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!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Treatment?

THEY TRIED TO MAKE ME GO TO REHAB: but I said no no no ...

That idea was put to me today. But actually I said I would think about it ...

I have been in treatment twice before
within a matter of months. But both times I was out the door within a week ...

Junkies are all boring. They're all the same. And I got fed up of being bundled in with a bunch of people on prison-swerves all muttering about who had done how much time where for doing what. Dull.

The doctor said today that he got the impression I was more intelligent than the average addict. I said (and this made them laugh) that addicts just pretend to be all thick.

Here's the basic rules for being a junkie
- Whatever the local accent is, adopt it, thicken it and make it your own. Speak it in a hoarse rough-sounding rasp. The kind of voice that would scare little children down dark alleys
- An addict cannot be sensitive. Kindness is a weakness. You must be tough and rough. The fact that I'm often taken to be soft annoys me most especially when people have the cheek to turn to me and inform me they're disappointed because I'm hard-centred! Better to be as I am than the weak and common herd, I always think.
- All junkies are thick. Speech must be ungrammatical and full of arcane slang. Thoroughly illiterate except for forging signatures on payment slips and cheques. Innumerate except for calculating bulk discount on multi-bag drugs buys. Conversely criminal "nous" is an utter must. I'm often taken as lacking in both of these things and how I love to ham my dimwittedness up often to much eye-rolling and tilting of heads. Of course my tormentors have always been to thick themselves to realize how neatly the tables have been turned...
- And you get my drift.

I said that I would think about it and I will.

But actually my first thought, on leaving the appointment, was, Will they have internet access?

Man! I am a child of our times ...

They tried to make me go to rehab and I said "maybe maybe maybe" ....


***

Two blog recommendations of the day:

Chelle and Chel's Comical Observations

Christiano Ronaldo soccer vids blog

And one performance:

Madonna's Dangerous Liaisons Vogue performance


***

O, & one more blog:

The Retrospectoscope - Brit doctor working in the States

***

O and finally - I found this at The Disease Republik ...
SPAMMER PUNISHED! (at last!!)
a spammer who sent out 1,200,000 useless emails is to be punished for eleven years by an American court. Which means if he is rich and happens to be a hotel heiress he will get out within eleven days and exchange life in a vulgar sinbin for life locked in a luxury mansion with as much alcohol, drugs, pizza delivery, satellite TV, telephone services and internet as he can handle ... oh sorry that only happens to Paris Hilton. So she's claustrophobic. Should have thought of that before she went out driving while banned.

Everyone else has to ...


Click here for the full story ...

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OK one more blog: go see Kao's cats. The text is in Spanish but it's full of itchy tabbies having entertainment. OK they may not literally be itchy but the stipes kind of itch my brain in a very tabby way~OK??!?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

tnx for droppin by my blog. pinoy(s) is slang for filipinos [people living in the philippines]

Anonymous said...

Why not go? Maybe if you stayed longer than you did before, you'd have a running start at being addiction-free. Would that even be possible?

Or maybe just become an addict to something less harmful and potentially deadly. I'm addicted to cinnamon mints. I eat them compulsively. Much cheaper than cigarettes (which I had no choice in giving up).

Hope you're having a fab day, Gled.

Gledwood said...

Naomi you are dead right

Ggirl I may do... just lemme think about it and stall 'em for a good few wks first!

Kao said...

Rehab?

here in Chile.. rehab is not raheb at all.. pyschologists think their day made if the addicts consume less of what they did before... like if an addict bought a hundred bucks in drug s a month, they hope this guy can reduce that to 20 a month... and then they leave him alone...

crappy, considering that these are government's rehab centres...

private ones and those who are dependant of church organizations or charity groups are more serious and they do help you there... so, Why don't you come to chile for rehab? it's cheaper and if you get bored of rehab drugs here are a lot cheaper too xD

see you! and visit my log if you want to... xD

Anonymous said...

