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, January 04, 2008

The Pink Noses

THAT IS A DOGGIE'S NOSE. But tonight I came to my tubbers and called "come out you fatty pink noses! Come out you furry old gremlin swines!" ~~ sure enough, direct from the teabox two tubby pink noses appeared. Sergeant Itchy and Bashful sure enough, who sleep together. Spherical, who I am not sure is related to them, sometimes sleeps separately in the "jagoda" strawberry Jaffa Cakes box, sometimes sleeps with the other two. When it's particularly cold Bashful and Itchy bed down in the Parmesan lavatory (now bedroom complete with cotton wool provided by me). I've put down another Parmesan tube for them to peepee in ...

As you can see not much news. I've not been sleeping too much lately... Last night I seemed to catch up bigstyle. Hours and hours of vivid-dreamy sleep... the dreams quite confused (be thankful: else I'd be posting them in blow-by-blow detail); but ended up with me and a princess in the Romanovs' (that is the late Tsars of Russia's) Winter Palace running through ballrooms escaping some secret adversary.... Not quite sure how/wherefore/why/etc... but hey it was "just" a dream...

The Chinese cooking is coming on dreamily. I've yet to remember to make the scrambled eggs for the rice and so the present fried rice is egg-free. But I've made a fantastic mixed vegetable one and my chicken blackbean sauce is coming on whizzingly...

AND SO! The first weekend of 2008 approacheth. What am I saying: it's here! Have a great one everybody and don't get too exhausted.

Take care

Gleds
xxx
xx
xx


Video:
Queen Alexandra: the Danish aristocrat who became England's darling...


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Here's a really good blog about perfume.

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"Unlawful rendition"... sorry "combatants"... have a look at Damp Dog's blog to see what George W Bush has made of America's laws...

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PS Re: monosodium glutamate/MSG I've discovered that to jazz up one portion fried rice for example you would add a quarter to a third of a flat teaspoon (ie a large pinch or so). Do NOT be taken in by the packet instructions saying to put on afterwards this means even with a bit of tossing it's not properly mixed in and will stay in the mouth long afterwards leaving a horrid aftertaste. NO! The best thing is to add it in the last five mins of cooking and make sure thorougly mixed in. MSG is essential not to all dishes but to egg fried rice in particular to make "just like from the Chinese" flavoured for sure...

I'm a little dubious about using this stuff at all.


Here's the wikipedia article on MSG which gives some cons
Here's the "glutamate association"'s website which gives some pros!


Read well! And nb I am NOT recommending the stuff. I really don't know too much about it...

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O righto te! It's nearly 9pm and I've just had my special "leftovers" chicken-peppers-blackbean sauce mixed vegetable fry rice ~ ALL cooked myself and gleddered specially into specially saved plastic microwaveable Chinese takeaway cartons* for added authenticity... Now that I've finished I've had a real yen for Cadbury's Mini Eggs (100g). Now if you live outside the old British colonial "axis" you may not be aware of Cadbury's chocolate but let me tell you they make the best milk chocolate in the world. Loverrly-doverrly. Best dark choc, as I said yesterday, is in my opinion Ritter Sport.

*in the UK, takeaway cartons tend to be either foil with waxed card tops like this; or microwaveable plastic. Not posh origami-style like these American ones ...

Bon appetit everyone and have a lovelly weekend!

30 comments:

lettuce said...

Happy New Year Gledwood - i've been having a luvverly time catching up on your blog. tho i have to come back and watch the vids later, LG is currently playing loud screamy music in my ear.

Happy to see that you sound bright and positive and also happy to see pics of your little lovely furry friends.

i thought kylie did pretty well in the Xmas Dr. Who, what did you think?

sounds like a most dramatic and romantic dream. I love dreaming.
(well, obviously not the bad ones...)

chinese cooking - i always like to keep pretty well stocked with jars of hoisin sauce from our local chinese supermarket - delish and useful stuff.

have a great weekend gledwood.

Gledwood said...

Yeah Kylie was really good in Dr Who I often wondered why she didn't try going back into acting during some of her "darker" years in the mid 90s... she did that thing with the Belgian steroidal hero whatsisname cannot for the life of me remember but that was meant to be crap and some romantic film around the time of the Jason Donovan "affair" but neither really hit home. Considering how crap some of her earlier singing has been I don't know why she didn't jump STRAIGHT into acting!!

Many thanks for the message. Glad you had an entertaining read ...

