"Sometimes, you just fall down."
Hooked
Nothing matters when you're high. Not the job, the wife, the kids. Nothing.
Daniels needed four hits a day. He took two in the morning, two in the evening. Sometimes he took the last one as he looked for a place to sleep: parking lots, shooting galleries, basements, hallways.
Daniels got hooked at 15. First it was alcohol. Then came angel dust. Then marijuana. Then PCP. Then the big one: heroin.
"It started out bein' excitin'," he says. "I thought it was fun. I thought it was cool. The next thing I know, I was beyond what I asked for. . . . It was no longer 'I'm gonna stop.' It was 'I had to have.' "
For 22 years. But he got through high school and almost got through college, studying social science at the University of the District of Columbia until Gerildine, his girlfriend back then, got pregnant. He quit school and joined the Navy, completing two tours at sea before coming home in 1984.
The addiction worsened when he returned, he says. In 1989, after sharing a dirty needle, he tested positive for HIV.
He's the youngest of seven. His siblings didn't tolerate his addiction. Neither did his mother, Willette, who worked at the post office on North Capitol Street NE, or his father, John Sr., who left their two-story home on Sixth Street SE when Daniels was 13. Willette died when Daniels was in the ninth grade; John Sr. died when Daniels graduated from Ballou Senior High.
"Ron didn't have my father's iron fist coming down on him like we all did," says Phyllis Daniels-Peters, who is five years older. "Then having all these sisters, we babied him, gave him everything he wanted."
His only brother, eight years older, has a less understanding point of view.
"Ron was very weak during that time," says John Jr. "I never felt sorry for Ron. I felt that if he chose not to listen to what was being conveyed to him -- that he should quit, that he should stop -- then ultimately he'll be the one to suffer. He did. He suffered very much. "
"You have to understand that as an older brother, you have very little tolerance for weakness. You don't want to hear excuses. You don't want to look for reasons why your brother is not able to do something as simple as changing his lifestyle."
His younger brother couldn't keep a job. Not the one at the Boys Club. Not the one at St. Elizabeths Hospital.
"I would get a job, but I couldn't get to work," Daniels says. "I would get a job, but I couldn't grow in the job."
He broke promises to his kids. He was in and out of jail 15 times -- for using and, he says, for "rustling," selling drugs to support his habit. "I was too busy runnin' around to be bothered with anythin' else."
Then came that cold November day in 1997.
Daniels made it up a hill in Southeast Washington to get two dime bags of heroin but couldn't make it down. He was sweating profusely. Something was wrong.
"I was strugglin' in just walking. I had a hard time breathin'," he says. "Even when I took a hit, I still wasn't feelin' all right."
