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!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Soapless Sunday

I HAD TO WASH with washing-up liquid today. The soap I had bought (a kind of soapy fruit salad with all kinds of bits floating in it for the same price as normal) has vanished. Still we have no hot water - which means no baths. And we never did have a shower. Except the sort that comes as rubber tubes to fit over your hot and cold taps (those mixer-tap "faucets" (as Americans call them) aren't the norm in this country. Even the rich often prefer individual hot and cold on sinks and baths. Where the water is allowed to mix itself. This rubber implement you can only shower under by crouching exceptionally low - nearly curled into a ball - in the bath. Hardly a practical daily thing. And though we did have one a few months ago, somebody even stole that ... So washing facilities here are reduced to XIIX Century standards. Ho-hum ...

It is, at least, all quiet along our landings and hall this afternoon. Sounds of human carnage boom from a warfilm on Matran's television. Which probably means he's still sleeping off smoking Laundretta's earnings last night. Yesterday evening he had the audacity to suck his teeth at me then try and poach my dealer - all within the space of half a minute! "The Man" was quite affronted at Matran's question. And pulled a big face behind their backs as they left.

Laundretta's on-off bad behaviour we've all got so accustomed to that her adult toddler weep-&-wailing episodes by now seem to us utterly mundane. Only when someone from outside hears her self-magnified misery and says "what on earth is that?" does the point hit home that this is no normal behaviour for a 25 year old woman. But there you go ...

The crazy neighbour probs mentioned yesterday were not mine but a Scottish couple's that I know. They asked my advice on this man's bizarre and unreasonable behaviour and I said (speaking from bitter experience) that the man sounded to me that he was paranoind and genuinely mental. Thay'd not considered this possibility but said on reflection that my "diagnosis" seemed correct. If this is so, then they are suffering from our Government's disastrous Care in the Community agenda. Where patients have been tipped out of mental hospitals where (politically incorrectly, but truthfully) many actually prefer to be because the environment is straightforward, nonjudgemental and nonchallenging and sheltered from the worst of the world outside. Many have been forced to live among ordinary people while in a frankly psychotic state - where they're highly likely either to get taken advantage of - or to take their paranoia out on others and cause all manner of chaos. Often they're rational-seeming and plausible enough to take in lawyers, the police and housing managers who will do their bidding, causing all kinds of unnecessary havoc. When actually, all along, the "problem" has been residing inside them and their overactive imaginations. All this done -- why else? -- in the name of saving money ...

Right it's Sunday afternoon. I'm off now to my friend's for lunch. I'll see y'all later. Take care -

G

***

TIMEZONES are still weirding me out. Before I took up blogging I never had cause to wonder what time it was on the American West coast. Now, at ten minutes to eleven and dark outside, I'm thinking "it's ten to three out there and still midafternoon" I wonder what so-&-so's doing ..."

Little things; little minds - so the saying goes ...

***

Does anyone know the Travelling Monkey Blog?
This (soft toy) monkey gets all around America. Seattle, Las Vegas and California were his last three visits ...

***

And this is one of the entertainingest photo-blogs I've ever seen: VillarOhYeah. Text is in Portuguese but there's barely any of that. The international language of ugliness rules here. (Click the link & you'll see what I'm on about..!)
It's a photocollection of people with the bizarrest faces ...

***

Yeah, I know I shouldn't have bought stupid girlie soap ... but as it melts down with use, I sometimes get the urge to kind of pick the coloured bits out ...

***

PS Click on this: the Sneezing Panda. One of very few clips to make me genuinely "LoL" ...

***

Wanna hear some Chinese pop? This young lady has it as soundtrack to her blog: http://dabadeedum.blogspot.com/

***

FOUND A FANTASTIC other video clips blog called College Videos. I've already borrowed two of their works for my Novelty Clips Blog

***

DOES ANYONE KNOW MUCH ABOUT Second Life? I just joined and am awaiting my "confirmation email". My character is called Gledwood Uggla. It is a girl with a hairstyle that looks like horns growing out the back of her head. I chose to be female on a split-second whim and am now feeling "confused". I was assured I can have a sexchange once I get in there. Is that true. Oh well. And I bet I wasn't supposed to give out my "avatar's" name, was I? Who cares? If anyone knows anything about this game, please tell me! Because tomorrow I'm braving my way onto it. (Not in the mood at all right now ...)

Do I have to be a human being? Can't I be a hamster or a panda or something in second life? Maybe I will become a colony of garden worms living in a wormery... oh no that would be just as boring as my First Life - ho-hum ...

***

PS Anyone like the song Waiting for the Man? I posted Lou Reed and Velvet Underground versions on my musical blog ...

11 comments:

RUTH said...

Peksy soap snatchers! I'm sure your surroundings aren't doing you any good. Going to pop on the links now.
Rx

Gledwood said...

I know they're not but I've just become expert at tuning them out ...

rowan said...

crazy people are very very hard to take care of. So true. They wont sign themselves in, and if they do the hospitals are overcrowded...then the ones who are out are disturbing the peace.. it's an uphill battle. And we still dont understand the nature of mental illness recovery without the use of pills. There is so much misunderstanding... Many statistics show that drugs have not helped overall at all but the pharmaceuticals show pretty tweaked charts. Not that they make info up but that they have a botched group., or so I've heard. And then Nash got better just by wandering around princeton. That story helped me understand mental illness a lot better... it's a gradual thing.

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

I read your blog religiously but I'll be the first to admit that I am terribly negligent in ever leaving comments. I'm more of a lurker ever since I broke my left arm especially as I still do not yet have full mobility which is extremely frustrating whenever it comes to typing. I'm also in the middle of a rather huge move - going to eventually even update my own journal! - as well as having just returned to work after having almost a year off.

I promise to show more interest in my fellow bloggers in the very near future.

Peace, love and happiness...

Anonymous said...

Ivy you're dead right. The crazies who most need to be in hospital most avidly avoid it. Others who want to be there (the true sense of "asylum") get in and do not leave ("bed-blocking"). It's a ridiculous situation...

Anonymous said...

Hey Sickgirl - I saw the pictures of your arm you posted up they were truly horrible. Hope you're well on the road to true recovery.

G
xx

Nicole said...

My friend Stephen Collins uses Dreft (dish washing liquid) to wash his hair. You're not alone.

Gledwood said...

On his HAIR?? Doesn't it wash the life out of it??

Nicole said...

No, that's what I thought! But I felt his hair and noticed how soft it was. That's when he said "I use Dreft". I couldn't do that as half my scalp would probably come off in the process.

Gledwood said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

How fascinating!

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