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!

Monday, June 11, 2007

Greatly Honoured and Intellectual Dumplings

GREATLY HONOURED. GREATLY LOVED. GREATLY TIRED ... Greatly semi-inspired ...

Ruth has nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award!

I can't display my medal yet
because I've yet to find the html for that ...

But it's a kind of tag, and I'm to pass it on to another five so my list is coming up tomorrow.

It's another stew day. Lamb stew today! My sacreligious margarine dumplings are hubbling as I speak. (Sacreligious because if you're any kind of dumpling afficionado you will know that, to purists, beef suet is the only way to go for dumplings.) Mine, however, come out like extra-special stew bread. Remarkably soft, kind of dry in the middle (but not floury) and ... well ... like ... well, bread.

My new stew is very light on potatoes and they're quail-eggs size baby potatoes, unpeeled but sliced. They hold their shape beautifully throughout the two-to-three hour cooking process. Okra (better known to some as gumbo) I add loads of. Topped and tailed and sliced. One onion this time instead of two. One courgette. Celery salt (approx one teaspoon) in place of ordinary salt. Loads of paprike (about two teaspoons). No added chili: Jamaican curry powder instead (about one teaspoon). I add the spices to the oil that I use to brown the lamb this time, along with a little sliced garlic (no need to crush, especially if you're stewing). A can of chopped tomatoes always forms the stew base. Onto this I throw a good heaped teaspoon full of herbes de provence. Forgot Maggi liquid seasoning this time (I'm so OCD-ish about my cooking. Everything has to be a precise repeat performance of last time unless I specially break free. Then I feel so funky and groovy and liberated like I cannot explain. (That, my friends, is the sadness of OCD ...) My extra-fluffy dumplings basically form the carbs section in place of vast numbers of potatoes. I lurrve my dumplings. They go like bread and absorb all surplus water without the need to cook with the lid off on an already broiling day ...

OK: I feel an unclosed bracket - but what would be new ..?

Tomorrow I've an evil drugs management appointment where I will be grilled. Last time the doctor got all clever and probing I snapped at him "well I haven't committed suicide, have I!?" and the atmosphere of the session plunged from there from sparring into deadly serious. It annoys me that for over a year I felt that way and yet because I simply avoided saying anything it was assumed that I - a picture at the time of the walking dead - must somehow have been okay. What planet do some of these people live on? I demand to know.

Well we'll never find that one out ...

The air is greying into light blue. That coasting into late evening colour. The other day I awoke to experience intense grey rubbing against my window. Fog! I thought. No. It was merely clouds. I'd slept positioned elsewhere to my mind-map's impression of where I was, what I could see. So I was assuming I was facing the houses opposite. Actually I was looking up at a mizzling London sky. We don't get pea-souper fogs like they used to in the 1950s, when they used to burn real house coal. The smoke from this, combined with London's natural damp and fogginess produced a megatastic smog so intense on some days that the blind had to lead the sighted from tube stations across roads to the trolley-bus stands ... those were the days ...!

On that rambling note I shall have to go. Take care everyone! See yous all tomorrow ...

>pop!<

(gone)

***

Tonight's blog recommendation: The Animal Advocate - doggie diaries, puppy tales ...

20 comments:

Naomi said...

haha mine is OBVIOUSLY a thinking blog! not.

raffi said...

my blog represents my brain's ramblings, screams, and farts. though all of them are somewhat filtered. that's why i love your blog dood... it's real, raw, and unrehearsed.

RUTH said...

Hi Gleds; you can right click on my award and save it to get the logo. Ive sent the code from my photobucket site by email but not sure how it will travel; Blogger won't accept the code in a comment box.
Rx

Nicole said...

Hope your appointment tomorrow goes better than you anticipated!

mellowlee said...

Ok, now I am drooling and staaarrving! I want to come over for dumplings, and I can almost smell them :O) I hope your appointment goes well. Take care X

Amazing Gracie said...

I love your writing style! So casual yet so frank and interesting!
I understand about the shrinks. They can be so dense and tubular all at the same time. Grrrrrrrrr.
I told my insurance co NOT to send me to a certain doc because he refused to shake my hand! I think it had to do with his ethnicity and my being female...possibly "unclean," you know??? It took a battle royal, but I persisted! How can you be expected to chat up someone with that attitude!
~~~You've been tagged for a meme - no pressure, really - please visit me for instructions. Thanks...
~~~Blessings~~~

Audrey said...

