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!

Sunday, July 01, 2007

No Smoking For Ever!

GO AND WATCH my amazing Hollywood Golden Tour! It's the most fantastic thing I've ever posted.

AFTER YET ANOTHER MARATHON SLEEP (why??) I woke to a fantasy of Sunday roast lamb with fresh mint sauce like my "nanny" used to make it (ie my maternal grandma)... wow she did amazing Sunday lunch. Ooo!

She and my grandad loved a good ciggie too. Hers were John Player Specials, his were spindly Golden Virginia rollies. I loved to watch them smoke as a child. How fascinated I was by the red glowing tip of a cigarette and how I loved the smell of smouldering tobacco!

When I grew up I knew I wanted to be a smoker.

(And this despite growing up in the most resolutely nonsmoking house I think I've ever been in. Just goes to show parents' best efforts will come to nothing when the kids see a desirable path of action ...)

Today is Britain's darkest day for the smoking fraternity.

Yes, smoking is banned almost everywhere. Even in payphone kiosks... which admittedly I took to be a joke at first.

But no. In almost any "enclosed space" ciggie puffing is now banned.

So hail the humble cigarette.

And stub one out on Tony Blair's outgoing back.

New Labour. New Nanny State. New horrible era of blandness.

No! No! No! No! No-o~p~o~oO~ooooooh!!

I'm off to Mother Hubbs's in a minute for genuine Sunday specials.

Okay dokey.

I may not post my boring ongoing story till tomorrow. You'll be relieved to hear

all the best to yous all

from

gledwood

***

Watch this if you possibly want to be entertained this afternoon. This is fantastic. Hollywood Golden Tour

and

Hollywood Golden Tour II

WATCH THEM!

part II
is especially good

actually

so is part I


so come and see it now!

Gledwood's one and only 1940s Hooray for Hollywood Golden Tour!!


***

Do you live in Australia?

Click my horrible Mouse Spiders link. I nearly pissed myself!

Precautions for both trapdoor and mouse spiders are the same as for Funnel-webs. As they are often confused with the Funnel-web, it is wise to treat any bite with caution, especially if the bite is on a child. Trapdoor spider venom is not considered to be dangerous to humans. The venom of mouse spiders, on the other hand, may be highly toxic, and bites should be taken seriously. If possible, capture the spider and have it positively identified.


First Aid
For all spiders, except Funnel-web spiders and mouse spiders, the only first aid necessary is the application of an ice-pack to relieve pain, if needed. If symptoms are serious or persist, seek medical attention, and always do so in the case of a Redback Spider bite. For suspected Funnel-web or mouse spider bites, a pressure bandage should be applied to the bitten area as soon as possible, and the victim kept quiet and medical attention sought.

Being aware of the presence of spiders and the taking of sensible precautions should enable you to live peacefully with these useful pest-controllers.


Links
Other Spider Fact sheets
http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/index.htm#spiders
Friendly Spider catcher
http://www.spidercatcher.com.au/

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nicole_: Aloha!

Akelamalu said...

Enjoy your lunch, and your day. :)

Gledwood said...

Watch my Golden Tour!!

Gledwood said...

It is fantastic!

Dr. A said...

Thanks so much for offering to put up a button/badge thingy for my podcast on your site. I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that. But, I'm working on it. If I come up with something, I'll definitely let you know. Thanks!

RUTH said...

Rumour has it that a certain bar in the House of Commons is exempt and you can smoke there. If this is true!!!!...one law for them and one law for us. Off to look at the Hollywood Tour now
Rx
btw the signature was a gift for a donation I made last year; no clue how to make one myself.

Pompey Lil said...

Hello Gled
Did you know the first person to ban cigarette smoking was Adolf Hitler -don't the relevance of that really just seemed pertinent somehow!
Anyway I have an idea. Turn yourself into a work of art. An installation that smokes! Actors as artists or artistes are permitted to smoke if essential for their art form. Hey you could charge a fee! give out licenses to other fellow artists who are followers of your art form -essential to it...
All the best Gled

Anonymous said...

I cannot -wait- for smoking to be banned here. No matter where I go, there is ALWAYS the smell of cigarette smoke: At the busstop, in my hallway, in bars, in restaurants, while walking on the sidewalk, it comes in through my window when I'm INSIDE my OWN house, when going in or out my work I have to cut through a horde of smoking colleagues, in the park, in the foyer of the cinema. There is NO end to this list. I have been praying for a smoking ban SO hard and now, finally, Holland will get one as well on July 1st 2008.
For 33 years now I have done my best to avoid smoke but there's just no getting away from it. Smokers will smoke and throw their buds around like there's no tomorrow (don't tell me there are exceptions). And they generally don't care wether it bothers anybody or not. I am SO happy for nonsmokers in England today - Amen.

Nicole said...

Gled - someone is posing as me up in that first post. Or did you do that?

Anonymous said...

i transferred it from the gabbly... was that you?
it was me that moved it here
sorry
just my stamp-collector's mentality
i want everything in the same place
oer!

surfercam said...

"When I grew up I knew I wanted to be a smoker."
- everybody needs to have some sort of ambition when they are kids...

Puss-in-Boots said...

Aaaahahahaha! That's a different take on what I want to be when I grow up...a smoker! Love it.

