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!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Childhood Blizzard Persistence; Boil int Bag Fish

PEN HAS BEEN PUT TO PAPER! I HAVE PENNED ANOTHER 12 PARAGRAPHS of my book! Which is really something as all those other times I said "right I'm off to do my memoirs wish me luck" (because I certainly needed it) I did not write a single word, rather fell asleep into the dead of night and woke up usually with Sly and the Family Stone or Barbra Streisand warbling away in the roborovski-active redlit gloom. (Red lights equal darkness to small rodents so you can see them pinging about at optimum force if you install fireglow lighting by their enclosure.)

All I seem to have put to paper so far involves anecdotes about getting stuck in blizzards on the Brecon Beacons/North York Moors... on the second occasion (which actually happened first) my brother and I came down with scarlet fever. I fell asleep in a snowdrift. I vaguely remember being carried back to the van through horizontal snowfall. I spent the journey back delirious and being sick.

When we got a little better we took out metallic poster paints and midnight blue sugar paper and painted rather wonderful pictures of the November 5th (Guy Fawkes Night (do they celebrate this in Australia/New Zealand btw?) fireworks). These we popped in the post to Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace... forgot all about it only to be astonished a couple of weeks later to receive a very grand embossed envelope in the post containing the poshest typewritten letter I have ever seen (it was typed in a Times-like font, which was unknown at the time)... from Her Majesty's Lady in Waiting Lady Lavinia Whassername or whatever reading "I am commanded by the Queen to thank you ..." haha!

Oh. And here the story endeth so far...

When I was little my parents' main hobby (I mean, who actually has the requisite paragraph full of hobbies we're all meant to list in our employment resumes and CVs?) was hillwalking and hiking... on a couple of occasions I got stuck in the most severely inclement weather you get in this country... which pretty much adds up to horzontal snow flying in the face at 50 miles per hour which is not very pleasant aged 5, 6, 7... my point being I did not ever think of giving up in such a situation. Or crying. Or even complaining. All I ever did was march on. After one such occasion my Dad seemed really impressed (though I think this was through rain not snow as I vaguely recall being utterly sodden through). ... All of which resulted in an adult persistence, I suppose. Which persistence has been partially destroyed by this addiction of mine... partially has actually gone against me because (as I know I've said before) Willpower is the Power of Will. And if your Will is to Use. You will go on Using. And that is what I've done.

I feel this addiction of mine has turned on their head all my former strengths and driven them against me... Now I only want to harness them back and recapture their old power!

Right I gotta go I got boil-in-the-bag cod in parsley sauce hubberbubbling violently on the stove and I gotta get back before the bags melt into the bottom of the pan!

3 comments:

Nicole said...

Gled! You can't just leave things on the stove like that and leave. I haven't seen boil in the bag fish like that for ages. I like the boil in the bag invention, it's very handy if you don't have an oven or microwave. I'm still at work and feeling unwell today. I think a flu or bad cold has started to infest me. Hope your cod didn't melt!

Liz Hinds said...

Why don't you write to Queen again? Say something nice and get a letter back. That would be cool. Ask her if she still has your picture?

Anonymous said...

Nicole: ... I wish I DID have a microwave bc when I returned it had BURNT INTO A THICK BLACK COATING all over the bottom of the pan which was dreadfully inconvenient to scrape off!... I hope it is not the flue... I've always thought a good cold actually CLEANS the system OUT.. do you agree? They say it boosts the interferon levels which might explain why I've always thought catching the odd (uncomplicated by bronchitis, laryngitis, sinusitis etc) cold was in a paradoxical way quite healthy ... (??(!))

Liz: Do you know that's just one of the things I think is way classier about the Queen than the modernday ubercelebrities who imagine themselves megastars... write THEM a letter you won't get an answer in a million years... why not just have an assistant who answers the letters for you like she does?

I wonder what she does with such pictures, gifts from South Sea islanders etc? I'm sure she doesn't throw them away (well I wouldn't)... maybe it's in a dated archive somewhere? But I doubt she'd dig it out just for me, come on!!

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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