that began several years of misery.

Yeah, I had been sober about a week at this point, and I was convinced that I was done.

I was able to see, like, I'm dying, I'm going to jail.

I was done and was sort of excited about the next chapter of my life.

And it was around Christmas, and I went to the Zimmer family Christmas party, and my grandpa handed me my gift, which was an envelope.

I opened the envelope, and in it was $25, which just happened to be the exact amount that one thing of heroin was, a baggie.

I don't know what the hell we called it then.