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!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

I USED TO HAVE A FRIEND CALLED CHARLOTTE who was a real woman (far as I know or else she just bought tampons for show) and wore bright red hotpants nearly all the time. Filling out a graduate job application which required one to specify:

Sex: male, female or "other"

she appeared tipsy and cackling her head off the following evening, telling us all she had ticked the "other" box! (Good on her. Serves them right for putting it there!)

Strangely, however, she was never called in for interview...

Now I'm having my doubts about poor Baby Itchy. After more hapless rambling atop a CD case (Sarah Vaughan sqeaked so shrilly on opening that Itchy went into a kind of fight-flight-playdead shock and appeared utterly paralysed for a minute before making a jump for freedom on the carpet.)

Well I am now totally confused, I don't know about Itchy. Whether it is a he/she only time and babies will tell I'm afraid ... very confusing indeed....

OH WHAT A DRAB LIFE IT IS BEING A CAT!

There's an incredibly bushy tabby on the next road from me. Who not only rather unhelpfully (for their owners) sits on the front step telling burglars of the world "my house is empty!" (aparently where I live has the highest break-in rate for miles around... we've only got "done" once though my room was such a pigsty at the time I wouldn't know wether anyone had rifled it. I certainly had nothing worth nicking and so nothing went...)

Anyway this poor cat sits there all day long waiting forlornly for its owners to return. And if it thinks you may be someone who will come out with a saucer of milk, or if you smell of rodents (not that I do, ahem) it pirouettes round miaowing. And I started miaowing back and we took up a duet and several black girls with fancy nails looked at me as if I was a lunatic...

I WAS SWEATING SO SEVERELY THIS AFTERNOON I was more than damp... practically soggy from head to foot. I felt like a human amphibian. Took off clothes. Entire body was running like a melting glacier. Took some heroin. That stopped it. I don't know why, but opiate withdrawal causes sweating but also taking methadone makes it happen too. This is frightfully inconvenient as Ruth would believe I talk. (She was most shocked to discover I have actually 50% Worzel Gummidge turnip blood! Said she still believes to this day that I hail from an ancient aristocratic lineage. But my housemaster at Eaton told me never to admit this to any common people as they would come and break my windows. And our ancestral home has a lot of windows!

I WANTED to buy an icecream from this cybercaff but was too shy. You know when you gaze into the freezer. And when you're as fussy as me. And they have just plain flavour Cornettos and something else you don't want and no tropical fruit flavour Soleros... I've never been the type to compromise out of the politeness of being stared at in a capitalist "buy my wares or stop examining them!" fashion. I don't know why I'm telling you this.... aoh! Except I had a real scandalous experience with the local halal frankfurters. Those labelled "beef" varied so much in actual beef content... some being as low as 9% of that meat and mostly chicken. (One variety were 25% beef, 25% chicken (but labelled "beef"... what the rest of the bulk constituted I shudder to imagine. Probably dead farm animal's eyelashes and toenails picked out of the plughole after they swoosh down the corpses... Well that's what "mechanically reconstituted" meat's supposed to be made of... Ukk!

Eventually I found some 79% beef, the rest soya protein. I know frankfurters are traditionally pork but it says in the Bible you should not eat pork. And pigs are disgusting. When I was in India they had a thing called the "pig toilet"... and these pigs ate my amoebic diarrhoea. (I'm tempted to exaggerage and say they also licked you clean because Indians don't use toilet paper but you had to use a carefully aimed jug of water to perform that function.) Well whatever, nothing is going to have me eating a dead whiskery, grunting swine. Ugh!

Can I ask you a question because there are never cooking instructions on these things. Do you need to cook frankfurters? Or are they "ready to eat hot or cold" type of things? I honestly have no idea I've just been boiling them up as much as I can then dropping into baked beans and hoping for the best...

Well I've totally lost my thread so I'd better go. Got to get back: I'm spring cleaning. I mean Autumn cleaning.

The abscess is going down btw... I'd had it for days and days when I finally realized what it was (I mean, I noticed it hurt but thought it was just a "lump" (that happened to be bright red. Yes I know I can be quite thick. No wonder I have been feeling ill and sleeping over 12 hours a day!

