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

LIVE FROM LONDON

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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!

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Chatterday Saturday

STANLEY THE O.A.P. SHOPLIFTER and Miles his Public Skool partner have dropped round a few times this week. They sit about for an hour or so smoking their wares, give me a bit (I can't usually do it in front of them as would have to strip nearly naked to find a site) but it's the thought that counts. Miles came by today. Stanley is funny. He tells the tallest stories I've ever heard, eg about whacking a wasps' nest down out of an oak tree and the yellowjackets (that's what us Brits mean when we say a "wasp") going mental up the entire street. Old 1920s fishwives (well that's what it was like when Stanley was a little boy) running up in arms from their homes with black and yellow swarms buzzing them out ... etc etc. The other day when they came and I had somewhere to go I avoided them, met up with them later on a park bench with another shoplifter called Sarah. And sat there as the three of them talked "shop" about what store five miles away you can't take so much as a stick of chewing gum out of "because yous lot have done it to death"... Sarah speaks such heavy London slang she even says "moons" instead of months. I mean honestly she sounds to me like a Mediaeval serving wench. "I bain't been outta these ere parts for seven moons" what does she think she sounds like. I had an animated conversation about "getting clean" not that I'm telling anyone I want to, for over an hour. And in the end told the nasty truth. Well what is this existence about? Except a tightrope walk between survival and death. I don't know.

8 comments:

Nicole said...

Ohmygod, we have some London chick call us at work sometimes, she's from some telephone conferencing company and she always asks for Sophie and her accent makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! We call her "Little Britain". She says things like "Oh yeaaah, you live in da Nevalands, cheers yeah."

onetreeplanted said...

I thought I was bipolar.

*laughs*

It's all good, glad you stopped by, I'll return the favor and add you to my links.

Keep up the writing, Woods.

Deb said...

hi gled...just checking in. I love accents of any kind...I just think they sound so much better than my bland way of speaking.

Anonymous said...

I love accents as well, no matter where they are from. Being dutch I have a hard time understanding the english ones though.

junky said...

hey Gled at the risk of sounding preachy, again probably.
you know you have to stop hanging with other users if you want to kick right?
It's the hardest thing because you have built your life around it, but necessary, I'll jump off this here soap box now, and stop throwing stones in my glass house...:)

Deb said...

what junky says is so true....my brother's one year anniversary of being clean is in May (his girlfriend celebrated hers Mar. 7). That was harder than anything for them - cutting the ties and finding ways to fill the void.

He is in NA and it works for him, but not for everyone. Whatever your route, you have to disassociate yourself from the life/people you knew as an addict (completely) and head in a completely new direction. And, as strange as it will be at first, you'll quickly readjust and learn to love your new life.

Anonymous said...

Junky: I know I know they took up calling upon me unannounced. Of course I let them in as they never turn up emptyhanded ...

RUTH said...

Hang on got to put me specs on cos me mincers aint to good. Thats more like it me old cocker. It's Mick's trouble an strife 'ere; gonna 'ave us a nice Ruby Murray tonight if his old dutch can make it up the apples an pears to the geezer an get it out. Well that's enough rabbiting from me; gonna shut me north an south now.
Rx

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

Copyright 2011 by Gledwood