My Last Bag of Heroin (For Real)
1986, 4 minutes

”You know you're addicted to heroin when you begin proclaiming every bag to be your last.” Auder says this from experience. Throughout the early and mid 1980s he was an addict. In this candid piece of disclosure he demonstrates a method of smoking heroin referred to as Chasing the Dragon. Drumming his fingers on the table-top while waiting for the high to take effect, heroin use is depicted as a boredom far from bliss. The work ends with Auder in a druginduced stupor, delivering a rambling proclamation about kicking the habit, ”good-bye dope, good bye monkey.”

The title's parenthetical (For Real), however, does not refer to the fact that Auder actually made good on his proclamation. As Auder stated ”I would have said those words regardless of whether or not I quit because addicts delude themselves. In My Last Bag, I am only saying what I had said so many times before.” And by default, what he potentially could have said so many times after having made the video.

The work's ”Real” lesson is that confession no matter how earnest should not be confused with truth.