The youngest drug users in China - excluding those born into the families of drug dealers' along the boundaries of Yunnan province, which forms one side of the Golden Triangle, one of Asian's main opium-producing areas - are just 10 years old, according to statistics provided by Yao Jianlong, assistant professor of the Criminal Justice School at East China University of Political Science and Law. Many are addicted before they even reach adulthood.

Living alternately one week with his mother's new family and the other with his father's, and with plenty of money at his disposal - too much money for a boy with no real parental guidance - Hu's story is similar to those of other addicts. The same spiral of drug abuse dominates; at the beginning they use drugs for fun or to win approval from their peers. At first, they use drugs once every two or three months, but the frequency rises to once a month, then once a week. Finally, when the situation escalates and gets out of control, they use drugs every day.

Hu can't clearly remember how his "friends idling in the street" persuaded him to take the first hit of heroin, but he is adamant that he would never encourage friends or classmates to use drugs.

Eventually a friend informed on him and Hu was arrested. Before that, he'd managed to hide his new "hobby" from his parents, and even the increasingly large amounts of money he requested did not alert them to the situation.

The cycle of arrest and release at local police stations became routine, and although he continued to use a number of drugs, mostly heroin, he never took crystal meth, a highly addictive derivative of amphetamine, which is popular with younger drug users.

"The situation is becoming worse in that an increasing number of young users have started taking new types of drugs," said Sun Benliang, director of the Beijing rehabilitation center. "More young people are becoming addicted".

Last year, about a dozen 14-year-old middle school students were found to be using various narcotics in the Miyun district of Beijing.

Drug use is rising in China; the country had 1.79 million registered addicts at the end of 2011, according to the United Nation's Office on Drugs and Crime. In 1990, the number was 70,000. Moreover, the actual number of addicts is believed to be much higher than the official figures suggest, with some estimates putting the number at more than 12 million.

Never use 'ice'

One incident shocked Hu to his core and made him reassess his priorities. At a bachelor party, he saw how the groom-to-be began to hallucinate after taking "ice", as crystal meth is sometimes known. Believing he was being chased by the police, the young man jumped from a seventh-story window and died, just one day before his wedding.

Hu said he will never forget the terrified look on the man's face as he ran through the room. At that point, he made a decision - never use "ice".

Although, it's unlikely to be the last tough decision Hu will have to make in connection with drugs, it was a wise one. In 2011, 65 percent of Chinese addicts were heroin users, a decline of 13 percent since 2008. By contrast, users of methamphetamine, the official name for crystal meth, accounted for 23 percent of addicts, up from 9 percent in 2008, according to the UN.

A few years ago, Hu's mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor that almost sent her blind. His mother's illness shocked Hu, so he decided to tell her the truth about his addiction and attempted to stop using drugs.

However, his mother seemed not to understand the damage heroin was doing to her son, until one day she discovered him crawling on the ground, face down. Without drugs, Hu was going through "cold turkey", the aches and pains, burning fevers and icy coldness that accompany total heroin withdrawal.

But it wasn't his mother's tears that prompted him to quit, so much as her subsequent actions. She gave him 100 yuan and said, "Don't torture yourself like that. If you're suffering that much, go and take some drugs to feel better."

Hu took the money, but instead of buying heroin, he bought methadone, a prescription substitute. He had made his decision. However, he didn't realize how hard quitting would be.

He tried to quit twice before he finally decided to admit himself for the three-month course. The first time he tried quitting, around a year ago, Hu only stayed at the center for one day. He couldn't stand the idea of seven days of compulsory treatment and without his loved ones around he found it hard to carry on.

Back home, he again took drugs, but after much thought, decided to make another attempt to quit. The second attempt lasted longer, a month, but he relapsed.