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, February 16, 2008

Dropping Clangers

I DROPPED A CLANGER: well not really... that's just my justification for illustrating my first favourite TV programme (when I was 2, 3, 4 years old)... the Clangers lived on a moon made of cheese. They were black and white mice (well they were on our telly because THAT was black and white...!) and lived out their adventures to the soundtrack of a swanee whistle... (that weird bicycle-pump implement thang illustrated to the right is sposed to be a swanee whistle...)

Not much news: I was intending on a quiet weekend but constant phone calls from "old" friends... then my old dealer did telesales on me... telling me he is back on. This person I do have a soft spot for. I wouldn't use the label "friend" but he is at the edge of my circle of friends... we go back a long way... there is something about him that even when one night he kept a multinational crowd of twelve of us (Italians, Spanish, French, even two Americans and, surprisingly (the international banking set aside) you don't get that many Americans in London at all... anyone who sounds "American" 9 times out of 10 will be guaranteed Canadian. I think that has something to do with reciprocal visa arrangements... anyway we're waiting for time... he comes out with all this crap about "I'm coming up the hill now. I can see you!" and that was when he was still 20 minutes away. But somehow, once he did actually arrive and we all saw his face... all of us did the same thing and forgave him. He is that kind of person. Also it's well known that he got himself a habit on the crack, which you may see as poetic justice but it gives me no pleasure to see someone I like going down the toilet...

I've been trying to tame my other two tubby trotters! Namely Bashful and Spherical. Without too much success. I tried it on Spherical first as she hates me the most. Unless I'm feeding her, any sign of my hand and pyooing!... off she skedaddles. If she were human she'd be waving hands in the air and screaming. She's such a drama queen. So I put her in the "vet's box" (the black plastic box where they go when they're being cleaned out)... she hates it in there. So the introduction of my hand offers welcome escape. Gratefully she clambers up it. I even got her to sit on my hands for ten seconds without panicking, wriggling, dropping or jumping. And I got to handle her without her wriggling too much (roborovskis are so wriggly they're unbelievable!) But as soon as she was returned to her ordinary enclosure she made rapid escape. And glared at me balefully from safely underneath the wheel...

I am thinking of purchasing a brand new gigantic trottery for the robbies. For a mere £6 or £7 I can get a near-transparent enormous lidded plastic container literally four times the size of their current home that I could lay out with all burrows and driftwood and extra wheels and ultra-robo-tainment... I will let you know.

Next week or the week after I get my drugs test back, to throw light on my mysterious barbiturated or benzo'd episode... I shall reveal all as soon as the information is mine to impart...

Take care everybody and have a pleasing weekend... don't you think that picture below is reminiscent of Baby Itchy..~??!?

Tune of the Day:
Michael Jackson: Stranger in Moscow
... this is one of his best songs EVER ...

10 comments:

Deb said...

I love that MJ song. My favorite is "You Are Not Alone"...it makes me cry (everytime).

xo

tut-tut said...

YOU take care! I'm beginning to worry about you incessantly.

Anonymous said...

Not sure it's wise to have your former dealer around too much... just a thought. I do think you're strong but it might be hard to see people of the past again.

Sorry for being motherly ;)

Gattina said...

I also think you should avoid "friends" from the past. You never know yourself. Sometimes the evil voice is stronger and finds all kind of excuses to get you back to where you don't want to go anymore ! I had to get rid of too much drinking and it was very hard. Now I am "clean" since 3 years but you never know !
I am happy you mentioned Michael Jackson, he is a great musician and I never believed what was said about him and I was ashamed of this witchhunt they did with him !

Nicole said...

I'm sure the little Robos would LOVE a new, bigger home! I hope you can get it. It sounds like it would be a lot of fun for them.

Akelamalu said...

Anyone who sells you drugs is NOT your friend honey. People like me, who nag you constantly to give up the drugs are your friends. Take care won't you? xx

Gledwood said...

Debs: Michael Jackson has done some amazing music it's such a shame he had such silly surgery and that every other aspect of his life seems to have overshadowed his music and dancing

TutTut: Don't lose sleep over me. I have got a wound on my leg but if it gets no better I'm going to hospital with it

("with it"? well I couldn't exactly leave it behind... (if only!))

Zhu: Yeah you are right... I haven't seen this one for two years maybe he's been in prison. Not for drugs. For driving offences/violence type things. Silly boy

Gledwood said...

Gattina: Yeah he's not really my friend he only wanna see me when I got money...

Nicole: it would literally be about 4 or 5 times bigger ;->...

Akelamalu: I'm definitely trying to take care I have to look after my health. urk!

Merle said...

Hi Gleds ~~ Thanks for your comment about what sort of parent you'd be.
Well I reckon those robos think you are OK. And maybe one day when you get clean, you could turn out a good parent. Notice I said "when" not "if"I hope your leg is OK and will heal soon. Take care of yourself.
Kind regards, Merle.

Gledwood said...

Thanks a lot Merle. Not a lot more I can say to that... I do feel it's a when not an if. I did once really feel a strong urge to clean up... ironically when I had money to binge as much as I pleased. I even got an NA "sponsor" ~ that means I was set up to actually do the 12-step programme... & that's why I keep on, waiting for life to turn a corner. If I can change my circumstances: I know myself well enough to know that I will actually WANT to clean up eventually. I know I will, because I have done so before ;->...

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