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!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Guitar? Agony!

THIS I AM SCRAWLING ON SPACE ORIGINALLY PRESERVED FOR MEMOIRS - and man! - the other trash that's here; unposted; unscanned that has also found its way in this cheapest of bound volumes. Did you know they even produced "feint" ruled notebooks in Elizabethan times?! It does bemuse me though that WH Smiths actually charge MORE for a 200 or so utterly blank pages between marbled hard covers than for 500 horrible old ones that someone like Danielle Steel has diarrhoea'd all over! I must continually remind myself how great a loss to Literature it would be if I failed to produce this weighty tome of mine.

(I don't think Literature would actually Care, to be quite honest. I don't think Literature gives a toss about anything. Literature, having seen this world's digital tatters, lies fast asleep and is snoring obnoxiously.)

Big Momma Spherical's hiding heist in that tea-box when her most indignant a-wrigglings and a-bigglings and I've seen four of Baby Itchy's lookey-likeys on leashes or leads - yes! - little Porkshire Terriers! And he does look just the same! Due to his wet parting of fur down the middle of his back. I think that comes from being compulsorily groomed by the others...

I got my 1st ever pop CD last week! For 50p. It was Saints and Sinners by The All Saints who, as I once said on my Music blog are the only girl group I like. Their best tracks on this are Pure Shores and Black Coffee. A lot of it is produced by illiam Orbit who did Madonna's Ray of Light album. It is good.

Hey I decided to learn guitar. And I mean to pluck out tunes and play properly not just strum pathetic cords. There is a shop by me that sells 'em in all different colours for £35 brand new each. Is that a good price for an accoustic guitar? And I suppose I am gonna have to get a book to teach me how to actually do it. I shouldn't have trouble tuning the strings as I have that synthesizer and a fairly good ear. But I don't even know what the 6 strings ARE. Or is it 8? That is Spanish guitar. I want the one that sounds like a harp only warmer and pleasanter. And a gerzillion times funkier to look at! THEN I have to learn to SING and won't THAT inflict torment galore on my neighbours ... so far worse than Moonlight Sonata on glockenspiel ever could!

All of which is TOTAL DISTRACTION as I'm REALLY SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING THOSE DAMN MENOIRS OF MINE!

8 comments:

Lee said...

I tried to teach myself the harmonica a few times! All the cats run for the hills when I play! Did think one time I sound really great, but that was playing to the "Travelling Wilburys" after a bottle of scotch! ;)

Sinead O'Connor...one with a voice like a bell.

The Discovering Alcoholic said...

90% Cat.

I'll stick with the recovery blogging, I don't have an ounce of musical talent in my body. I can remember my father playing guitar and singing when I was a wee little boy but it was a talent he didn't pass down.

rowan said...

You always sound so whimsical in your writings..do you feel that way in Real Life? i've read danielle steele before..didnt think she was that bad. maybe the fact that she is so prolific stigmazies people against taking her seriously with just one book.

junky said...

Gled, you have succeeded in doing what is normally almost impossible, you made me feel dirty, i actually enjuyed the making of Venus was pretty interesting.

Nicole said...

I think that's a fairly good price for a guitar.

By the way, ever since you started posting the tunes and clips of the day on the blog here, the layout has gone to shits for me. I'm using a Firefox browser and am wondering if anyone else is having the same issue?

Liz Hinds said...

You're learning the guitar and the playey-thing - whatsitcalled? keyboard? That's a bit ambitious. A bit like learning Welsh and French at the same time. You'll get confused and start strumming your keyboard or ker-plonking your guitar.

I'm in swansea not cardiff by the way.

Now get on with that autobiography, and call me a snob, but you've got to have nice paper to write on. It makes it more pleasurable.

Anonymous said...

Lee: Harmonica... when I was about 7 I passed some test "which note is higher, which is lower!?" which qualified me for violin lessons... really i'd have so much rather done piano and i barely ever practised...

you must have heard the violin played by an inexpert child it is literally like hearing a cat strangled

horrible quite horrible

Discovering: Everyone is musical. Just some people don't know it yet.

Ivy: what do you MEAN whimsical?!?! surely if anyone is whimsical in your comment it is DANIELLE STEEL and yes i HAVE tried to read her books they are DREADFUL no rhythm, no psychological penetration of any character, no feeling whatsoever for English prose... i won't bother to go on... just that i heard she had 7 books in a row rejected in her youth and i'm not at all surprised why!

wayward son at http://crystalcleanpersuasion.blogspot.com said every protagonist of hers comes across the same plotline ie a tragedy, accident, misfortune caused by some negligent, uncaring, enemy, whatever person... bc the heroine is always hardworking, loving, flawless... i think that says a lot about d steel's psychology

Anonymous said...

Junky: o yeah the making of it is... also the music had quite a strong beat ...

... still i've no idea why my yamaha synth plays it out when you press wrong button/drop it on floor/etc

Nicole: what do you mean??? it taking ages to download the page? only thing that happens to me is i get empty spaces for seemingly 1/2 hour where the screens should be


Liz: a-ha! but i'm not really learning the keyboard... i LOOK AT THE KEYS for one thing... which is meant to be unforgivable... and don't even OWN a guitar yet!

i used to have the same thing about paper... now i've got a bound red-&-black book for writing in... bound is so important... it means solitary pages cannot go WALKIES!!

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