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!

Monday, October 01, 2007

As Summer Morphs To Autumn...

DARK, DANK, RAINY AUTUMNAL MONDAY. Welcome to October everyone!

I know some of you
are surely reading this in sandy parts with azure skies and gekkos on the walls... well lucky you. There's a chill in the air and I am so weary today I can barely move. I really had to drag myself off a pile of cushions in the corner of the floor where I had fallen asleep earlier (like a dog, I know!) Tonight I have to do lots of writing, I've told myself, as despite what I've said in posts, the weekend has marked a lull in production I have to have to press on on on...

That annoying George Michael was on Desert Island Discs yesterday morning. How precious can you get. I don't have much truck for people who make their fame and fortune appearing in teenybopper popgroups and playing the publicity merry-go-round... only to turn round eight figures richer and say "oh I want to be taken seriously now so I won't follow any of the rules that brought me this success" - then he wonders why he falls out with his record company! I could go on and on but that's my George Michael point. I could understand how he felt and even why perfectly but I just think he should have grown up and accepted commercial realities - it's not like they haven't paid him handsomely over the years. He made a pretty good interview subject (most people who come on Desert Island Discs are - it's a kind of Vanity Fair magazine of the radio. Nobody's invited until they truly have made it. And the most interesting personalities, incidentally, (so I've found) have been the captains of industry. The "stars" of showbusiness tend to be self-obsessed puffballs of nothingnesses, but that's hardly an original observation...

It is nine minutes to six and gloweringly dark already. Headlights are a-shinin'...

OK I gotta go pharmacy... Ta-raa!

Have a click on my video of the day (up top at present) it's an entire (4.5 mins) episode of that 1970s/80s BBC kids' TV classic Morph! Haha!!

***

BORING STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
I had a poke through my "traffic reports" earlier...


As of today, approximately 32% of my visits come from the USA; 22% from the UK; 5% from Australia, 5% from Canada. A whopping 18% are from unnamed countries. Does anyone have any idea why the hitcounter can't tell where they're from??!? I don't know about this stuff...
There's no seriously far-out locations of late - no Myanmar, no New Caledonia or French Polynesia but I did get 1% each hits from the following countries: Ivory Coast, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Malaysia, Hungary, Japan, Sweden. I have no idea who any of those people were. Who does read my blog in Japan?? Or Morocco? Hungary I do know who it is, Malaysia possibly... but like everyone else, I suppose lots of mysterious individuals slink across my blog in the dead of night and were it not for Sitemeter and Statcounter I'd have no idea they'd been... (spooky!)(not!)

The average visit length is about 5 minutes, which is good.

Sorry I tell a lie I just checked the actual figure: 4 mins 30 secs.

Oh and at the moment I get about 80 hits a day. Over time the numbers vary from 40 to 140 - usually at the lower end - humph!

When I see other people's counters I sometimes have a click to see if any meaningful differences arise. Usually they don't. But one fascinating fact does: ie. the average American blog would tend to have about 80% or higher visitors from the USA and maybe 5% from Britain. So here I am in Britain and far more Brits congregate here... which brings to mind that saying: Birds of a feather flock together...

Having said that I don't think many other addicts read this at all. If they do they never get in touch. There ARE "communities" of addicts online, but they tend to keep themselves to themselves; also I'm not cool enough to be one of them...

...o! I just thought about that...

... I think I'm going to cry!! hahaha ;~>...

I bet you all get more hits than me. Evil Spock gets 300 a day. But then Evil Spock has magnetic powers of evil beckoning that hypnotic gaze between the eyeballs...

20 comments:

Kahshe Cottager said...

We're lucky here so far as fall is arriving with a minimum of fuss. The sun is bright and the air is crisp but not cold. I just know that it won't stay that way long enough for me!

Love hearing about the fur family and how they are doing. Sounds like they are getting more used to being handled now!

And you sound downright peppy in your postings lately!! It makes me feel that you are having an easier time of late.

Gledwood said...

I hope so!
Itchy is the only one who gets handled without a fuss.
Even Spherical will walk on my hands. But plays scaredy at the same time.
Bashful tries to eat my fingers, the swine!

CrystalChick said...

I'm back... stalking your page again. Actually, you were mentioned in MY blog today. It's that darned Prisoner show, can't get it out of my head.
Yes, we got it here in New Jersey if only for a short while... and some say we aren't cool...what do THEY know??

I just got an email today for a free blog counter and I thought I might register and get the code, but not that many people are leaving me comments yet so I'll wait until someone realizes how great I really am and gets the groupie club going. haha

Gledwood said...

I would get the counter if I were you. And don't stop at one get 2 or 3 because they always give different results... eventually you kind of learn to discern the truth of the matter

the best counters (I think) are
www.sitemeter.com
and
www.statcounter.com

you can leave them "open" so you don't have to remember the damn password to get in all the time (that's what I do)

you might be surprised how many people ARE visiting ;~...

Liz Hinds said...

Sitemeter gives me a higher reading than ... whatever the other one is I have.

