HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

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DIARY OF A SLOWLY RECOVERING HEROIN ADDICT

I used to take heroin at every opportunity, for over 10 years, now I just take methadone which supposedly "stabilizes" me though I feel more destabilized than ever before despite having been relatively well behaved since late November/early December 2010... and VERY ANGRY about this when I let it get to me so I try not to.

I was told by a mental health nurse that my heroin addiction was "self medication" for a mood disorder that has recently become severe enough to cause psychotic episodes. As well as methadone I take antipsychotics daily. Despite my problems I consider myself a very sane person. My priority is to attain stability. I go to Narcotics Anonymous because I "want what they have" ~ Serenity.

My old blog used to say "candid confessions of a heroin and crack cocaine addict" how come that one comes up when I google "heroin blog" and not this one. THIS IS MY BLOG. I don't flatter myself that every reader knows everything about me and follows closely every single word every day which is why I repeat myself. Most of that is for your benefit not mine.

This is my own private diary, my journal. It is aimed at impressing no-one. It is kept for my own benefit to show where I have been and hopefully to put off somebody somewhere from ever getting into the awful mess I did and still cannot crawl out of. Despite no drugs. I still drink, I'm currently working on reducing my alcohol intake to zero.

If you have something to say you are welcome to comment. Frankness I can handle. Timewasters should try their own suggestions on themselves before wasting time thinking of ME.

PS After years of waxing and waning "mental" symptoms that made me think I had depression and possibly mild bipolar I now have found out I'm schizoaffective. My mood has been constantly "cycling" since December 2010. Mostly towards mania (an excited non-druggy "high"). For me, schizoaffective means bipolar with (sometimes severe)
mania and flashes of depression (occasionally severe) with bits of schizophrenia chucked on top. You could see it as bipolar manic-depression with sparkly knobs on ... I'm on antipsychotic pills but currently no mood stabilizer. I quite enjoy being a bit manic it gives the feelings of confidence and excitement people say they use cocaine for. But this is natural and it's free, so I don't see my "illness" as a downer. It does, however, make life exceedingly hard to engage with...

PPS The "elevated mood" is long gone. Now I'm depressed. Forget any ideas of "happiness" I have given up heroin and want OFF methadone as quick as humanly possible. I'm fed up of being a drug addict. Sick to death of it. I wanna be CLEAN!!!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Monday, January 29, 2007

Make it a Better Day.

I DON'T FEEL QUITE SO LOW & HORRIBLE as I speak; I'm hoping this is a "real" improvement. If I sound a little overly concerned about feeling a bit "blue", I should explain that I have spent years of my life in various grades of depression and when it starts to come back it terrifies me because it can sometimes go on for a full year on and off. But mostly ON. And I haven't always got on with those antidepressant medications they dish out like sweeties at times....

Having said all this I've resolved to go to a doctor and talk over everything that bothers me because I have loads of silly health probs which I won't go into they're not embarrassing but trivial ... this is an odd thing about junkies; you on the one hand have to be very much in touch with your body, lose the embarrassment eg of using bathroom with door open (because of being in people's houses where people have to walk in and out to get eg toilet paper to wipe off blood, type of situations). But on the other, and this struck me so forcibly at my old methadone pharmacy (because you pick it up from a pharmacy here, it's only a "clinic" for fortnightly (lack of) progress reviews). Anyhow this pharmacist was so incredibly slow I ended up every day mixed up in a queue of old ladies and people with coughs and colds and sick children and kids with nits etc etc. It frankly astonished me the petty complaints people came in and were willing to spend money, basically just to get a nice little bottle of something that makes them feel they're taking care of themself. Many a time I've looked on in amazement as a businessman type person (and we all know men are meant to suffer colds worse than women. That is a fact of life.) would spend £18 or £25 on a common cold. A day remedy. A night remedy. Something to numb the throat. Some lip chap thing. Or whatever. My mind boggled at the needless billions flowing into pharmaceutical conglomerates' coffers all in the name of soothing the population's glorified hypochondria ...

12 comments:

RUTH said...

Glad you're feeling less "blue" What a good point you've made here; just one thing ...why no old men in the queue....guess they've all sent their poor old sick wives out....typical.....LOL. The cost of these over the counter cures? is exhorbitant.....I'll stick to my "rub down with a wet kipper"...much cheaper.

Deb said...

you know what??....99% of it is crap and doesn't work. Or that's what I find. I tend to look for natural remedies and more a more holistic approach. But, when all else fails...

I do hope you have some good days. And I think many who are depressed (that I know of anyways) are actually borderline geniuses who find it all too mundane and meaningless. The stimulation just isn't there. Maybe not you, but some depressed people that I know of.

Deb said...

or maybe you ;)

Deb said...

(and i don't mean the fleeting, soap opera "boo hoo he left me" flash in the pan depression. I mean the deep rooted in your soul can't find any satisfaction/motivation/happiness depression. The kind that attaches itself to you and won't let go)

junky said...

I really feel what your saying about the anti-depressants. Horrible reactions to some, Lexapro, that shit was pure evil man. I was seeing and hearing things, sweats, the whole kit and caboodle.

Deb said...

the school recently wanted to put my 15 year old on them or kick her out. they lost that battle.

Wayward Son said...

The over-the-counter remedies are not where the Pharmas, Industrial juggernauts that they are, make their killing. For example, Pfizer, the manufacturer of Viagra, is now seeing slumps in it's massive profit-making because the rest of the market has opened up to the generic production of the big cash cow of a little blue pill. It's not a case of share-the-wealth but one of greed coming full circle to bite the ass of the greedy.

