Before we begin, I want to tell you this is not the episode we initially thought we were making.

After I recorded this interview, we learned about criminal allegations against one of the people in this show.

We followed up with them and with others involved, and it changed the way I heard this interview.

Ultimately, we decided to release this episode because even though it's unresolved and disturbing, it is real. Looking away doesn't make it go away. We fact-checked the dates and details in this story, but have changed the names of the people in this episode.

I wanted a boring life. That was all I wanted. I just wanted a boring life.

That was all I wanted.

I just wanted a boring life.

This is death, sex, and money.

What is death?

The show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot.

I love you with all to my heart.

If I don't see you again soon, I'm going to die.

And need to talk about more.

No charge?

Your money's no good here.

I'm Anna Sale.

I'm Anna.

Suzanne lives with her husband, Mike, in a modest ranch house in an affluent neighborhood. They haven't lived here long. It's been just a few years since they moved hundreds of miles from where they grew up in Texas. Suzanne likes the area's good schools. Mike doesn't like their high rent, $2,000 a month. She's 30. He's 32. They say it's been almost 10 years since they've used heroin. But it didn't get big like it is now until,

you know, way later. We were heroin hipsters. I guess we did it before it was cool.

Today, heroin use has exploded in the U.S.

It's more than doubled among young people in the last decade, according to the CDC.

And a lot more people are dying.

...