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!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Head Shrunk

PSYCHIATRIC ASSESSMENT TODAY. Got there on time (so psyched up, set alarm for 9am for 10:30 appointment). Man! It was exhausting. We only got a half or a third way through the potential ground to be covered. So I'm not bandaged up in str8 jackets yet ... The next appointment can't be till after August as that's holiday season (not as bad as in France. But still; you can rarely ever do anything important in August ... He knows all about my supersonic hearing episodes, handwashing episodes, depression episodes, hair falling out episodes (never even mentioned that here), suicide "episodes" (psychiatrists love the word "episode" - perhaps it's because they can sit back, tuck into the popcorn and lasciviously wait until the next drama unfolds in that patient's life: the next "episode" ...)

Well no other news except I have to post this now as am off home and not coming out again and it's raining. And the council man: I only found out this morning, was coming for "inspection" today. Well good luck to him because far as I was concerned he was coming Monday and I'll tell him that if anyone ever asks and spick and span is one thing but I live in that room. In one room. With no storage elsewhere. So I'm not making it un-lived-in for anyone. I've done the things they wanted. If I do more I know they will only find fault so I'm keeping my actions to the minimum. If my room is not in a perfectly acceptable state ... well I will eat a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ...

Right I gotta go because I'm tired. It is 3pm I've been out all day and I want to see what if any nasty correspondence/other things have been left for me back there.

Cheerio!

15 comments:

Liz Hinds said...

I love your blog. It's so ... interesting!

Hurry up and get on with those welshcakes.

Who is mother Hubbs? Can you explain please? Is she really your mother? I'm thinking not.

robkroese said...

Interesting is a good word for it. :)

Anonymous said...

Diesel: certainly better than boring!!

Liz: Mother Hubbs (Mother Hubbard) isn't really my Mum; she is a friend i met about 5 years ago who has helped me a lot

Mother Hubbard was a kind of nickname that came up ...

RUTH said...

Hope all went ok with the council man. When i think of the clutter I have in a whole house! You should be proud of managing in just one room.
Rx

jungle jane said...

Blimey Gleds! That's a looooong time between appointments!

((hugs))

claire said...

hee gledsky
how are you? see you are going to a psych! thats good dude!
impressed by your actions and change of mind. hope it will help on your 'episodes' . i am fine, happy to be here in guata!!! last weekend i tried some acid *again* way much stronger than i was used to so happy i took half a tab!
well hope to speak to you again, bye, claire

Wayward Son said...

Psychiatrists are sooooo episodic!
:{

Akelamalu said...

Hope the council bloke wasn't too difficult. Have you made the welshcakes yet?

Nicole said...

The weather has been just as shitty here. I'm glad you made it out for your appointment on time. At least it shows them your commitment.

You can't get anything done in Holland during the summer either. Everyone shuts shop and leaves for sunnier parts. The funniest thing was one summer when one of my ex-colleagues went to the public pool, only to find a note that they too were closed for their two weeks of summer vacation.

Anonymous said...

I hope all went well when you got home.

Jesus. You Europeans never work. No one in America takes a month off. Ever. Unless they're dying.

Maybe I need to move there....

Have my comments today seemed peculiar? They seem peculiar as I type them, but who knows. Waiting for the results of a skin biopsy and it's making me crazy. Take care, Gled.

raffi said...

thanks for your recent episode

M- Filer said...

What's a councilman in the UK? In America it is a locally elected official ; one who you write a letter to if you want a new traffic light installed up the street.

Anonymous said...

Ruth: that is my biggest gripe - one room! But beggars should not (cannot) be chosers ...

Jane: I know. He wanted to make it within 2 weeks longest. But Aug = holiday time, so ...

Claire: glad you're having an entertaining time in Guat'...

Anonymous said...

Wayward: you're damn right there

Audrey: Evilstein is just picking on me now. Wanted me to chuck my umbrella collection out "it is for your own good" yeah like hell it is

Ake: I was out when Council guy came... thankfully! Wouldn't have stayed in anyway, not after being told he was coming Monday and then finding out was Wednesday at literally 9am off the workman who'd come to staple carpets down in the hall ...

Anonymous said...

Nicole: our August as I said isn't as bad as France's but it's still pretty useless: the time anything is likely to be shut (the very time tourists are gonna wanna see it) ... we've been having 4cm an hour rain several times a week... floods all over the place. But not in London (I don't think London "can" flood bc most is too uphill from the river ...)

Ggirl: as I said it IS more of a French thing but yeah August is crap... also in a good job here you might get up to 6 weeks holiday a year (certainly four weeks) which is far more than I've heard they give you in the old US of A ...

Raffi: that's quite all right you're most welcome

M-Filer: Council man...= guy from the local authority which pays most of the exhorbitant price of my housing (it is over £200 per week bc it's "emergency" accommodation") ... A councillor is an eleced official; "man from the council" would be just a paid up civil servant who has to do with running of the departments but stays in a job whoever is elected. Aparently they don't have nearly so many nonelected officials in America. Here we like it bc it gives continuity whoever's in government. Certainly we would not abide senior judges being appointed by Government of the day. That sounds like corruption!

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

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