As a nurse for many years I still don't get how Heroin addicts or any other street injectable can be done by first time users? Hell there has been a couple time where a vein moves or it blown.
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.
usually was about $10 worth of stuff when it was with a trusted friend, if i had a spare clean needle that was worth $5 on its own. If it was a stranger or dealer, it was sometimes as high as $20 worth, again minus $5 for each needle if I had them.