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!

Friday, November 30, 2007

Frictional Friday: Or - Why I'm Not Throwing My Record Collection Out

THE FRICTION IS ALL in my head. I have to make things plain for Monday when Evilstein the landlord has vowed to send in henchmen to rip out my window and replace with double glazing. Which is fine. But why wait till the cusp of December to do it?

Mother Hubbard gave me some records - maybe 80 or 100 discs - from her housemate to sell a couple of months ago. She said I could keep the money. Which was very generous of her, I thought. They are mostly ex-library copies of classical music so they're all plasticked up and covered in stickers, barcodes, stamps and lengths of tape. So I doubt I would get much more than 50p each for them if I did try and sell them...

They're stuff like "Emmanuel Chabrier: Piano Music (complete). Rena Kyriakou, Piano," - Camden Libraries. And "Ghena Dimitrova - Puccini Arias" - including O Mio Babbio Caro - Holborn Library.

I do not want to sell them as I've always wanted a classical music collection. And vinyl (especially from an old analogue master) can actually sound warmer, better than CD. I don't see why I should chuck these just because I've no turntable at present and Evilstein will think they're "clutter".

Even my Tubular Bells (it's all vinyl), I was told might only make £3 on Ebay. Though the person telling had a vested interest in keeping my expectations low as he deals in music...

No I want to keep this collection. One thing I always wanted to do on getting clean (if I ever manage it) would be to learn aout classical music. Like most people I know loads of tunes from television adverts and films but hardly know what any are actually called. Or who they're by!

I think Katherine Jenkins, who's only in her early 20s, has a fantastically rich, mature voice. Partly this is bc she's a mezzo and so has a mellower, deeper range anyhow. It's a shame for her that most of the best repertoire was written for the more prized (yet so very often simply shriller) soprano voice. Miss Jenkins says she actually smashed glass once by hitting a top A, a story she repeats on the Ready Steady Cook Ave Maria clip that's still in my sidebar.

Maybe some modern composer will be inspired by Miss Jenkins's unique talent and write some new arias specially for her. Surely the era of modern "serious" music having to consist of discordant orchestras' tortured wailings - like hearing tuning up on a bad LSD trip - has now passed. And finally we can have great tunes back again. Like in the eras of Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms... So what if we live in an age of nuclear threats, terrorism and climactic destruction? Doesn't mean the music has to be ugly too!

Well no big news of anything today. I'm getting ready to see my Mum tomorrow.

No more roboscandal. I thought Itchy had escaped again last night. But it was just me nightmaring...

I'm off now to do some of my memoirs. I have to wrok out where this book is going (not that I don't obviously know my own lifestory. I have to plan it out a little now. All I was doing thus far was simply scribbling off the top of my head!)

Have a cheery weekend everyone!

PS Isn't that Sushibar Clip classic~?!?

Today's Vid:
Katherine Jenkins: I Vow to Thee My Country

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hiyeeeee! I am from Toronto, Ontario CANADA....brrrrrrrrrrrr. I am Katarina's friend (Sleepymaniac who is on your blog roll). I have been lurking around these parts for sometime, I don't have a blog of my own, just because I would rather not, however, I am very interested in bloggers in general, hence, the creepy lurking.

I have been reading your blog for awhile now and it's always interesting. Given what you are going through I think it takes an incredible amount of guts to put it all out there for everyone to soak up. Just the fact that you are able to be analytical about your situation puts you leaps ahead of others. Keep that in mind and don't give up on yourself, you sound like you are too interested in the world to do that....Have a good one!

Naomi said...

I love classical!!! How are you these days?

Vi said...

Just put them all in a box, throw a cloth over it and pretend its a table!

Gledwood said...

Eileen: I don't think it's creepy anyway you haven't been lurking all the time if you've commented. I often float past blogs not saying anything. Only when I go on an official "hop" do I spray messages everywhere and see if anyone gets back to me... I hope being analytical means I can stop. I've been in rehab/treatment twice and was the worst person in there. Not that I'm saying my habit was worse just I was... out the door within a week both times!

Naomi: pretty good thanks. Not much NRG though

Vi Vi: good idea! I might well do that!

The Beach Bum said...

Geldwood -

I treasure my vinyl collection (about 600 with some duplicates) I have two top flight turntables (one a Technics MK-3 the other a Gemini TT-04. Even though many of my albums are scratched the sound quality is seemingly better that the CD (digital) versions of the same albums.

Shining Love Pig said...

Hi - thanks for stopping by...but I am in no way responsible for the video in that post...I found it via b3ta.om...maybe I should have said that months ago, damn my lack of web ethics...

...and as for restaurants not booking Westerners, I think that's more to do with them not being Japanese...although in three years I've only been refused twice.

Keep the CD's - all music is brilliant, espeially when it's free.

Gledwood said...

BB: I think vinyl sometimes IS better than CD. CDs are said to be "crisper" than their old analogue equivalents...
I believe the reason so many old tape decks are of such frankly dreadful quality from the late 80s/early 90s is that they wanted people to replace with CDs and so made them tape-eaters deliberately! Many thanxx 4ur comment...

SLP: what a name! ... I only heard that thing about the restaurants on one prog on BBC Radio 4's breakfast show... they sound like they were talking outta their backsides... well the sushiya clip was an excellent find anyhow! Do come back and I'll hajimemasho some more nihon-go soon!

Unknown said...

How can someone give 80-100 disks? I couldn't bring that much. Plus you should listen it.

Gledwood said...

I took them home in an old ladies' style wheely trolley and not alll at once!

I know I should listen but I don't have a record player and to be perfectly honest could do without the added clutter a turntable would entail....

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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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