Can I add greatly thought provoking too..:) Well deserved nomination Gledwood.

Im salivating at the mouth here, no its not rabid madness,well not yet anyways!! The way you describe those dumplings..they sound divine, Ive tried the suet way but they always fail to rise and end up like heavy thick balls of claggy dough, not found time to try your recipe yet, but do intend to..

I can fully relate to what you write about your experience with the doctor, recently I attended an assist course, suicide intervention. It was a steep learning curve over two days, something thats most of us find too difficult to speak about..I ramble but good luck with your appointment.

Your London fog sounds as if it compares to the Scottish 'HAR' we experience in this part of the country, it is like hitting a dense wall, travelling through to be met by brilliant sunshine on the other side, it can feel so claustrophobic...now to work...

Have a good day

Sockpuppet said...

Talking of awards, if you haven't voted yet in the Blogpower Awards, vote for UK News and Politics. My site tells you why.

Anonymous said...

Your cookery sounds like music in my ears, Gled. I'm impressed :-)

Good luck with the appointment mate.

Akelamalu said...

Congratulations on the Award, looking forward to looking at your nominees. :)

Puss-in-Boots said...

Your writing fascinates me, Gledwood, it's so honest, dark and raw. Have you thought of submitting articles, writing a short story, etc?

Something to mull over, anyway.

Your dumpling stew sounds delicious and I don't even like lamb!

Catch up with you later.

Anonymous said...

Puss in Boots: I have considered writing all sorts. And have written. It's just tydying up pages and pages later that gets to me ...

Akelamalu: I'm nominating this evening so not long to wait!

Vinz: lotta people say that they've not tasted it though!! haha!!

Sockpuppet: I will go and look at that

Audrey: actually there's an "SOS suice prevention blog" listed in my links under drugs stuff

Gracie: I know. People from minorities are allowed to be racist, sexist, whatever because it's an intrinsic part of their culture. We just get beaten up for every move we make because we are white and thus ever in the wrong especially because our several times great grandparents colonized half the world and left them with railways, telephones, postal service ... in some cases they didn't even have a written language until we came. And yet we are to blame for all their present ills. That makes me sick. What is a meme? OK I'll come find out

Mellowlee: the appt is in about 2 hrs. I'd almost forgotten it was today (again).... grrr it HATE DOCTORS sometimes

Nicole: thanks!

Ruth: I will try but it's not my computer. Doing these things always seems to be exceedingly complicated

Raffi: haha!

Naomi Joy: thinking all the time is too exhausting anyway!!

Gledwood said...

recommend tonight?

christiano ronaldo blog: http://byteresavideoscronaldo.blogspot.com/

Gledwood said...

recommend tonight?

http://ssipd.blogspot.com

chel & chel's comical observations

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

Gledwood, my man, you seem to be on your way to becoming quite the chef. I have trouble reading your post without salivating. You should have some friends over to try the stew.

Anonymous said...

I might bring some over to theirs. Nobody wants to come to my place understandably bc it is such a dump

Evil Spock said...

Congrats! Evil Spock has been awarded that a few times.

Gledwood said...

Hmmm I don't know how to put the medal on my thing!

Liz Hinds said...

Congratulations, gled, you deserve it! Your blog is both provocative and thought-provoking.

Sorry I can't help with the techie bit: I have no idea what you should do.

Yes, you can get vegetarian suet; it's the one I use ever since BSE. In fact thinking about it I'm surprised they can still sell beef suet - oh, no, I was thinking it came from round the spine but it's from round the organs, isn't it? We can get vegetarian Atora in Sainsburys here.

Wholemeal flour might make your dumplings a little heavy, do you think? Let me know how it goes.

Chef Jules said...

Gledwood, you certainly know how to put together a very tasty-sounding melange of flavors. Like yourself, I prefer less spud and more dumpling. I make the latter using cake flour. It has less gluten, so you'll find that made this way, there's no change of them turning out like lead weights should one overmix. And now, I have a hankering for a comforting bowl of stew with airy dumplings! Ah, the power of suggestion. :)

"See" you again,

Chef Jules

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