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 24, 2007

Summer Sonnets

(READ the bottom one first.)

Glancing through the little green book of my teenage poems which are cringeworthy and exhilarating by turns (the ones I remember as being good sometimes are barely OK, others I'd written off turn out to be much better ...) I found the following that recalls how I'd been feeling: at odds with high summer. ((Actually this was more the bottom poem. The top one's about winter.) When I say "cringeworthy" I'm referring to the seminonsensical phrases e.g. "cherried twigs" (this must mean the branches of a cherry tree, decked out in blossom each springtime, weighed down with fruit each autumn - yet vulnerable, gnarled and bare by winter "snaps of grief"... I don't know. Notice the reference to "scuds" - this was written during the first Gulf War. Well what else can I say? O! Except the title - till 10 minutes ago it didn't have one. So I'm not sure about what to call it ... Better let it speak for itself:

Sonnet

When smoky summer sparks the fire of gloom
and golden smoulderings sun the wind and sky
and drops of death infuse the fragrant tomb,
the brittling earth, and scuds of tempest fly;
we glaze the cherried twigs in snaps of grief
and blanket sleep in melancholy snow;
the gaze has cracked the tangle of belief:
at night I see the numb of embers glow.
Tomorrow was the mist of yesterday,
and by each day a hollow seeming passed
like dreaming cloud adrift along its way
to where the dregs of yesterday were cast.
Do not despair when fire lingers long:
this nothingness has nowhere to belong.

Copyright by Gledwood 2007
Actually written around 1991, 1992 ...


OK Actually THIS is the one I was intending to post up. Really this one should be read first. It summarizes something about summer that seemed pertinent to me last night:

The heaven of the freshest, bluest air
is lighter than the shadows of my soul,
wherein the sunlight casts a strange despair,
and bit by bit my madness eats me whole.
When I forgot the universal blue
and raindrops showered on me, cold and grey,
the mirrors of chill grief reflected you:
the enemy who darkened every day.
Arising now from oceans deep as gloom,
the glowing globe is water-green from high;
I drowned within the confines of the tomb,
and shimmer now, a ripple of the sky.
A breath of death expires and pain is slow;
its recollection dies far down below.

Copyright by Gledwood 2007
This one also written c.1992.

13 comments:

zennist said...

Hey Gled, I make comments, post them (I think) and then look back in a couple of days to find out whether you've decided to respond (or just let it speak for itself). I can't ever find the comments. Do they never find you? Do you erase them? If they don't find you, then I need to find out why. If you erase them, that's okay but be sure to tell me so I can stop thinking I've lost my mind. Seriously. I posted a fucking comment. Gone.

Hope you're having an excellent Gledwood day.

Anonymous said...

the only comments I wouldn't get (quickly) are ones posted to old posts more than one page away ... but everything else I check daily ...

... am having an OK day, thanxx!

Jen said...

I rather like "cherried twigs". And for whatever it's worth to you, your sonnet is a whole lot better than the horrible teen-girl-angst stuff I was writing at that age.

I'm glad to see you're having a better day.

RUTH said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RUTH said...

removed that cos got it wrong. To repaeat; Jeez Gleds, this is good stuff...and nothing wrong with cherried twigs!
Re; comments; if you go to Settings; Comments in "customise" you can put your email address in (it's right at the bottom of the page) and blogger will email all your comments to you....even if someone comments on a post 6 months ago.
Rx

Anonymous said...

Gledwood, I'm willing to try the gabbler thing again. How about noon on Friday (your time)?

CG said...

I read a lot of poetry and I really enjoyed yours. Don't put yourself down; you are good.

Anonymous said...

By posting something like poetry up, I suppose people are apt to assume I think it's somehow "wonderful"...

This stuff was written about 15 years ago. So what's good about it surprises me in a fresh kind of way.

Also, because it's by me and though I don't specifically recall WRITING it, I do remember seeing it written down and jotting different possible readings etc. and all that stuff feels somehow personal and cringeworthy, especially when the more "pretentious" lines come out... you never know what others will make of them. Does this make sense?

Anonymous said...

Paterfam: Tomorrow midday is not the easiest time bc it's very in between me supposedly doing one lot of things and being free later on...

I will try but cannot guarantee it. If I can't do 12 is 2pm any good for you?

Anonymous said...

Great works! Write us more!

Deb said...

Wow, I am seriously blown away by your poetry - I think it's good and really needs publishing somewhere. I'll get some info...one of my customers at work is an award winning (published poet). She's a lonely old gal (I think she's around 90 now - Violetta is her name). I'll find out where to send your stuff.

Peter said...

Hi Glenwood, thanks for visiting and also for linking poetrygalore, having read a bit of the stuff I post in poetrygalore you may well already know that your sonnets are not really my cup of tea, by that I mean they fall outside my interest which is Bush/Humorous stuff.
Don't take this as a putdown of your works, they are fine... just not me.
Re your six degrees I did a similar exercise a while ago, can be seen here;
http://holtieshouse.blogspot.com/2007/01/10-degrees-of-separation.html
or from my archives Jan 12 2007
BTW Merle is my sister and Marcus is my son in case you were unaware.

Stu said...

Cool, I found them! As promised, I had a read. They're really quite impressive! I think I prefer the first one over the second one. They're not exactly my cup of tea, but definitely well-crafted... you've got a firm grasp of rhythm and metre. I actually teach creative writing and assess poetry manuscripts professionally, and these are far better than most of the stuff I receive. Many budding poets can't seem to grasp rhythm and metre. An understanding of music certainly helps...

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