I get about 50 a day maybe. It was going up then I went on holiday and everyone stopped visiting. But it is creeping up very slowly I think. I will never be a super-blogger because I just rabbit rather than intelligently discuss politics!

I love Morph.

Anonymous said...

Really because sitemeter gives me 10% less than the other one... statcounter!!
I can't be bothered discussing politics every day.
There are blogs as you say that specialize in it and if you mine through the comments you'll get to scores and scores of political blogs!
Once I went out cats blog hopping you wouldn't believe so many cats blogs exist. I think I might have listed one or two at my animal crackers blog.
Morph is cool I agree. Surely the best thing that was on when I was diddy.
I used to send "artworks" repeatedly to the Tony Hart show... and yet not a single one ever made his "gallery"!

Andree said...

Hi hi Gled. Thank you for stopping by so often even tho I am, well, like negligent. I check those stats every day and for what? I dunno. Love perhaps. But I got a bit worried when the United States Department of State dropped by. What'd I say??? Nothing I guess. They haven't come to collect me. So now I look at stats to see who is looking at me.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Stats...who does what and who's not paying!

I don't even look at mine. But I get an email every Sunday to tell me how many have visited and for how long. To be honest, I can't be bothered...I'm more interested to see if my friends have commented. And hopefully they have...

Take care, Gleds, keep those furballs friendly.

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

Hi there Gledwood,
The squirrel confesses that he must be contributing to the Malaysian count in your blog counter.

A funny thing is that I also get as much as 10% Unknown but occasionally if I look at the details of an unknown, I can identify from the name of the server of service provider which country it is from. For me, at least a quarter of my unknowns is from Ireland and Australia.

Evil Spock said...

My hits have tapered off a bit, but I'm guessing its because I haven't written as much lately.

Have to be more diligent!

Anonymous said...

Andree: How on earth do you KNOW for sure the US state dept. dropped by :: I'm intrigued...

Puss in Boots: Nobody pays! I don't blame you for not bothering... as I said, really the stats make no difference... though I'm always intrigued to know who's been by from obscure parts and who they might possibly be...


Lone Grey Squirrel: Did you know "squirrel" is my favourite word in the English language. It has that whirring quality... ANYWAY: Can you really tell where an unknown is from that way: I will look further


Evil Spock: Are your powers of darkness forsaking you?!?

Unknown said...

Good luck on improving your statistics if you want it.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure I'm that bothered with the stats... they rise and fall like waves of the sea from their own accord... why worry about 'em..??

Deb said...

I would imagine I get about 10 hits a day.

And you not being as "cool" as the other addicts in the clique actually makes you cooler. If that makes any sense. In other words, by being yourself and going against the grain, you're more outstanding (& special).

Steve said...

I got over here from the new Emperor's blog. I've got sitemeter and it's been fascinating, as you say, to see where people are from and how they get to my site. Mine go up and down. I blogged a couple of poltical corruption trials here and the local newspaper linked to my site and so I had a few high weeks (for me) and then they tapered off, but at a higher level than before.

I've also used the sitemeter to learn about how google sends people to my site. Sometimes it's right to the post people should see to find what they sought. Sometimes it's to a page with many posts, with the one they want somewhere on the page. And sometimes it's just to the main blog page. I'm not really sure of a pattern, but I'm using far more specific labels than I did in the past.

Finally, another way to see where the mystery visitors are coming from is to look at the language on their computer. It's not foolproof, but most English uk is probably not from the us, etc.

Anonymous said...

Debs: the "cool" addicts wouldn't talk about their broccoli-tree dwelling hamsters etc etc they just talk about the drugs bust downstairs... also most of them were too lazy to speak while still using and I wanted to capture that as I plan to spend more of my life NOT using than I have BEEN using... see what I mean!

I'm sure you get far more than 10 hits a day you would be surprised!
You can't really go on comments but you're getting quite a lot of those...
My lowest figure was 40 hits a day surely you're doing at least that ... you might well be getting surprisingly more!!

jim dandy said...

I don't know how to check my stats, I just assume that if I get 3 comments, there may have been 6 visitors.
Besides, I post all of my stories, poems, etc. on my Live Journal, even though I seem to have more "community" on blogspot.
I was surprised that YOU found me. haha
Good luck with yours.
I always check in, but don't always comment.

Gledwood said...

I think I found you via a comment you left to someone else... did you know Debs before you knew me? Now I see your comments there I don't know if I just did not notice them before ... you cannot tell these things...

You must INSTALL the counter. It is pretty easy as long as you know how to highlight ctrl C and ctrl V to put down and how to "add a page element" of html

the easiest one is www.sitemeter.com
the second easiest is
www.statcounter.com
that gives you a display with how many visits you've had so far.
come on you have to get one at least otherwise how can you know how many Japanese people read your blog yet never say hello?!?

jim dandy said...

Hey, I completely forgot that I had sitemeters on a couple of my blogspots. And now I have installed the Tracker thingys too so I can look at the little flags on the side. Thanks for your inspiration.

Gledwood said...

what on earth are tracker thingies?

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