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!

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Last Night's Drugs Nightmare...

I HAD A DRUGS NIGHTMARE LAST NIGHT. That I was stuck in Thailand in a place full of Westerners. It was a kind of shantytown hotel, everywhere I looked heroin was being cooked up, held up in works, pronged into skin. At first I had just been scared of getting involved. But by the end of the dream I was carrying a poison dart of my own full of "gear" and trying to conceal it in my hand from the police.... It all kind of turned out that the "hotel" was something of a Bangcock Hilton; ie a prison. And I woke up very glad to be in the UK.

I suppose the above IS my greatest nightmare. Southeast Asia is the one area of the world I've always wanted to go and see. But I wouldn't even consider travelling out there without being clean and hopefully having a supply of naltrexone, a pill you can take that blockades the effects of heroin.

(You cannot take this naltrexone, by the way, unless you are clean of all opiates: because if you're not it will reverse you into instant withdrawals....)

And now to change the subject:

Here in Britain we recently had the first "run" on one of our banks for over 140 years. Northern Rock is a small bank, formerly a building society... as credit became more difficult to obtain internationally following the socalled subprime mortgages implosion Northern Rock supposedly were left out in the cold one night in need of a loan of several hundred million pounds just to balance their books. It is quite normal to have to make these emergency borrowings; what was unusual was that the market refused them the loan. Which meant they had to go cap in hand to the Bank of England. When news of this hit the airwaves customers panicked and Northern Rock quickly went into meltdown with lines of customers snaking out the doors of all branches and down the streets... Thanks to government intervention the crisis is averted, Northern Rock is still in business. But they have so far borrowed £21 billion and are expected to need up to £30 billion. That is £1000 for every taxpayer in Britain.

(£1 is $2 US.)

All I can say is: imagine if another two banks went down? The poor chancellor of the exchequer would run out of money to bail them out...

7 comments:

none said...

That is a heck of a lot of money. Most bankers knew subprime loans were coming to bite them in the butt but the allure of easy money was too much.

The one said...

Hi Gleds

Yes the dream was horrendous but thats all it was: a nasty dream. Try and forget it. Its not going to happen. Enjoy your Sunday instead. Do something nice!

take care
all the best
glad (I am not sad any more yeh me!)x

Unknown said...

In some point traveling during you sleep is better than in reality because it is cheaper.

Gledwood said...

That's certainly true also you can't get traveller's diarrhoea

Guilty Secret said...

Oh dear, I hope it wasn't because you had been reading about Thailand on my blog that you had this dream... I bet it was though :-S

Gledwood said...

Thailand is in my subconscious... I once wanted to go there so much I even learnt how to haggle in the Thai language: ("How come that's so expensive? Usually I pay 500 baht...") and so on... But ended up going to India (long story)... yes your blog would only have rubbed it all in further... I have GOT to get there one day... but I'm not going if I think it's just turning into some sordid drugs nightmare know what I mean...???...

:-}

zennist said...

Scary dreams.

Subprime loans. We have an endless barrage of news talk shows in which they yammer on about why and how the mortgage market imploded. Jesus. It was greed, you assholes.

Take care, Gleds.

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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