Check out this movie "The Secret" at http://thesecret.tv/home.html. Understanding the law of attraction is a no brainer especially in the context of how it brings about the things we do not want. Consider changing the color of your blog. Though quite fetching it IS blue and perhaps an extension of your over-riding focus on being blue (understandably so given your history). Change your focus to being happy. Change your palette on your blog to reflect that.

Breath in pink--breath out blue
-- Funny Face

Best up my friend,

WS

Anonymous said...

I used the expression "blue" but 2 me depression is a burnt-out post-neuclear blackness.

Blue to me is a warm and happy colour. The colour of the sea, the sky. Powder blue. Clean bright blue. I love blue. It's not depressing to me.

Anonymous said...

& re medication I'm glad I never got put on that Seroxat/paroxetine crap. They've banned it for under 18s a few years ago here & there's a court case in the news bc of this minor who was put on it & died.

I mean, what is the point of antidepressants that cause an INCREASE (even if only temporary) in SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. That is pure danger. To ANYone of whatever age, who's already seriously low enough (unless they're just a medication fan) to be in need of mood medications.

Sometimes I do think the DOCTORS are the crazy ones.

Did you ever hear this joke:
What do you call it when you talk to God? Praying.
What do you call it when God talks to you? Psychosis.
What do you call someone who IS God? A psychiatrist.

Anonymous said...

Not sure how it is in the UK, but here in the States, many of our TV commercials are from prescription drugs targeted to alleviate minor problems. "Talk to your doctor about _____" is a joke any more!

Someday you and I will have to have a chat about depression and what is out there for treatment.

Anonymous said...

They are not allowed to advertise prescription drugs at all to the general public and certainly not on TV. The only ads you get for prescription drugs I've ever come across in UK publications are in stuff like the Lancet that I've found on train seats. Stuff like ...

"If you could take one antibiotic to a desert island, make sure it's our one"...!

Yes seriously. That's pretty verbatim what they said.

Of course we get loads of ads for "proprietary" OTC medicines. Trying to convince us that one brand of 500mg paracetamol headache pill is somehow going to do a better job than another 500mg paracetamol product. I mean, how RIDICULOUS.

Anonymous said...

The Lancet being of course a doctors' medical journal. Don't know how well known that one is.

I WANT OFF METHADONE AS QUICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

METHADONE ~ A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH







Heroin Shortage: News

If you are looking for the British Heroin Drought post, click here; the latest word is in the comments.







Christiane F

"Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo" by "Christiane F", memoir of a teenage heroin addict and prostitute, was a massive bestseller in Europe and is now a set text in German schools. Bahnhoff Zoo was, until recently, Berlin's central railway station. A kind of equivalent (in more ways than one) to London's King's Cross... Of course my local library doesn't have it. So I'm going to have to order it through a bookshop and plough through the text in German. I asked my druggieworker Maple Syrup, who is Italiana how she learned English and she said reading books is the best way. CHRISTIANE F: TRAILER You can watch the entire 120-min movie in 12 parts at my Random blog. Every section EXCEPT part one is subtitled in English (sorry: but if you skip past you still get the gist) ~ to watch it all click HERE.

To See Gledwood's Entire Blog...

DID you find my blog via a Google or other search? Are you stuck on a post dated some time ago? Do you want to read Gledwood Volume 2 right from "the top" ~ ie from today?
If so click here and you'll get to the most recent post immediately!

Drugs Videos

Most of these come from my Random blog, which is an electronic scrapbook of stuff I thought I might like to view at some time or other. For those who want to view stuff on drugs I've collected the very best links here. Unless otherwise stated these are full-length features, usually an hour or more.

If you have a slow connexion and are unused to viewing multiscreen films on Youtube here's what to do: click the first one and play on mute, stopping and starting as it does. Then, when it's done, click on Repeat Play and you get the full entertainment without interruption. While you watch screen one, do the same to screens 2, 3 and so on. So as each bit finishes, the next part's ready and waiting.

Mexican Black Tar Heroin: "Dark End"

Khun Sa, whose name meant Prince Prosperous, had been, before his death in the mid 2000s, the world's biggest dealer in China White Heroin: "Lord of the Golden Triangle"

In-depth portrait of the Afghan heroin trade at its very height. Includes heroin-lab bust. "Afghanistan's Fateful Harvest"

Classic miniseries whose title became a catchphrase for the misery of life in East Asian prison. Nicole Kidman plays a privileged middle-class girl set up to mule heroin through Thai customs with the inevitable consequences. This is so long it had to be posted in two parts. "Bangkok Hilton 1" (first 2 hours or so); "Bangkok Hilton 2" (last couple of hours).

Short film: from tapwater-clear H4 in the USA to murky black Afghan brown in Norway: "Heroin Addicts Speak"

Before his untimely death this guy kept a video diary. Here's the hour-long highlights as broadcast on BBC TV: "Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict". Thanks to Noah for the original link.

Some of the most entertaining scenes from Britain's top soap (as much for the poor research as anything else). Not even Phil Mitchell would go from nought to multi-hundred pound binges this fast: "Phil Mitchell on Crack" (just over 5 minutes).

Scientist lady shows us how to cook up gear: "How Much Citric?" Lucky cow: her brown is 70% purity! Oddly we never see her actually do her hit... maybe she got camera shy...

And lastly:

German documentary following a life from teenage addiction to untimely death before the age of 30. The decline in this girl's appearance is truly shocking. "Süchtig: Protokoll einer Hilflosigkeit". Sorry no subtitles; this is here for anyone learning German who's after practice material a little more gripping than Lindenstraße!































Nosey Quiz! Have you ever heard voices when you weren't high on drugs?

Manic Magic

Manic Magic

Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

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