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

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

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!

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Falling Out of Bed ...

I FELL OUT OF BED AT LEAST TWICE LAST NIGHT in a night of constant nightmares. Or, rather, one ongoing dream that was bad, bad, bad. Involving me, falsely accused of something (what? I can never remember what I was accused of afterwards.) That is my recurring dream. That and dreams about buildings that extend on and on and on with newer and more obscure rooms... Ayway, last night's "mare" encompassed all manner of strange repercussions involving a television screen. Were my supposed "crimes" flashing up on the screen? I remember being treated by everyone like I'd done something desperately wrong and been found out. I fell out of bed twice during the night - a consequence of dreaming whilst most probably "awake" to the outside world (of course I wasn't awake. I was sound asleep. But here this:) (People have very often tried talking to me in this kind of state. I remember once waking to a rant of Nutnut's: "I know you can hear me because your eyes are open!" Well I could, because that's what I woke up to hear her say! But how long I'd been lying there, eyes open blank and staring as she chatted on and on God only knows ... Even as a baby I had a strange proclivity for being able to sleep in the most "wakeful" of attitudes. My easily-panicked mother even took me to the doctor's over this. (Imagine what my earliest medical notes must say! And add that to the present ones. I was doomed from the outset!!) When Robert Palmer sang, "the lights are on; but you're not home" - in Addicted to Love, he might as well have been talking about me!!

I DON'T THINK THE DREAM had anything to do with the book I'd been reading. An Enid Blyton Famous Five (that's 2 links, not 1) number "Five on Kirrin Island - Again". O! I hadn't perused Enid Blyton for many years. Oddly, reading her novel through as an adult I couldn't help thinking "what good kids these are" and "how jolly posh they are," (especially).

("Oh do let's row the boat out to Kirrin Island, Julian!" exclaimed Ann. (Old Enid adored her exclamation marks!) And just like me, she faithfully records every scrap of food and drop of ginger beer consumed throughout the long, hot days of the summer "hols"...)

That stew was indeed lovely. Angeldust asked me whether I just ate the meat! Good question. No, the reason I was so enamoured by my pie steak (apart from the fact it was such a very good cut and so very tender) was that I never "grew up" cooking meat at all in my early 20s. I was semi-vegetarian. For years I cooked with vegetables only; eating meat if someone else preapared it for me or if it came in a ready-meal or pie of some sort. It wasn't till I lived with Nutnut that "proper cooking" (after all, I did always eat meat) was ever something I properly learned ...

Last night I went on a fantasia of a blog-hop; keyed randomly that "next blog" button at the top bar. Up popped something to do with Lavendar. From Lavender's comments I hopped from one blog to the other always saying hello (you have to leave a trail, that's half the fun of it!) The game stops when you eventually come across somebody's name or face that you recognize; which happened last night about eight blogs in: Annelisa who I know from Dan's famous 325-comments blog. (You think I'm exaggerating? Click on his name and take a look!) Aparently I'd left little messages saying "hello; don't I know you from somewhere?" about four or five times previously. So I do apologize, Annelisa. I have a terrible memory!

An Aussie lady called Merle got back to me this morning after I'd remarked to her that half my family's from Sydney and yet strangely I don't get many Aussie visitors to my blog at all. Which always kind of - well, not wrankles me but it strikes me as slightly odd. Because in the English-speaking world there are nearly as many Aussies as Canadians and yet I know quite a few people in Canada. The only Aussie (apart from Merle) I can think of would be Olive who is 107 years old, has a helper called Mike who keys in all her memories for her ... into what she insists is called a "blob"!! Anyway, Merle invited me to look down her Aussie blogroll, which I will do this evening. It would be interesting to meet some bloggers from Down Under.

The stew is slowly reheating again in readiness for more intellectual dumplings going in. And last night's lot certainly were. When I opened the lid the whole lot of them greeted me in a mosaic of Mon-Khmer languages!!

