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!

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Straight Mother Hubbard: My Moods: American Spelling

I HAVEN’T DONE THIS for a while, but today I thought I’d jot down on paper before I post, in the hopes of coming up with something more “thoughtful”. Hmmm... I'm reading it back myself now. Not sure I was so successful..!

Well, the Quiz is on its way through cyberspace somewhere. (& STOP PRESS- I've just been tagged with another one!!) Wasn’t sure whether all those I “tagged” were strictly the type to post Q&A lists, but what the heck — I asked them. Also, the last three people I know I don’t know yous very well (Raymi’s Mom I don’t know at all but I read her daughter’s blog)…

… Anyway, as they say; it’s all “just a bit of fun” & noting to stress over answering or not.

Mother Hubbard surprised me this morning by turning down the opportunity to use. She said she’d had enough of being messed around by lying little so-n-soes and besides on Monday, a friend had shown up and she’d demolished £50 worth & felt (so she says) no better for it. Yesterday 100mg methadone sorted her out fine. So good on ya, Mother H.

(I’m not naïve enough to even pose the thought: is this a turning point? In the fullness of time the balance of probabilities will most probably label today as an aberration. But who knows? Who am I to pre-empt time’s mysterious fullness?)

A flash of depression this afternoon cast a brief & frightening light across my pit-fallen life. I’ve done very little with the past handful of years, bar survive. In the most elementary living-breathing kind of way. My flash didn’t so much entail pondering nihilistic thoughts as merely FEELING this endless emptiness. And like the best illusions, it reached on, neverending, into infinity.

Okay, misery’s over. What I DID notice re yesterday’s quiz answers, three who’ve answered ALL remarked on the Brit spellings “favourite colour” etc. All 3/3 of them!! (The questions came to me as an Anglo-American hotchpotch. I couldn’t resist going through and adding missing “u”s…

I used to work in printing many years ago, which has made me far hotter on spelling and punctuation than I would otherwise be. (I am aware of my idiosyncratic use of the colon-dash (:—) among other things. And I know I spelt sentence with an A the other day. (See somewhere below.))

One thing you Americans probably don’t realize (or realise, if you prefer) — you hear Brit writers remarking on this a lot. When an American novel is published here, nothing is altered. All cultural and factual references, expressions and so on, they all go straight to press unedited — spelling included. The only (slightly bizarre) concession to British printing protocol is that dialogue will always appear in ‘single’ inverted commas as opposed to the American “double” — that I choose to use.

American editions of Brit books, by contrast, are edited so heavily for “clarity” that many authors feel the unique “flavour” of their work has been quite vanilla’d out. Ian Rankin of Detective Reebus fame, recently complained that the Stateside edition of his latest actually had “pavement” translated…!

Did Barbra Streisand sing in Memories:—

“Midnight — not a sound from the sidewalk…”??

… But you try telling Random House New York that.

Some Brit authors do, of course, get territorial about our colourful added “u”s, French-looking “centres”, mediaeval “æ”s & foetal “œ”s. Some of our renditions look foreign even to me. Ie. The straightforward American “maneuver” our dictionaries insist we spell “manoeuvre” — very Inspector Cluseau, don’t you think?!?

As for American spellings, I suspect the entire world will be using them in a couple of generations’ time. They are just as historically valid as our British versions. After all, in the 1550s, Queen Elizabeth I penned an epistle to a supporter to squash false “rumors” of her being sequestered in the Tower of London. She mentions these “rumors” several more times throughout the letter — never inserting a so-called British “u” — makes mention of her “honor” — and promptly signs off. I saw this, in the lady’s own handwriting, with my very own eyes. So if rumors and honor are good enough for the Queen of England, they ought to be good enough for the rest of us.

Righto. Slight tangent there…

Not too much to tell by way of news. Mousey’s sleeping, Marilyn’s upset because her grandson’s got dyspraxia (co-ordination probs). And to the best of my knowledge, Mother Hubbard, nearly 12 hours later, still has money in her purse and methadone in her belly — and has YET TO CAVE IN.

9 comments:

Brankinha said...

Hi!Just to say i passed here to whatch your blog.I understand a little bit of english but...it's not easy, and not enough... (:$ (:P

Anonymous said...

Oh hi Brankinha!! I love your blog! The pictures are v entertaining..!

Anonymous said...

This is a picture of myself by the way ;->...

Anonymous said...

Interesting history re: the varying spellings. I had learned (somewhere along the line) that the two versions of spellings originated with two dictionary makers who published at the same time, Webster in America and (I've forgotten his name) in England. Before that, spelling was rather fluid. Shakespeare spelled his own name differently at different times, in fact.

However, I just now checked Wikipedia, and it claims that Webster took existing British rules and "simplified" them for the American palate:

"As a spelling reformer, Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary introduced American English spellings like 'color' instead of 'colour,' 'wagon' instead of 'waggon,' 'center' instead of 'centre,' and 'honor' instead of 'honour.'"

Well, whatever. I grew up reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica, so for a long time I used both spellings interchangeably. However I do admit it -- yes, I sometimes do get confused when I'm in the UK when encountering words such as "pavement" or "bonnet" which have a different meaning back home. Habits are hard to break!

rowan said...

You have no idea how heavenly the thought of being unedited is to me. I wrote a book and the idea of it not being touched sends straight sparks of pleasure through me. But I think if it ever does see the light of day it will be edited "for clarity." though I have to say I am insatiably curious to see what they would edit. I dont have even a clue what'd they change.

rowan said...

Amazing how America land of the "individuals" is becoming such a cloned place.

jb said...

"Who am I to pre-empt time’s mysterious fullness?)"

Exactly! And very well said.

There's ALWAYS hope. You hang in there. Although, I personally advise that you find a Bible-believing church, find Jesus, and lean on Him. Religion might be the opiate of the masses, as per one of your later commenters, but if so it's an excellent one. His strength in your weakness: maybe that's part of Time's Mysterious Fullness for you. I really hope so.

Btw, I will be quoting that phrase often, since I love it so much.

Courage. The Mysterious Fullness could be GOOD.

jb said...

Dear Gledwood,
It's later now, and I'm thinking about what I wrote. Do NOT want you to think I minimalize the power of addiction, physically and mentally. I know that walking into a church would not magically make your life sunshine and roses. I still believe, though, that whatever you face would be better faced with Jesus as your ally. That's all.

I like you and care about you and do judge you or pretend to have walked where you walk. My heart is with you, none-the-less.

jb said...

Sorry! meant to say "do NOT judge you". Typing too quickly. Over and out.

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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