Which of your 3 blogs is the Main one btw? I always get confused about this...

Lana Gramlich said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog & Happy New Year to you & yours! The hamsters are adorable!

Gledwood said...

Hamsters rule!

tut-tut said...

Have a wonderful weekend! Keep up the cooking, and make the rice first and get it nice and cold before throwing into the hot skillet or wok or what have you.

Those kind of dreamy dreams leave me unnerved for the rest of the day . . .

Gledwood said...

Dreams: sometimes yeah they do do that but only if they're REALLY unnerving to start with...

The cooking: yeah I'm finally getting the hang of simple "cook the rice first and leave lid-off in refrigerator"... THEN you can fry it easily

other recipes have said idiot things like "drain the rice then fry" which I did and of course it STUCK BIGTIME to the bottom of the pan.

duh

you gotta explain CLOSELY and in DETAIL how to do these things else no-one'll get 'em!

many thanks for your comment
have a great weekend yourself

Gleds
:->...

frog ponds rock... said...

Hiya gledhill *waves madly* Thanks for coming over and leaving a comment too!!!! Hamsters and Heroin eh. could be worse I suppose..hehehehe

cheers Kim.. I vill be back

Unknown said...

Such cute little creatures. I would love to share my home with a few like them, but fear that Alex, the cat who owns me, would see them as treats for his dining pleasure.

lettuce said...

Lettuce-eating is my main blog, the others are rather occasional

must check out the other limp one tho!

Anonymous said...

I'm cooking Chinese chicken w/ blackbeans sauce as I write :$

Well, mister Zhu is cooking. I just cut the veggies ;)

Audrey said...

OMG Gleds Im on the floor salivating at the mouth, you make cooking read so interesting I may just take it up again...too many ready meals with working strange shifts.

For my fried rice ( when I do cook ) I whisk up an egg in a cup and drop it into a well I make in the rice, wait until its beginning to cook and then stir it into the rice gradually,then add a dash of soy sauce, sometimes I add a touch of garlic puree too.

Bashfuls look alike is oh so sweet.

Have a good first of the New Year weekend too Auds x

Janice Seagraves said...

Hi Glen,

I'll take your word for the various faces your hampsters are making, they all seem like "deer caught in the head light" look to me.

Happy New year,
Janice~

Bimbimbie said...

Thanks for posting the Queen Alexandra video .... I love all that Royal Historical stuff and the photos of those tiny teeny waists. Thank goodness those fashions are wayback in history too.

Personally I think Annie Lennox far superior to both Madonna and Kylie combined ;) Have a lovely weekend and save some of those cadburry eggs for the rest of us *!*

Akelamalu said...

I never used MSG in my chinese cooking, or any cooking for that matter. I thought it was just a preservative and if you're going to eat your concoction right away you don't need it?

Gledwood said...

Frogponds: could be much worse... "koi carp and crack", for example ...

Nick: you would need a really high security tank (not a cage) with cats in the house...

Lettuce: I can't remember what was ON the other limplettuce blog. hmmm

Zhu: do you make your own blackbean sauce or do you just buy it readymade like I do..??!?

Gledwood said...

PS: Zhu do you know a recipe for Chinese style curry sauce? I am desperate to learn to make my own. I've been told it needs Star Anise... does that sound right?

Audrey: that sounds like a really good way of making it... the other way I was told was scramble an egg first and just chuck that on as part of the stirfry... only trouble is the Chinese takeaway egg fry rice has so little egg that unless you're serving about five people you're practically wasting the egg!

Janice: haha!!

Bimbimbie: Annie Lennox is in a totally different league to Madonna. I once rode the top deck of a doubledecker bus at the front opposite Annie Lennox. I'm quite sure it was her. Looked just like her and was right near Highgate, which is where she lives ... woopee!!

Akelamalu: it's a flavour enhancer a little bit like salt but it's flavour is warmer. I think it enhances meat and oniony fried ricey type dishes more than some others... basically I think it is only "needed" if at all in the fried rice to make it taste like "just from the Chinese"
:->...

Unknown said...

those hamsters are just too cute. i couldn't quite distinguish the grumpy from the not grumpy, but i'm sure you know what you're talking about. :)

RUTH said...

Love all the photos Gleds. Just dropping by briefly to wish you the best for 2008...will get back online properly as soon as I can.
Rx

junky said...

