Editor puts life online to help heroin addicts

Even by the standards of New York's liberal journalistic elite, Neal Boulton is a whirlwind of debauched controversy. American magazine editors are a colourful bunch at the best of times, but put Boulton next to any of them and they soon fade into the background as comparative wallflowers.

Three years ago, the 43-year-old married father of two was thrust to the top of America's gossip columns when he was spotted kissing Rolling Stone founding editor Jann Wenner. Both men claimed the kiss was simply a Europhiliac peck on the cheek, but within months Boulton had come out of the closet as a man living in an open – and very proactive – bisexual marriage.

The experience led him to set up BastardLife.com, a one-stop sex advice website for men and women in straight relationships who liked to play on the other side of the fence. It quickly became a global hit with 1.2 million readers.

Now the Baltimore-born electrician's son has launched HeroinLife.com, a website aimed at reformed and reforming heroin addicts, written by the addicts themselves.

"I really want to do for my fellow addicts what I was doing with my fellow sexual explorers," Mr Boulton, who recently admitted to a 10-year heroin habit, told the Huffington Post website.

"There came this day when I successfully had a long period of time off heroin. I woke up one morning and said to my wife: 'I wanna help people because I have struggled.' I've been to six rehabs, I've been arrested hundreds of times, I've been thrown into psyche wards. I've been everywhere except death."

The announcement that one of America's most notorious magazine editors was secretly shooting heroin for much of his glittering career might have caused outrage had it come from anyone but Boulton.

But over the past three years the tattooed libertine has created almost as many headlines as his staff have written. The kiss with Jann Wenner was just the start of a series of utterly frank admissions about his open marriage to his childhood sweetheart Claire Davis.

Far more explosive, however, was Boulton's claim last December that the reason he had left as editor of Men's Fitness was because the company that owns the magazine quietly hushed up Tiger Woods's extra-marital affairs in exchange for an exclusive interview.

Boulton alleged that American Media, the publishing house behind both Men's Fitness and the National Enquirer, hammered out a secret deal to suppress the golfer's story when a reporter for the Enquirer uncovered evidence of his secret trysts, long before the story broke worldwide.

David J. Pecker, the company's chief executive, has dismissed all of the allegations and called Mr Boulton "a disgruntled former employee."

Even down to the same font and sleek photography, it is clear that Boulton's new venture is taking a leaf out of BastardLife.com. But instead of endless glitzy stories about debauched, orgasm-filled sex, HeroinLife.com makes for much more sober reading. The pages overflow with harrowing testimonies about the wrenching hold heroin has on its users and of lives destroyed by drugs.

Nonetheless, Boulton hopes his own personal experiences as both a magazine editor and drug user will create a vibrant online community of junkies who can help each other overcome their addictions.