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!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Sloane Street to Memory Lane...

RIGHT IF YOU'RE READING THIS THE FIRST TIME TODAY FROM THE TOP you won't know yet that I took some amphetamines/speed I found in a tobacco tin this afternoon, which made me really garrulous and I wrote more of my memoirs in two hours than I had done all week!! Only 8 pages of handwriting, but I've repeatedly been sleeping far too much and waking up to write a page or two then it's the next day... I'm still on chapter 3, my trip to Spain and Morocco.

I'm not sure any of this chapter is strictly relevant to my book; but if I pare it down too harshly it will be a book of drugs vignettes and nothing else and hence rather boring. I have to write about other things sometimes...! Still I'm trying to keep the main thread about stuff that relates to my subsequent addiction. I.e. things that made me depressed (almost all of life), people I met (hippie student losers a lot of them. Plus some annoying Sloanes (a Sloane, in case you are foreign, is a Sloane Ranger. A person (usually female) who ranges between Sloane Square, Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Mayfair - in other words all the posh parts of London - is highly likely to be called Hilly or Tilly or Annabel or Fiona (and hey - she might be working in publishing by now... or an art gallery: just until she finds the right man; either her British male equivalent (Miles, Giles, Spencer, Sebastian - yes I know I reeled out these names before; I'm indirectly quoting my book here) boys who work in banking/stockbroking/finance; or an American "businessman" (ie someon who's even richer than Daddy or failing that someone who'll give her a nice title like Duchess of... Countess of... etc. Art History was full of them (I wish I'd known Art History was the easiest degree - I might have gone for it myself. The other subject heavily favoured by Sloanes was French. Ooo there were so many of them crowding my seminars and crowing about how jolly a time they were having slumming it in a two up two down hovel (usually Daddy buys it and collects rent money off Jemima's friends. Rich people are always after another pretty penny. Anyway these lot were quite a contrast from the German students, who tended to be a far broader and more representative social mix. Nary a Northern accent was to be heard in French class. German classes were full of them. (Note 2: if you're a foreigner: Northerners are famously down-to-earth. Also I think their accents are much nicer than the bland swathe of southern English which runs on a continuum from Cockney (Michael Caine) through Estuary (Tony Blair when he's talking down) up to Received Pronunciation (Tony Blair when he's talking posh). Anyway these Sloanes nearly drove me up the wall. Sometimes I got mistaken for posher than I was and asked what school I'd gone to - I just replied "not one you'll have heard of!" but in general the Tillies, Hillies, Annabels kept themselves to themselves. Or kept themselves with Miles, Giles, Sebastian...

When I came to university I knew few of the social "mores" and codes... E.g. I did realize the house full of girls who lived round the corner from me were more middle class than I was as they ate nothing but pasta and had a £10 a week pesto bill (that's not much of an exaggeration either!) but I had no idea at the time that Pimms was a posh drink, for instance. Or that one person's parents visited my block by helecopter (there was a "pad" at Norwich airport next door.)

Some of the girls (it's always the girls, too) were such social climbers! This showed up most transparently when one of their brothers came to stay for a weekend. Michele as she styled herself, a la francais - complete with grave accent that I can't locate here talked all lar-de-dar posh but her brother had the voice of a Yorkshire farmer! She was dating a horrible specimen from Eaton. He wanted to be a writer as well but I googled his name the other day and - hoorah! - nothing came up. Don't tell me he might use a penname I know.

Well this has gone totally off the point. But I'm going to have to incorporate most of what I said into my book as it will explain how I managed to end up feeling so badly out of place.

In the end I got fed up on the one hand of vulgar people who told me (OK they didn't always tell me but they thought it;) "You think you're so posh." My answer: "No YOU think I'm posh!" And on the other of the haut bourgeoisie who as I said sometimes assumed I was one of them when I was not, or thought I had been one of them but was slumming it. I remember one person honestly couldn't believe I was willing to eat fish and chips straight from the paper to save washing up. "You simply must put it on a plate; really you must. They taste so much nicer that way. Do you want the balsamic vinegar to sprinkle on? What? Sarsons? Oh must you use that stuff? It's really whiffy..." And so on.

I've decided NOT to make a big deal out of my next bout of cleaning up. Wouldn't it be better if I just did it and told afterwards? Yes I think so too...

Righty-ho it's 9:56pm I'd better go.