However, about the only place one can smoke here is in one's own home. The Govt is talking about making it an offence to smoke in one's own car if there are kids as passengers...fair enough, I guess.

Mouse spiders, eh? Tell you what, Gleds, if you lived here, you wouldn't even think about them...it's a part of life.

Time to look at the Golden Tour.

Ciao for now...

Puss-in-Boots said...

The Golden Tour...very tongue in cheek. I especially love the English commentator!

Puss-in-Boots said...

...and Demi Moore as a Stepford Wife...

Akelamalu said...

PS You have an award m'dear, please call by and collect it. :)

Anonymous said...

I am so fed up with the creeping authoritarian, collectivist mentality in our Western societies these days. It's driving us away from liberty and towards a neo-fascist statism, with ever-more-intrusive government protecting us from ourselves (but really, just collecting more taxes and imposing more fines). Smoking bans, seat belt laws, etc. -- it almost makes me nostalgic for Ronald Reagan whose motto was "Get the government off our backs"!

Audrey said...

Really enjoyed the Hollywood golden tour, very funny,espedcially Sylvester Stallone at the close.

Those spiders look scary, I run at the best of times, couldnt cope with those beauties.

We have had the smoking ban in place for some time now, It was amazing how people just accepted and adapted and even as a smoker I appreciate going into smoke free pubs and resteraunts these days, it even affects the people I work with in their own homes as they are not allowed to smoke an hour before appointments or during, seems absurd in your own home, but its something they have to follow.

The one said...

Looking forward to part 6. If you are still interested I answered your questions about antidepressants on my blog. Its not my most exciting post yet but its real. I may post about my darkest days in a mental hospital.

Hope you are having a good day

cheerio
sadgirl x

Gledwood said...

Dr Anonymous~~ If I can link to your podcast in an easy way, I'll definitely put the link up, that's a promise. (Would you give my blog a shout in return?(!!))
Ruth~~ yeah I mentioned that in my post today (Monday)
Sadie~~ Hitler first to ban smoking... what a surprise there! ... and such hipocrisy considering so many of his high-ups seemed to be addicted to morphia! (I've heard methadone, originally called Dolphine after A-dolph H was first used to prevent the high-up Nazis from "clucking" ... seriously!!)

Gledwood said...

Vincent~~ you know I do have some sympathy for how you feel... my stepmum used to feel like that... also I remember doing work experiece from school at the bank aged about 15 and being almost choked to death by passive smoking ... the entire office was so incredibly smoky it was ridiculous! So I do sympathize with you a bit!
Nicole~~ no as I said that was just my transferring it from Gabbly. I have this urge to keep things in "safe places" and Gabbly's not safe bc it deletes things out eventually. So I wanted to keep your "aloha" in comments, even if it was a relatively trivial thing ...
Surfercam~~ that wasn't my only bloody ambition! As I said today, I knew I wanted to be a writer ... wanna know how that's so ingrained in my brains? BC after I stood up and told the entire school aged 7 or 8 this girl, a couple of years older than me came up to me mocking "I want to be an author" ... if she'd not done that maybe a tiny little of the fuel with which I've forced myself forward would be lacking ... know what I mean. Also the rather forgettable experience of standing up before my entire primary school revealing this true ambition (it's the only thing, as I say, I ever wanted to be) might also be forgotten

Gledwood said...

Puss~~ I know surely those were really good lookalikes? Not the real thing... does anyone know where my Hollywood Golden Tour actually came from? Must have been some lampoon show from American TV...
Akelamalu~~ An award??!?! WHERE do I call to collect it tho..??
Chipper~~ Long time no hear how are YOU??
NEway, re your comment, I think you're dead right... they call it boiled frog syndrome ... we all tolerate these creeping encroachments on our civil liberties.... soon our societies will be ripe for take over by a dictator. Trust me, it's coming. & it's true ...

Gledwood said...

Audrey~~ No smoking IN YOUR OWN HOME?? That is pathetic. It's going down the wayof America.. no smoking even in PRISONS.. there would be enormous riots should that ever happen in here. I mean they do away with the death penalty. You should at least be able to kill yourSELF inside, know what I mean.
Those Mouse Spiders are terrifying, especially that massive-fanged red-headed one.
UKK~kkkhchcghkk!!!!
Sadgirl~~ of course I'm interested. Let me come by read it this evening after I've posted up the dreaded Part 6. That's why I've not been about too much bc I've been so exhaustingly busy with all that crap. Yeah definitely post up the darkest days stuff if you feel you can. 1 you might feel you gain some power over things by talking about them; 2 you can help others. So I'd say Go For It!

Liz Hinds said...

I grew up in a house of smokers. My mother smoked Kensitas and my grandparents smoked Guards. My gran used to send me to the shop for her ciggies and send me back if Billie, the newsagent, gave me the wrong change. Oh, I hated that!

Rice pudding was our traditional Sunday lunch pudding. I made some yesterday, in fact, although we didn't eat dinner until 8 pm (after Doctor Who). Mmm. I love rice pudding.

Mermaid Melanie said...

maybe you should get the "patch" and quit...

Anonymous said...

Not being able to smoke in your own house is insane. In which country is this?

Nicole said...

I thought that might have been you copying and pasting from the "gab" thingy. That was me indeed. Sometimes if I'm there I leave a hello just so you can see it!

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