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, July 30, 2007

Monday Bloody Monday

THANKFULLY THE DAY IS NEAR OVER. I once bought a hamster when I was depressed to try and cheer me up. It was a female tubby golden Syrian mesocricetus auratus. I called her Tubbemer. She did not cheer me up. In fact I don't think she ever really liked me. We never got on as well as me and Pandable (who looked just like Tubbemer but was a boy.) Pandable was a wonderhammy. Slept solidly all day. Woke like clockwork at evening time. Got up. Washed ears. Did weez and pooze in corner. (Golden hamsters always use the same corner as toilet. Dwarf ones are more scruffy and just wee and poo anywhere.) Once Pandable was solidly awake he hit the wheel. I had to buy him a special enormous free-standing rat wheel as all hamster-"sized" ones were too small. He could not stretch out and run full-pelt. He used to run this rat wheel literally from dusk until dawn and woe betide you if it got blocked with sawdust or toppled over. He went nuts charging back and forth amongst the tank until you got up and fixed it. I read somewhere that the "average" hamster runs five miles a night. Well Pandable was a superhammy in that case as he did eight miles every night! I know this because we attached a yellow label to one end of the wheel so we could count rpms. These we multiplied, an average distance per minute timesed by the eight hours or whatever it was he spent rambling on this bloody thing. He barely ever got off it. Except sometimes to run a circuit of the tank and swiftly get back on again. Even if you let him out on the floor and put the wheel in the corner of the room, he'd just run straight up to it and take up rambling on that ... bizarre creature. When I took him to my Dad's house in a mouse cage with a smaller hamster wheel he spent the entire week in a foul mood, angrily gnawing at the mouse-bars and doing pooze on the new wheel in protest ... sorry I am rabblitting on and on about hamsters I know I should not. I am so depressed and down and exhausted though. I am planning to stop all drugs all together in the near future and want to cut down the methadone and come off. I know this will make me feel mentally dreadful. But the time has come to feel dreadful without heroin-methadone in the mix. You know that saying by The Verve? The Drugs Don't Work ..? See? They really don't. I don't know. My friend Ivy (from the internet) keeps saying she is going to be an escort. I don't know what to say to her. I just told her be careful of warts and don't let the punters wheedle you into dispensing with a condom ... I don't know what else to say. Everyone in my house hates me because they thought I was leaving. I want to go. But you know the saying "better the devil you know" ... that is really hanging me up. Also I don't want to move too far from this area. I would have to bus down every day to the methadone chemist's for one thing ... what can I do? What shall I do? I don't know. Monday! Bad mood bloody Monday!!

***

Go to http://pinguindude.blogspot.com for a bullying story

10 comments:

PinguinDude said...

A nice blog you got there, added you.

Anonymous said...

thank you!

The Discovering Alcoholic said...

Good luck on the total abstinence-
I do hope that you are planning on a measured approach instead of an all-or-nothing kick.

Regardless of the method, I sincerely wish you the best of luck my friend from across the pond.

RUTH said...

If you're feeling crap anyway then it must be the right time to stop the the drugs. Good luck Gleds
Rx

Deb said...

#1 - I love the hamster stories.

#2 - sorry to hear you're dragging. I haven't been around much so I need to catch up and see what's been happening with you. Just take some time out and follow your heart. That's all you can do. I think things are going to take a wonderful turn for you soon...I just feel it.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Oooh, Gleds. You certainly have the Monday horrors, don't you?

However, this too, shall pass...believe it, it will. But to get through it quicker sometimes it's best just to let it happen, wallow, swear, shout, yell, do whatever but go with it. Of course, unfortunately, it doesn't work all the time, but hey, it still passes.

Hang in there, Gleds. We're all for ya!

rowan said...

aww.. thanks for mentioning me.

rowan said...

in response to your comment I wrote.. well just check back on the last place you commented at. (most recent entry.)

rowan said...

Why are your flatmates upset with you? Did you do something or are they just terrible people..

Merle said...

Hi Gleds ~~ Sorry you are feeling so depressed and I hope you can quit all the drugs, - can't feel much worse
and think how proud you will be.
Your plant sounds great and better than drugs for you. Good luck my friend, Courage. And you might be able to leave that place, where the roof leaks on to your bed. You may get with some nicer folks. Take care,
All the very best, Merle.

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