Righty-ho then, I'll be off

Gleds ...

I'd be most interested to hear of people's Enid Blyton opinions, childhood memories and so on. Were the "Five" ever "famous" the world over? Or any of her other works ... e.g. Malory Towers, Noddy, The Secret of Spiggy Holes... and so on ... (e.g. was she known in the United States and Canada?) I love Enid Blyton because she harks back to a more innocent era. One of her favourite words was queer. But she wasn't inferring anything about anyone's sexuality!! When I was a child many children's libraries claimed to have "banned" her books (which only inflated sales as parents obviously had to go out and buy 'em!) Enid Blyton was often labelled (though the term wasn't actually used back in the day) politically incorrect. Well I don't know what to say to that. What? Because all the children are white and upper-middle class? Are we meant to feel somehow guilty for still enjoying the stories. Personally, I think not.

I believe that her books have been re-edited for the modern age but that spoils half the fun ... Memories? Views, anyone? Please...

I'm most fascinated to know how her most English of books have been viewed and enjoyed (or otherwise!!) by the rest of the world ...


***

DID YOU KNOW that microwaving water and feeding it to plants can KILL THEM STONE DEAD?
CLICK HERE if you don't believe me ...

***

AND IF YOU'RE WONDERING WHAT I'm rambling on about Enid Blyton? Famuos Five? Etc etc. (There was also, incidentally a Secret Seven but compared to the Famous Five they were crap.) Click on my Secret of Spiggy Holes link. This is an early novel and one of her best. The review manages to encompass at least some of the atmosphere of Enid's dusty old smugglers' caves, secret passageways, cooks and butlers and mysterious foreign princeling-filled novels ...

29 comments:

Wayward Son said...

Gleds, I do the same thing but use your blog lists to wonder around the world. Does that constitute blog stalking? I hope not!

Should you be buckling yourself in at night? I don't know how you do it but you charm the socks off of me even when recalling your night mares. How do you do that? Is it a British thing?

Be well. WS

Gledwood said...

Is it a British thing?... well I don't really ham up my Britishness though I suppose I could do. I do find the old lingo exceedingly entertaining "you jolly well should go, Ju, and you know it" ... all that hockeystixx stuff...
Of course it's not stalking to poke through the blogosphere. I do it all the time. I leave my electronic callingcard and then like Hansel & Gretel in the forest my trail of breadcrumbs glisters by the midnight moon ....

Liz Hinds said...

Hi Gledwood,
Thanks for dropping by my blog. It is a very small world when you're a blogger!

Hope you don't get any nightmares tonight. Disrupted sleep is horrid.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Liz!
(Diolch yn fawr!!)

Anonymous said...

thanks for the comment, I see another blogger in the web of drug addicts out there that I had yet to find.

I'm happy to provide some Canadian content, the home off all of Coronation Streets exotic vacations.

Hey, I'd be more than happy to be stalked!

Brian
acid reflux

Anonymous said...

Hi Acid Reflux - you've just answered a kind of conundrum/query... why DO they all go to Canada... because Canada is the biggest foreign audience for Corrie by far!!
So thanks for that at least. You didn't tell whether or not you are/more to the point WERE into Enid Blyton and what you thought of her (we always thought it was a HIM when we were little. Don't ask why ...)
Your name confused me as you'll regard in your comments. Ipoz/Brian/Acid Reflux. Some collection of monikers!!

Stu said...

Synchronicity... I'm on one of those blog world tours as I type! Although arriving at your blog wasn't a completely random thing: I Googled "drug poetry blog" or something.

Enid Blyton is certainly well known here in Australia, although I think she's fallen out of fashion. She's infamous for being an evil, child-hating woman! I actually grew up in England, and despite being practically force-fed her books by teachers and relatives, I did enjoy them.

jmb said...

