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!

Friday, June 29, 2007

When I Find* My Winning Scratch Card ....

*AND I DO FIND THINGS: Just found five Richmond Superkings cigarettes in a packet five minutes after posting this ...

DEEP AGAIN SLEEP AGAIN ... two thirty pm rising?? Seriously what is this. I've sat here plotting my life out. Not just the past that I've told you but the future.

There are, at present £77,777 lottery cards being sold everywhere. And every time I see a dropped ticket or scratchcard I have to pick it up and check it. Why? Because one time I was forlornly traipsing up the road in search of dropped money (admittedly if it's there to find I'm excellent at spotting it. But of course people just do not tend to drop £20 notes on London's pavements. And when they do, such notes don't stay undiscovered for very long. Also, Londoners are such litterbugs the streets must be swept several times a day with sit-on lawnmower sized great sucking, whirling cleaning devices, like the Teletubbies' NooNoo. Anyway this one Sunday eve I found a footprinted, creased and muddy lotto card. Checked the nine amounts of money ... hang on! £25 came up three times. So I ran straight to the corner shop. Got a very funny look (which somehow made it all the more worthwhile). The man had no discretion but to pay my £25. Of course within half an hour £20 of this was spent ...

Anyway if I won £77,777 tax-free what would I do with it? The question focused my mind on what I actually want to do with my life. And the answer was surprising. Far from go on another binge, I'd actually call the private clinic I know straight away. For just under £5000 they will take me to a semi-secret location where I will be knocked out under general anaesthesia for three days. During this time I will be dosed with naltrexone, which knocks all heroin and methadone off the brain's receptors. I will wake up feeling terrible but with the worst of withdrawals already gone through. And more to the point I'll already have been fitted with a subcutaneous naltrexone patch that blockades the effects of all opiates for over six weeks. (This is the treatment Pete Doherty went through.)

Unlike Pete Doherty, for me the drugs "don't work" ... or to put it another way, even when they do "work" they're somehow unsatisfactory. I'm rapidly approaching the point where "clean" is more exciting than using has been for a long time.

With the rest of the money I would pay off my debts (which come to less than £5000 in total), then fly off to pastures new across the world (have always wanted to see South East Asia. And you can be as cynical as you like on my motivations for going but I'll be opiate blockaded so it will have to be beaches, temples and elephants I pay my attentions to, not the local pharmaceuticals. Using other drugs whilst heroin-clean was so horrible in my last experience I never want to go there again ...

Then I will chose some place somewhere that I want to live, go live there. And inflict my writings on the international reading public because now I'm clean I'm desperate for some creative project ...

And ~ ta-daaa!! ~ that's my £77,777 (or more!) fantasy!!

***

RIGHTY-HO it's 2111hrs I'm just about to tap in today's installment. Good news: it is short. Bad news: it is not the last. Should be done within half an hour ...

***

OK this is something purloined from a comment at nicole's ... (stop press: and then edited bc I read thru and it was near-nonsense...

that £77,777 post did you get what i meant (thanks for the offer though! haha!!) ... that i actually checked myself in a daydream that i wanted to be clean... most daydreams upto now (also, daydreaming is something i pretty much stopped doing since i got addicted, which is odd, since i used to do it all the time)... most daydreams upto now involved having a million or more pounds and being able to use myself to death... see. not that i was necessarily suicidal but even in the daydream i acknowledged i'd get myself in a state. which kind of self-aborted the fantasy

yeah clean, how odd. i really want to be clean

but of course it never is as simple as that. i'm trying to urge the clinic to put me into anaesthetic detox which they probably won't do (never done it before)... but why not? oh & so on....

***

Southeast Asia? Here's my Debs answer

Southeast Asia bc I STILL ACTUALLY OWN (most of) a really expensive Linguaphone Thai course. It is FANTASTIC the best language course I've found anywhere. It was actually designed as the first year Thai coursebook for students at London's School of Oriental and African Studies which pretty much vouches for how good it is. And Burma/Myanmar... wow! That to me is the most mysterious place on earth

9 comments:

Mike S said...

Hi Y'All, glad you visited. Have marked your blog here as a favorite and I'll revisit it and your other blogs when more time allows. Very interesting from what I've read so far:)

Deb said...

Hi gled, I'm back after a little hiatus. Your dream sounds so encouraging...I sure hope one day, somehow, it can become a reality for you. You seem like you'd really like to be clean and I know there are no easy answers for that...keep thinking about it at the very least.

Southeast Asia hey?....I'd like to go anywhere/everywhere. I've never travelled so I, too, would use any lottery winnings to go "exploring".

Mimi Lenox said...

Just passing through. I've seen your name in blog circles. Wanted to see what the fuss was about. Great blog here. Thanks for sharing your adventures with us.

Anonymous said...

Let's hope your dream comes true one day - at least that you can achieve your wish to travel to Southeast Asia, even if you don't win the magical £77,777.

Sarah said...

That sounds like a great dream to me! I take naltrexone currently. It's used by some addiction specialists here in the States for alcoholics who (1) have a family history of alcoholism and (2) began drinking alcoholically before the age of 25. It helps keep cravings at bay although they still aren't quite sure how it works in alcoholics.

I hope you have a good weekend.

Gledwood said...

Glad yer like it Mike

DebsSoutheast Asia bc I STILL ACTUALLY OWN (most of) a really expensive Linguaphone Thai course. It is FANTASTIC the best language course I've found anywhere. It was actually designed as the first year Thai coursebook for students at London's School of Oriental and African Studies which pretty much vouches for how good it is. And Burma/Myanmar... wow! That to me is the most mysterious place on earth

Mimi... is there fuss about me (apart from my gawky "come to my blog!" introductions I pepper about from time to time) wow i'm flattered

yep that's right it doesn't take £77,777 to get to SE Asia Ellee

Sarah I don't get that either... disulphuram (don't know the spelling I'm afraid)/Antabuse for alcohol... yeah i know, but naltrexone is a potent anti-opioids thing... maybe it's something to do with your body's own opiates... what do you call them.... i can't even bloody remember... they make you feel good when you go jogging... those things, maybe alcohol releases some of them?...

Tatyanna (and Dorian too) said...

ARGHHHHH. I'm contagious via internet with my crazy sleep schedule! It travels crost the web; sorry mate! Anyway, once again, I HAVE TO tell you that you write like a pro and are an ace storyteller. Your blog is a comfort to me.

Akelamalu said...

If I win the big one you'll get your £5000 pounds I promise!

Andree said...

wonder if they do the anesthetic treatment for smokers.

Your story is very complex and compelling.

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