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 23, 2008

The Feeling Vial <:-o

I USE THE ABOVE PUN ADVISEDLY as today I've been feeling vile. Only some people I used to know broke open (prescribed) pharmaceutical vials several times daily to shoot up in their groins... what is called an "injectable script". One, who a decade ago and before this drugs stuff totally got to me in my own infection injection habituated way, had me calling the (then) "National Drugs Helpline" (0800 77 66 00) (now it's called Frank; "talk to Frank"... and on the same number...) (Frank's online "A-Z of drugs"; click here...) and saying "my friend is prescribed
Dexedrine (pharmaceutical speed whence the "rock" group "Dexys Midnight Runners"...) and this doctor must KNOW she is injecting it in her groin... is it not possible to get injectable dexedrine on private prescription?" And the lady (they think they know everything about drugs after a month's training but don't. One confidently declared Valium to be an opiate. Another had not heard of injecting crack (the other aspect of my friend's behaviour that drove me to distraction. Why take such a massive risk to your health injecting that stuff when it's been specially washed to smoke on a pipe..?)... the lady said there was nothing anyone could do. Inectable speed is not available on prescription; only those pills. And though they are well aware their patients are "banging them up" and killing themselves the doctors carry on with these presciptions... I was utterly scandalized and despaired ever more... What can you do? And then I realized you cannot "save" an addict, no matter what or how bizarre or ridiculous their behaviour. There is nothing you can do except be there for them when finally they are ready to stop. She never stopped until finally the day came when Dexedrine pills, crack injections and methadone amps (plus ketamine at weekends) all injected into the crook (very top: bikini-line) of her thighs where the vein is finger-thick... but not thick enough, so it seems, to so continuously take all those chalky Dexedrines... and so she lost her leg. I was utterly gutted for her: but by that time I myself had plunged down the toilet too... there was nothing I could do for her.

So she now lives alone, using a wheelchair, no longer on methadone, (injectable or otherwise) nor dexedrine nor ketamine but still smoking the odd pipe on the crack. I know this as our oldest crack dealer accosted me with his new number a couple of years ago saying this woman had been asking after me. She used to be my best friend for a short time but in the end I just could not handle hearing her pain. And she literally was screaming in pain sometimes, at the abuse and ill-treatment she'd received in the past... it was not my job to save her and I got badly hurt.

Yes I have been feeling nasty all day. I went to the drug service drop-in, where they know me, and described my skirmishes with barbiturates that, further research has confirmed have to all intents and purposes left me with second-degree chemical burns on my back thigh. No wonder it hurts. Those drugs are, so I discovered so strongly alkaline they can destroy the flesh... which is nearly what they did to me... Never in all my years have I seen damage so extreme (a "local soft tissue 'reaction'" so I was diagnosed. "Reaction"~?? You can say that again! Not from a single botched injection (though I'm not even sure it WAS botched: it went straight in: just really hurt at the time... and of course more so afterwards...) Most abscesses I've seen are far smaller than that. It's horrible. Ukky. And has put me off a lot of things.

I'm living life in "senior review"...

Though I am glad to have my tiny tubbies trotting away on their wheel like fat old gremlins... they bring sunlight to my shadowy life... never had such enduring entertainment for the tiny sum of £23!

Have a great weekend, everyone... take care!

G
xx


ps who sent me the hamster dance on youtube? the url?? there's several hamster dances as it's the name of that squeaky song (I think) but I would really like to see the one you pointed out to me... having viewed back and back and sought it out over and over again through my comments I CANNOT FIND the url you posted me... could you please post me again in a comment under this post here? I'd be ever so grateful. Many thanks!

Link: Methadone Amps vs Diamorphine Amps comparison... (on grounds of cost)

Link II: Peter McDermott (probably Britain's top drugs counsellor)'s basic heroin/methadone/opiates/-oids factsheet...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just keep watching those tiny tubbies turning out the sunshine :)

tut-tut said...

Well, you're giving lots of information about the realities. Just you try to keep going, and healing too.

Audrey said...

I like that phrase'Im living life in senior review'.....

Keep enjoying the hammies Gleds and great pieces of writing these past few posts...

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Oh, your poor friend and poor you! But I think you're amazing. YOu WILL come through it, Gleds. Love from Sicily x

Bimbimbie said...

Bloody Nora Gleds, TAKE CARE ... those hammies need YOU x *!*

Unknown said...

That one cannot save an addicted is a damned hard lesson to learn. It took me over two years and more money than I want to think about to learn that lesson. And still, even being aware of that truth, I am sadder about failing in my attempts to save her than upset with myself for trying.

I am glad for us that you have your tiny tubbies—and I have my kitty. They are wonderful friends.

Gledwood said...

Anon: Imagine if the sun really could shine out of their tubby bums? I managed to grab Baby Itchy right by the tiny tag-tail the other day:~ oh! was she offended...! You'd have thought I'd successfully managed to sexually interfere with her. Not just grabbed her tiny white ultra~miniaturized rabbit-tuft of a tail!

Tut-tut: No option but to keep going and my body fortunately heals itself so... know whatteyemean~??~(??)~??.~?

Auds: do you really think it is good? I feared everyone would hate me for telling the truth you know how it goes... too much mental pus: probably offputting for some ..(???~???)~???.

Gledwood said...

Welshcakes: Cheers Dears... I wanna come outta this 2~legged, tho... I really do...

Bimbimbie: "bloody Norah!"~?? well put~!!

SometimesSaintly...: Can't save an addict... that's too, too true... no and PEOPLE they are the ALLTIME WORST. EsPECIALLY nowadays. NASTY business. Nasty nasty NASTY~!!!

:-<...

yeah tiny tubbies are my tiny trotting entertainers... very much worth the money and enormous out~of~the~way treck involved in getting them (shop could not comprehend WHY anybody would travel such a very long way right across London just for rare miniature Mongolian hamsters when you can get Siberian hamsters (which are totally different) almost anywhere... well I WANTED ROBBIES!! So glad I perservered and got them... shop had even told me there was only 1 left on the phone... AND tried to put me off coming to their branch and tried to get me to come elsewhere and everything... SO glad I perservered else I'd have NO Spherical, Bashful or Itchy! (Who is far less itchy now... I am hoping mites have fled from the site of her.. or whatever fungal infestation or plain old nervousness or whatever it was...)

Gledwood said...

PS; Nick: I just had a waking daydream about you riding through New York City on the back of a magnificent white horse... have you ever done this...~??

;->...

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