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!

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Sparkly Saturday

IT'S A MOST SPARKLY SATURDAY MORNING. The DIY-buckets-&-mops shop across the road is gleaming. People promenade past in summery clothes not smoking cigarettes. The sky is a pale British azure (it rarely ever goes tropical dark blue in these northern climes ...) we've all been up since 5am in my house, at which time I went out to buy alcohol (oops! Honestly I forget that "normal" people don't drink white cyder for breakfast sometimes ...) at which point I bumped into my quiet housemate Elvis (who I've never had cause to write about really) and Matran the Ratman on the stairs. Matran scowled at me. I nodded and, if I had been wearing one, would have tipped my hat at a jaunty angle as I swept past. I do not speak to him at all. Not one word. Because when he last spoke to me he said "oi!" instead of my name... hey-ho...

I want tropical fishies. I want them now. That's what I did last time I went "clean" (on buprenorphine/Subutex) ... so I need them again if it's to happen all over ... Also I want cardinal tetras, a Borneo highland loach and one of those mad tropical frogs like I had last time. (Click the words for film clips.) My one fear has always been cockroaches: we had severe infestation at one point and I know from the side of the can that pyrethrum/permethrin does not mix with fish ... it says "highly dangerous to aquatic life" ... "cover fish bowls and tanks before use" ~ and because we still have straggly remnants of the roach invasion upon us, I wouldn't trust my landlord not to come in when I'm out and spray the tank down ~ even out of spite. I suppose if he did I could take water samples and get him "busted" by the RSPCA (anti-animal cruelty charity) ... but that is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted ... I don't know. Has anyone got some advice?

Films of the day: baby chinchillas

and
Dust bath chinchilla with white poodle

7 comments:

Evil Spock said...

I've found that Borneo Suckers (I call them Hillstream Loaches) prefer a much different environment from more conventional tropical fish, i.e. cooler waters, higher current.

Check out this site: Hillstream Loaches

I had some Hillstream Loaches, and I felt bad that I couldn't attain the environment they wanted. Got Panda Cory and Otos instead.

Peaceful/Paisible said...

fishes must be very cool to watch, gives you serenity...would give you some peace...and they are quiet animals!!!no problems with the neighbours!!!
Take care dear, I'm always behind you in a small corner
grandma mousie

grumpygit said...

Hi Gleds! Thanks for dropping in - nice to hear from you! Get some fish, they're great. You do have to be careful with chemicals, but keep 'em covered and they'll be fine.

We had coldwater fish, not tropical (worried about power cuts!) and they bred and bred. Kept getting bigger and bigger tanks but had to move 'em out into a large pond in the garden in the end. (Actually, ended up digging three successively bigger ponds; the final one made a very nice swimming pool before we put the fish in!) Sadly, they didn't move house with us, so really miss them now.

Anonymous said...

Evil: I kept my Hillstream Loach at about 75 degrees in a box-filtered tank (ie so she had a stream of airbubbles down one side). She slept upside down under a piece of slate at all times and used to swim vertically down the bubbles to the filter. They said in one shop she would eat catfish pellets; another shop said DON'T CLEAN ALL THE GLASS: THEY EAT ALGAE ONLY. I am not sure which was true. But the temperature seemed to be OK for her. It was 22C which is the lowest end of tropical

Anonymous said...

Mousie: you're quite right there. Plus they never escape and cause trouble that way!!

Anonymous said...

Grumpy: I wouldn't worry about that: in a powercut the water takes ages to cool down. And they can definitely go 24 hours at cooler temperatures (water temperatures do vary in the tropics with rainfall/etc, after all) ... didn't you have filtration? What fish? Do you mean goldfish and carp?

Wayward Son said...

Hi Gleds, What a great idea! Working with tropical fish seems like a good example of going downstream with the current of well being (from that woo woo video on my blog)! I was just talking to a friend yesterday who has "gone down this road before" and he's doing it again much more easily and successfully because he knows what to expect and how to manage it. He said that this time he has been able to actually enjoy much of his efforts to not use because of that. We both agreed that there is much to be had in the trying if only for that reason.

There's a site called fish.com which I cannot imagine you do not know about. But in case you don't, they sell fish supplies but also have an information tab with a bunch of articles and some links. There is also http://www.elmersaquarium.com/000tropfishcareguides.htm which has information about the care of tropical fish by species.

Somehow I don't think I am telling you anything you don't already know. (about quitting OR tropical fish info) But I am such a know-it-all so I try and use that poor character trait to be supportive. LOL

Best, WS

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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