HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

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 29, 2007

Sunday Morning

AN UNNUMBERED HOUR OF THE NIGHT. BBC World Service is blaring. I've got back into the habit of sleeping living diarrhoeaing with the radio on. Which is odd, as in previous weeks I've lived with blankness. No radio. No TV. (We're top priority, so I'm told, in the TV Licensing authority's "London CRACKDOWN". Our home shall be investigated. Ooo, matron!

What has filled the gap? Books. But I must advise against Agatha Christie's At Bertram's Hotel. The climax is so very implausible; so very, very un-true-to-life it's a wonder the slim volume did not go flying out my window once the last page was finally reached. Miss Marple doesn't even solve the crime ~ so where is the point in that. I haven't felt quite so cheated by a novel in a long time.

Swynable (the Chinese Mouse) is angrily sleeping. After spending most of the night in mousey birdcage prison. Irritatedly nibbling at the bars and trying to get out. I had thought he might like it more in there but aparently not.

Righto thten I'm off to Mother Hubbs's presently for luncheon. And my time on this computer is up. Gotta run!

PS I am supposed to be writing my memoirs. Has anyone got any advice for me?

PPS The ceiling is leaking rain all over my bed. Lovely.

21 comments:

Gattina said...

I just popped in on my sunday morning walk through blogville and read about your hamster. Must be very cute, we had a guinea pig once. The only problem with hamsters is that they sleep during the day and are top fit at night !

Akelamalu said...

Enjoy your lunch.

A said...

thanks alot for adding a link in your blog; I'll come back to read more of your blogs.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

I can relate to the silence as I so miss R4 here. Can get it on the net but it's not the same as having it as the background to your life. Enjoying reading about your hamster - I think he's got himslef a good billet with you, Gleds1 Hope you enjoyed lunch. Auguri

Tea said...

Hi Gled,

Finally getting around to visiting. I`ve figured out a system for my slow connection. Download blog, go away and do something else, then come back and voila, all downloaded.
Hope you had a nice lunch at your Mother Hubbards. I guess my methadone is the patch at the moment. Day 6 with no ciggies. I liked smoking. It`s even better when you haven`t smoked for awhile. But never mind.
Love Miss Marple. Saw Agatha Christie's At Bertram's Hotel on tv once. The stage setting arrangements of rooms and scenery was actually better than the show. Reading is the best when there`s nothing to do. Or even when there is.
Glad you have a pet. Pets are good company.
tea
xo

Liz Hinds said...

For some reason I think you would like The Shadow of the Wind. It's a very good book about books and love and mystery.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Hi Gleds

I love reading and go spare if I haven't got an unread book around somewhere.

Ceiling leak over your bed...that Dr Evilstein landlord of yours needs a good kick in the bum.

Enjoy your lunch with Mother Hubbard.

Edyta said...

DARN that rain. SHIT.
Rain rain go away, sun sun come today
also an old poem-nurcery rhyme i've used to sing & say. haha :D

& never thought Agatha Cristie would be bad. Damn. & i just wanted to buy a book of hers. But i guess i will anyway. What can I do? I luv reading. It's good for ur soul.
TC!

rowan said...

AAK! Gled, you realize that my friend's blog is posted up there.. this girl that knows me.. if she ever clicks on your blog and then finds me she might get really really upset. Also.. I remember asking you about this before but never got a response.. how do you order your blogs? And why are people who never comment on your page "ahead" of me on the list? Like she is in one two lists ahead of me or something like that? How the hell does your blog thing work?? I dont understand the logic that's all. And I hope she doesnt come here or she might find my blog. If she ever read here she would read the comments and find me. That's what makes it dangerous. (Post-It-Comix.) I am trying to keep my journal as anonymous as possible.. except for about TWO people that i feel comfortable with, nobody knows about this.
-In Danger Right NOw

rowan said...

she has known me for 11 years. We are best friends. Still, I want my blog to be private.

Gledwood said...

Gattina: normal ones yes. All the dwarf ones (Siberian Winter Whites/Campbells and Chinese) don't have such a strongly nocturnal sleep pattern at all. They sleep more like a cat. Which is supposedly "nocturnal" but actually sleeps on and off all day and all night ...

Akelamalu: I did, thank you!

Anitya: you're welcome

Welshcakes: can't you get Radio 4 on some kind of satellite radio? I remember hearing an announcement about BBC World Service (OK, not the same thing but ...) saying if you're in Europe listening to this on the Hotbird satellite you need to retune channels ... maybe try that..?? I don't know anything about satellite radio though ...

Gledwood said...

T&Ms: no smoking..! I sympathize. Nicotine patches are a good equivalent to methadone. Because even though you're not in the most horrible withdrawal you still feel an acheingly forlorn lack of your drug of choice

Liz: Shadow of the Wind? I've no idea who that is by. Never heard of it either. I will have to GOOGLE it!!

PiB: Yeah. They have come and fixed that "leak"... only from the inside if my suspicions are right. Really they gotta put someone out there on that roof and have a look at the dreadful slates. BC the ones we can see out of the hallway window, literally you can lift them up with your fingers if you lean out. Also some have cracking great holes in them. If my roof looks anything like that section of roof I am not at all surprised it leaks!!

Gledwood said...

Edyta: I will find a good Agatha and tell you about it. They Came To Baghdad sounds good ...

Ivy:
what do you mean "ahead of you on the list..??" do you mean my links list? they are generally ordered alphabetically or reverse-alphabetically. One I think is just ordered as I happened to enter each link ... Don't get upset about being in "Best Blogs II"::-~-that is the one I always used to use for the people I talked to the most. Only thing is it's now update hence best blogs vi etc ...

What do you mean you want your blog to be private if you are publishing it in your own name with your photos! Only thing you can do is what I've done ie NOT printing your photos up, NOT using your real name and NOT telling people who know you in the real world what your url is except for very distinct exceptions ...

carlomalbas said...

hi there gledwood!! Happy blogging!!!

Edyta said...

GLEDS!
I SWEAR, we DO have psychic powers!
i wanted to buy THIS AGATHA CRISTIE BOOK.
"They Came To Baghdad!" <-- this VERY ONE. OMG. Grusome.

Naomi said...

your mousey sounds so adorable! I wish we could see pictures.

agatha christy is awesome!

Evil Spock said...

We wake up to the BBC every morning; the clock radio is set to it. The gf hates it because the news is typically depressing.

Anonymous said...

Naomi: good. but you still haven't told me the difference between rap and hiphop!!!!!!!

Evil: How do you get BBC? From a satellite radio "thang"?...

RUTH said...

After all the visits you've had re you room; how come they notice a mess but don't get the roof seen too!!!

Deb said...

I've had my share with leaks and now suffer from anxiety whenever I hear "dripping". Seriously, I had HUNDREDS of gallons of water pour through my place (inside the walls). Then the main water main burst and flooded the rest of the place. And the upstairs shower "ran" all the time and I had to turn on a fan to "drown" out the noise. Now it's a toilet that won't stop running.

Life can be so rough at times, can't it?

Anonymous said...

come to my blog! http://eleeeles.blogspot.com

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