Heroin had coursed through Joe's veins for more than 12 months when he arrived at the St. John's University training camp as a freshman attacker on the powerhouse Red Storm lacrosse team.

Joe -- who did not want to be identified by his real name -- had played a variety of sports since he was 6 or 7 -- for as long as he could remember. As a teenager, he excelled in lacrosse, twice earning All-County honors at Massapequa High School, where he was team captain.

Joe was, he said, a solid B-plus student in high school and attended St. John's on an athletic scholarship. But after having been hooked on heroin for a little over a year, he said, he became a "slave" to it. Feeding his habit was his most important priority, not playing the game he loved.

"My job wasn't lacrosse," Joe said. "It was finding heroin and getting high."

If he went more than four hours without a fix, his craving would come calling again, whispering, then screaming in Joe's head. He needed progressively more heroin -- and more and more.

Joe couldn't handle both heroin and lacrosse. So he quit the squad and left the university after two weeks, leaving behind his longtime dream of playing for a Division I team -- and the promise of a bright future.

"I messed that up because of my drug use," said Joe, who is now 24 and clean.

At the time, he told no one, not even his parents, about his drug habit. What lay ahead of him was "the road to hell."

Over time, heroin came to entirely control Joe's body and mind. Without it, he sweated profusely while simultaneously shivering because he felt so cold. Hot flashes might follow. His nose ran. He vomited. Then the diarrhea would come. If he went a day without the drug, he would curl up into a ball as intense pain shot up and down his spine, feeling like he was ready to die.

"It came to a point when I forgot what it's like to be clean," Joe said.

The South Shore's heroin epidemic

This week, the Herald begins a long-term series on what the Nassau County Police Department has labeled an epidemic across the South Shore -- heroin addiction, particularly among young people ages 16 to 29.