Instagram was a thing. I was clean for four years before I found out about ‘Junkies of IG’ and I just loved it, because I could identify with those kids who were strung out on heroin. I’d like their pictures and message them, but I wouldn’t persuade them to get clean. Some of the kids reached out to me, I talked to them and they’re clean now.”
Alzate is outspoken on Instagram about the dangers of prescription pills and uses specific hashtags to reach users and see what’s going on in the community.
He doesn’t believe that using hashtags to post pictures of drugs glamorizes drug use.
“It’s only glamorous to other drug addicts,” he said. “There are books and movies that glamorize drugs. At least [Instagram’s] real. It’s not like ‘Pulp Fiction,’ which makes heroin seem fun. Most people see someone with a needle in their arm and think it’s sad or disgusting. It’s part of the disease, it has a lot to do with being attracted to things that aren’t really attractive.”
Alzate believes the internet has been assisting addicts way before Instagram and said a lot of people participating in Instagram’s drug community are not open about their addictions in their everyday lives and use anonymous Instagram accounts to vent their pain.
Dig deeper into the exchanges, and it becomes clear that there are actually many supportive interactions happening. For some users, hashtags like #junkiesofig are a cry for help. For others like Alzate, they are an opportunity to inspire those suffering from addiction by sharing their own stories through pictures.
“Thirty or 40 years ago if you were a heroin addict, you didn’t have a cell phone,” Alzate said. “Nowadays, the opiate epidemic is attacking all social classes so you have kids with iPhones who want to socialize and talk about it because they can’t really talk about it to anyone else.”
*Instagram did not respond to our requests for comments.