(I got that expression from someone called Joey who came from the Wirral (Liverpool). When he was trying to get rid of his parents on the phone he'd start saying, "righty-ho then... righty-ho... righty-ho then... righty-ho... bye! Bye! Righty-ho then... bye!" Slam. Gasp of repressed exasperation. Right I am rambling like a Roborovski on a buttery wheel. Right I have to go

righty-ho then!

bye!!

***

Some good blogs

Cirkulators - intellectual photographic imagery; I've no idea where from...

Hambricks - cute baby blog from American midwest (?) - well I think it's from the midwest my American geography ain't that good...

Fi Mims Photography - Melbourne-based portrait photographer, available for weddings etc... this is fantastic stuff. FAR better than the usual run of the mill portrait photography...

Toronto Morgados - another baby blog (cute!)

Flashes Photography - more stunning (unusual) and funky wedding photos; this time from Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Monstror - very unusual, quite sinister... images by a French "graphiste"...

Slack Photography - Americans go to Mediterranean Europe

and last but not least

"anuLka" - Polish baby blog - the images are so entertaining!


13 comments:

Audrey said...

What???fish and chips without paper and sarsons...never!!!

I was married to a scouser so righty ho and ahright there were everyday utterances

This made interesting reading Gleds,keep going looking forward to reading more

Jerrster said...

hey thanks for stopping by the other day::smile::

Gledwood said...

Audrey: really? I didn't realize "righty-ho" was ordinary Liverpool... sometimes I imagine people will think I'm posh for talking like that, as if I'm saying "right-ho!" as in "what-ho!"

I will try and keep up the interesting factor, actually was going to post a bit I'm not sure about so to see what everybody thinks ...

Jerrster: if I had those smileys I'd do the : roll : one! But as it is only ;->... will do!

Gledwood said...

note to self:

visit this blog again

re some person kissing a white canvas valued at $2.8 million

sorry that's called "gallery taking the piss" nobody not even a modern art collector would buy that... wouldn't you buy a $30 replica from an art supplies store?

http://phlegmfatale.blogspot.com/

Gledwood said...

French woman up in court for kissing $2.8m painting...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21211300/

Toccata said...

That French woman kissed a "white" painting with bright red lipstick causing permanent damage. She gets what she deserves. I think she annoyed me most when she said she too was an artist. As if. No true artist would destroy another's work.

Eric Lacombe said...

Hello there, thanks for the visit last evening, and thanks for the link in your blog! :)

Liz Hinds said...

My cousin ... no, wait, I told you before about her adopting a terribly posh accent.

very good piece of writing.

My Personality is Very Rare (INFP)
"Your personality type is dreamy, romantic, elegant, and expressive.

Only about 5% of all people have your personality, including 6% of all women and 4% of all men
You are Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving."

A rare flower, that's me. You too. Only not quite so rare.

Anonymous said...

Toccata: - but the painting was just white! Surely they could quite easily have gesso'd over it without much fuss... I think they're making a big deal bc I certainly don't believe ANYONE would pay $2.8m for a white canvas - not as I say when one can purchase the same for $30 from an artists' supplies store...

Monstror: You're welcome! Vos images sont magnifiques!

Liz: Oh yes I know about the snobby cousin who thinks the family are below her... mine did say I returned home saying "yah!" but it honestly was not done consciously... you pick up whatever voice you hear most around you and mine, unfortunately was the braying of Tilly Hilly Jilly and Giles Miles Niles... know what I mean...

BTW you're a VERY rare flower!

I don't recall how I answered to get called so rare I honestly don't recall the questionnaire... have you ever filled one out, got an answer and gone back into it altering just one response at a time? The results are fascinating?

lv2scpbk said...

I watched your hamster video. Looks like a few of them figured out how to escape up your arm.

I also vote save on washing plates and go for the paper on the fish and chips. Why wash a plate when you can just throw away the paper? I'm all for saving my time on housework.

Anonymous said...

Lv2scpbk:... did I spell that right...?

I totally agree with you re the fish and chips paper...

the hammies unfortunately weren't my own as I've no filming facilities... though they do look just like mine...

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

Sloan Rangers? I know them well. Used to hang out at Chelsea College which was on Sloan Street but I was no Sloan Ranger. You know Tonto? Well, I would be the cowdung that Tonto's horse stepped on. Were you studying nearby?

Eric Lacombe said...

…and you speak a very good french :)

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

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Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

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