Hi Gledwood,
I did answer your comment on my blog but in case you don't get back I'll repeat it here.
I am a bit too old for Enid Blyton since I graduated from high school in 1952 in Australia. So when she started publishing I was beyond her age interest.
When my children were small (44 and 40) she was not very popular here in Canada but I do remember we had a couple of Noddy books.
I didn't realize that she was reviled by some, I guess some things don't stand up over time since our attitudes change so much.
Thanks for dropping by my corner of the world
regards
jmb

Gledwood said...

STU: you're welcome, I didn't realize I'd come up on such an obscure search ...

JMB: that doggie pic you use is so cute!! Thanks for answering my query

Lee said...

G'day Gledwood...thanks very much for commenting on my blog. Nice of you to visit...do come again. :)

I read all of Enid Blyton's books when I was a kid and I loved them! My friend and I would re-enact them! ;)

raffi said...

your dream sparks orwellian images to mind.... bust out the cigarettes and victory gin. i appreciate the plug on your blog. i'm a neophyte to blogage and already deem it practical to implant a chip in my mind so i can have continuous internet connectivity to transmit my thoughts to the entire www.... sorta like a http-esp. oh well, let the games begin ;)

RUTH said...

Hi Gleds glad you found merle...I've visited her quite regularly and love her jokes. Re the moving pics you asked about...I just google for animated gif sites...then it's just a case of either saving a pic I like or just posting the url.
Rx

Puss-in-Boots said...

Hi Gleds, thanks for calling in and leaving a comment. Where are you living? The UK, I'm guessing.

I loved the Famous Five as a kid, especially George. Anne was a bit of a wimp and...who names their kid "Dick" nowadays? I do have a nephew called Julian but he doesn't get called "Ju" but Jules.

As for your falling out of bed, talking fairly coherently with your eyes open, etc. I've done that too. Not so much the falling out of bed and never twice in one night, but walking, talking and with my eyes open...yep, been there, done that. Ask my brothers. I've scared the hell of of them plenty of times.

So there you go...if you want another brilliant Aussie site, try kitconn.blogspot.com. This lady is a wonderful writer and a real character, too.

Last but not least, yep, Brisbane, Qld, that's where I live and it's fast becoming a dry dusty desert.

Hope you call back.

Ciao

Puss in Boots

Merle said...

Hi Gledwood ~~ Thanks for your comments and glad you liked the Emperor teaching us to tell the truth. I find it is much easier, if you lie you have to remember what you said etc etc, so I stick to the truth. My kids had lots of Noddy books when they were young. I see you found my friend Puss in Boots, and also Ruth.Lee is another good one as Puss in Boots said. Also Jan and Gwen. Olive is fantastic isn't she?And Gattina visits at times from Belgium.
Sorry you fell out of bed twice in
one night. Does this happen often?
I shudder to think about micro-waved water killing plants -
what does it do to us? Take care
Cheers, Merle. Thanks for the link.

Anonymous said...

Lee - you're welcome. As I said I'm glad I finally did find some Aussies ... yous all seem to have been in some downunder part of the web ...that I never got to anyhow...

Raffi your image really struck me. BTW I'd never have guessed you were new... Didyou know it took me ages to learn stuff like clicking on someone's name in a comments box takes you to their blog (or at least their profile) ... o! & loads of stuff like that!!

Ruth - I bet Merle's been in your links all along... & I met her by the Six Degrees of Separation method... there is loads of truth in that saying bc by 8 blogs at the very most (unless you are just circling about one clique of friends) I've ALWAYS come across someone I recognize if I don't know them already ...

Puss in Boots - I'm sorry to hear about Brisbane getting like that. I was all fixated on MOVING there once as a teenager (you know those fantasies you get I want to be a fireman I want to move to Australia... only Australia's kind of in my blood - the East Coast especially. I had a friend who went everywhere BUT the east coast well from Perth to Melbourne - left out all the places I'd really like to go ie from Sydney up via Brisbane and up to the Great Barrier Reef and Cairns. That's the Australia I'd really like to see ...

I'm in LONDON btw!!

