An HIV-positive gay man in the program with Nic, an addict who had been strung out on meth for seven years, speaks in a quavering whisper. “I lost most of my teeth,” he says, showing off a lonely pair of north-facing bicuspids. “I have holes in my lungs.” With shaking hands, he lifts his T-shirt and juts out his sore-infested, sunken belly. “This shit don’t heal. I cough blood. I cough pieces of my stomach. I hurt all the time.”