Gled, have a good new year, been traveling across this great land of mine, so not able too catch up until now.
Did the Alexendra vid come from the royals you tube page?
and that Prod vid gave me horrible flashbacks...

Kahshe Cottager said...

Hey Gleds, I have browned raw rice straight in the frypan (no oil) before boiling it. You have to be careful not to get it too hot and keep moving it around or it "pops" like popcorn and you end up with a pan full of what looks like Rice Krispies (are you familiar with that cereal?) If done correctly, the rice takes on a little nutty flavour which adds a new dimension to fried rice or pilaf dishes.

Mmmmm now I am craving Chinese food too!

Have a great weekend!

Cléa said...

I have dreams like the ones you describe, full length features that go into minute details. Then everything gets all jumbled when I wake up. But they're good while they last!

Queen of the Mayhem said...

I was laughing out loud at your description of Kylie! Good stuff!

I think insomnia comes with the blogging territory! Maybe it makes us more apt to nonsense, giving us an unlimited amount of blog fodder!

I love Ched from Tangled! Awesome blog!!!!!!!

Gattina said...

The pictures of your hamsters are sooo cute ! They have so intelligent eyes !
Today we celebrate Three Kings Day in Belgium, so come and have a slice of the "Galette" !

Inexplicable DeVice said...

Happy New Year!

That bit on MSG made me remember that Victoria Wood show 'Men Sana In Thingummydoodah'. Julie Walters is the rubbish manager of Pinkneys, a health farm, and is discovered in her office scoffing jaffa cakes or something. She confesses to Victoria and co, who were staying at Pinkneys, that she likes MSG.
"I've got a monosodium glutemate recipe book" she declares.
Hilarious!

Whitenoise said...

Heh, I love the way the lighting projects the bullseye of a target on Kylie's crotch as she sings "love me, love me, love me..."

Unknown said...

Happy new year, and Romanov dynasty was the last ruling dynasty in Russia.

Anonymous said...

hi thanks for the messages everybody i have to reply tommorow when i have more internet time!

Gledwood said...

Cinn: You know your sparkly lips have been familiar to me longtime over various exotic internet blogs I occasionally "float on through..." As for hamster faces: I CAN see what I'm talking about bc they're my animals; but probably everyone says that but is too polite to say haha!

Ruth: Glad you're back I missed you; stay well xx

Junky: o the Prodigy. And to think I used to think they were amazing and that "rave" was the "new religion" spreading across the world... yeah I tuned into the British royal channel on youtube which you just find with obvious keywords, but the "official" stuff is nonembeddable (why??) then this came up from someone like "Coker 10" or something who's obviously a Queen Alexandra fan... there's quite a lot of other stuff about her there too... I was quite intrigued about her, having seen her tall persona on lots of old royal photos... and wondering who she was ...

Kahshe: I have heard about that method too... never realized Rice Crispies is THAT easy to make, yeah they're everywhere here (well, not everywhere but you know what I mean... :-])

Bemused: yeah dreams can fade fast, can't they... do you ever dream with the radio or TV on and get the news tangled up in your inner world... SCAREY!!

Gledwood said...

QUEEN of the Mayhem: I'm getting quite a lot of royalty in these here comments: a queen and an emperor within five hits! I'm glad you liked not liking Kylie. I think she's OK but hardly as amazing as the gay/teenage/tabloid "community" seems to believe ...

Gattina: I think the "three wise men" at "epiphany" were a day later here than you... I think they were yesterday Sunday night 6.1.8... not 100% sure tho... you are right about the eyes. Not all small animals make eyecontact at all. My only one who really does is Bashful who makes prolonged eyecontact. And follows my hand around the cage when I put it in... I am sure she must be hyper-smart!

Inexplicable: Hey thanks for that I shall have a look for that on Youtube...

Whitenoise: hmm. tart! typical!

EMPEROR Ropi: yeah I know and the British royal family REFUSED them sanctuary in this country during the revolution for fear of getting "politically involved". Which lead to their deaths. Lilly livered lot! (The Windsors, that is.) I heartily disapprove of that. Just because you're head of state and a "figurehead" doesn't mean you have to act like a brainless dimwit or worse marionette into the bargain...

;-<

jmb said...

Hey Gleds,
I've just been catching up here and I have to agree that Ritter Sport is my favourite Dark chocolate, especially the one with Hazelnuts. I don't care for milk chocolate at all. Lindt dark is great too. What am I saying all dark is great.

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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