Merle - no the strange thing is that usually I sleep like a log quite literally. I barely move at all. Which made falling OUT of bed all the harder to figure out at all ....

I'm really glad I met yous all

Anonymous said...

Gledwood, thank for dropping in. Fell out of bed twice. I once fell out of bed, many years ago. I was dreaming I was dying and floating. When I hit the floor and woke, I was glad it was a dream.

It's been a few years since my wife and I visited London. Love the town, but it's getting expensive.

Anonymous said...

VERY bloody expensive, Steve!!

Gledwood said...

ok this isn't spam but a memo to self:

(!-- Begin BidVertiser code --)
(script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://bdv.bidvertiser.com/BidVertiser.dbm?pid=66502&bid=154937" type="text/javascript")(/script)
(noscript)(a href="http://www.bidvertiser.com")pay per click(/a)(/noscript)
(!-- End BidVertiser code --)

this is my bid-ver-tiser code. swap rounded for spiky brackets if gonna use it again.

i'm trying to scrutinize the google adsense agreement but cannot make head nor tail of it but suspect somehow I'm NOT allowed to run bid-ver-tiser as well. boo-hoo

Crushed said...

Enid Blyton was actually involved in the Devon wife swapping scene.

Not joking about that either.

Not all the swetness and light she portrayed...

Anonymous said...

woooowwwww....

nothing surprises me nowadays

Gledwood said...

note to self: come here

http://holtieshouse.blogspot.com/

and

http://poetrygalore.blogspot.com/

they're both fantastic

Anonymous said...

Well let's hope you have a better time tonight, and no more scary books!

Gledwood said...

Ellee posted up something on her's "paedophiles due to be cautioned in police about-turn" type of thing. I was so raging I feel like repeating my comment here:

Cautioned? that is disgusting. They should all be killed! That is kinder than locking ‘em up and throwing away the key (the only other option). Also if you keep people like that alive in prison they live on to infect others with their warped ideas. So kill ‘em all! I say. And I mean it!

BTW I reckon the internet has a lot to answer for. If kiddie porn wasn’t so widely available we wouldn’t see so many people venturng down this vile road. What gets me the most about them from what I’ve seen on one telly documentary in particular was how SORRY these monsters felt for themSELVES. I mean come on ..!

Many thanks for your message on mine. No I barely ever MOVE when I’m asleep let alone fall out of bed - which made the other night all the more bemusing …

Edyta said...

GLEDS!
No, my horror exams arent over yet! ONE TO GO!

Wanna greet u with child's day. Hehe. Never lose the child within u! That's what Paulo Coelho said!

I remember one night i fell out of the bed a few times. Yikes!

OMG! I just drank warm milk that i made warm via microwave. ICK!

Gledwood said...

Edyta-::-

STILL one more to go... and don't tell me they make you sit exams on SATURDAYS?? That is WELL out of order ... BEST of LUCK - what is it? You won't need it (the luck that is not the exam) ... take care

Gleds

!!

Peter said...

Hi Glenwood , left a comment at your 2 sonnets post.

Gledwood said...

Thanks for the reply Peter. Your blogs are so funny

Z_gal said...

Gledwood - Hi there! I am responding to your question on my blog (asmallslice.blogspot.com) about the difference between a Ranch and a Farm. As far as I can tell, the primary difference is that a Ranch is focused on producing livestock, whereas a Farm focuses on producing crops. So why do we call it a Dairy Farm when there are a bunch of cows? I don't know, maybe it's because we don't eat them... Clearly, I'm not the authority, but this is what I've heard.
Background: Our ranch has cows, and previously had goats and sheep.
Hope this is helpful!
And the photos you have of the sky are breathtaking.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone recommend the best Remote Desktop software for a small IT service company like mine? Does anyone use Kaseya.com or GFI.com? How do they compare to these guys I found recently: N-able N-central remote windows login
? What is your best take in cost vs performance among those three? I need a good advice please... Thanks in advance!

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