100 bucks a month= 100g cocaine in Chile surely?
That is frightening... I don't know if I know anyone who uses that much ... or ever has (for any extended length of time) ooer.

so "only" 20g in a month is an improvement ... hmmmm junkies are so good at lying you never know what to believe ...

btw can you get heroin in Chile? How much is it for a g?
I bet it's dead cheap. I know the Columbians make it nowadays ...

Thanks for your comment, I'm having a look right now ...

RUTH said...

I really wish you would go...even if it means putting up with a load of useless spare parts as fellow rehabilitators( is there such a word?)...you seem such a fabulous person...if you could only kick the habit you could be ruler of your own world!
Rx

Nicole said...

I think you might just do okay in rehab Gled... but I agree - only if they have the internet, and only if it's fast.

Alexander said...

Hi Gledwood, With me goes everything very good. My English is not so good, but i can try it ;). How have you found my blog? I really like you message from Londen. I write poems in dutch language :). I am from the Netherlands, from Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht.. near Rotterdam. Do you know that place?

Greets, and have nice evening.

Alexander.

Unknown said...

don't go to rehab until you come get high with me. hahaha.
taya.

raffi said...

spammers can suck it. being enslaved to anything sucks. i get the sense you're tired of heroin and the whole lifestyle... even if you get to use the cool lingo.

Anon said...

Hi Gledwood.

Thanks for the comment earlier! I'm quite chuffed. And if I can return the compliment, I'd like to say I find your blog equally interesting.

Good luck. And drop by anytime.

Squamer said...

I think that rehab would be a good idea for you, because this time you have everyone that reads your blog behind you. If you ever need positive support im sure all of these people would be here for you, i know that i would.

Speaking of spam and computers, we had no school for a few days because some kid sent an e-mail to the school computer system saying that he would blow it up. How exciting.

It turns out that the FBI kneew about this for weeks and decided to alert the local police the night before. Just goes to show how well the american system works.

The kid was spoken to. Thats it.

Deb said...

I'm not going to nag because, honestly, if you haven't found something that "fits" for you, it's pointless. Only you know what will work for you. My advice is dabble in different things (if you want to) and see if anything seems right. You may not be ready and are content with life as it is.

But, whatever you do, you are a friend and a very interesting person and I'm behind you either way.

sandy said...

Your blog is always so interesting to read. Thanks for blog recommendations..

I enjoyed my quick visit> I need more time to read all that you have here... sandy

Puss-in-Boots said...

Bloody hell, Gleds, you've just described my brother!

claire said...

hi gled,
read the part bout being a junkie&what u should do to be one.
here in holland all junkies eat yoghurt or vanillia pudding (vla). you HAVE to eat it otherwise your not a junkie! still 2 weeks before departure...getting kind of a tension inside my body.
IEEEEEEEE SCARY!!!
hope u ok!chau claire

Gledwood said...

Ruth: detox I'm useless at (the actual 10 days or so of coming off the drugs that have kept me functioning these years) crying, hours in the counselling rooms etc ... Rehab I'd probably be v good at (have been told by cynical friends - I take on b.s. v well: hmmm...) I don't know I am thinking about it

Nicole: definitely it has to have internet even just so I can post. I'm too addicted to blogging now to live without it by any kind of choice

Alexander: thanks for the message. Don't know the place I'm afraid

Taya: but where do I find you??!?

Raffi: you're spot on there ... what is the cool lingo though? I never try to use cool lingo..! O no that means I've absorbed it without realizing. The worst!

Gledwood said...

CJ: cheers dears!

Squamer: o dear!

Deb: I'm looking into going to a Therapeutic Community thing where not everyone is a drug addict. Other people are recovering from different aspects of "life" that sounds far more interesting

Gledwood said...

Sandy: thank you!

Puss-in-Boots: ooer!

Claire: never heard of that particular dietary quirk. Junkies love sweets tho, of that u r surely right... 2 wks to Guatemala: have you warned them? Surely they will not know what is about to hit them!!

Liz Hinds said...

That is a fantastic description of a junkie! I don't know any - that I am aware of - but I shall keep my eyes open for anyone meeting your description.

Gledwood said...

Liz: hi I kind of popped in here. What did I say ..?

O! I remember now.

Yeah haha!! ;->...

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