Right better go!!

***

Today's Songs:

Mika: Relax, Take it Easy


Then 4 versions of "Somewhere"!
1. Il Divo ft Leona for Simon Cowell's "This is Your Life" episode.
2. Pet Shop Boys
3. Barbra Streisand
4. original clip from movie: West Side Story

10 comments:

Calista*Was*Here said...

Hello,

this is my first visit and I can say that your blog looks interesting.
You seem very intelligent, this is the most attractive feature I find in people.

And...for now,
be well!
I'll be around.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Gleds. I hope I'm not too late but for god's sake COOK THE FRANKFURTERS!! Do keep your videos on the main posts and full-size, otherwise I'd miss them at my age! Love the "tampons" aside. I know just how you feel about no tropical fruit soleros! Sorry you had to take some stuff. When were you in India?

Gledwood said...

Thanks CALISTA. Just out of nosey interest: where did you find my blog by the way?

WELSHCAKES: I'm glad you told me that seriously there is NO COOKERY INFO AT ALL on ANY of the packets (and I can't buy supermarkets' ones as they're all pork, I grew up not eating pork at all so I just can't stomach it)...

talking about stomaching things... maybe that is ONE thing that has made me ill in the past... I never realized you had to cook them properly through like normal sausages, I'd always thought they were somehow precooked because they look almost the same before and after boiling/microwaving... I'm glad you told me...

(it was only this nagging intuitive doubt that got me to ASK the question!!)

In India I went to Goa and Madras which is now called Chennai. Also Bangalore for about an hour.

The Discovering Alcoholic said...

Be wary of the begging cat routine, if he catches you alone he may drag you inside the vacant house and feast upon your eyeballs. Then again, he may just want a saucer of milk.

Either way, cats have a way of latching onto you.

Calista*Was*Here said...

Gledwood, I read your comment @mat's blog and it appeared to be engaging. Then I read your profile and ended up here:)

Glad to meetU!

Nicole said...

If the Frankfurters are in a jar or can filled with brine then there is no need to cook them, you can eat them hot or cold. If it's another sort, I'd cook them.

I've still got a cold and our router broke down last night so I'm online via Vincent's old laptop. I also have to go to the notary office today as we are signing for the sale of our apartment. My head still feels like I'm floating through space. That will be an interesting appointment.

The one said...

Hi Gleds

Recently you said you were cutting down on the drugs. How are you getting on? Any exercise whatsoever makes me pour with perspiration because of the anti depressants I am on, so I sympathise. Just change your clothes and dry off when this happens. I say this because I didn't always and got a skin infection. I don't want you to get this when your system is probably low due to the drugs.

all the best
sad xxx

Gledwood said...

DISCOVERING: human-eating cats; that's what I secretly suspected all along!

CALISTA: oh! See I get around like a dose of the pox!!

NICOLE: they were in the plastic packaging that's got a bit of brine in it... that's what gave me the impression (don't know why) that they were cooked...

Anyway I now boil them very thoroughly just in case!

If you feel like you're flying away, just bring something to anchor you down. Something heavy. Like a bag of boltcutters, pliers and other metal tools, perhaps. And put it across your feet to make sure your hair doesn't brush against the ceiling as you speak...

That always happens to me

(in dreams!!)

SADGIRL: oh it's not going as well as I had hoped I don't know WHAT i'm going to do i'm glad you're feeling a bit better. i NEVER used to sweat before these drugs, except when I was really ill with flue type virus. interestingly these viruses always sparked off in me huge moodswings so i had a nervous breakdown followed by a few days of rather pleasant high. all WITHOUT drugs-taking!!

jim dandy said...

As Nicole said, the hot dogs are precooked and fine to eat right out of the package. I do. Cooking them just makes them seem more like food instead of a snack. hehe
I had a similar fear of tuna when I was a kid. I loved tuna sandwiches and the first time I made my own, someone asked me if I cooked the tuna first. Even after they said they were kidding, I had a problem eating it for a while.

Anonymous said...

hmmmm tuna i've seen raw; looks like a dodgy fish to me

to red, too meaty, know what i mean?

i eat sardines now instead

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