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!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Pile of pompoms/Eggfried bread...

MY ROBOS have taken up living outside in the far corner of their tank. Suspicious that they had mites, their teabox had to be removed. So now (despite a wealth of tubes they would ordinarily sleep in still on hand (or robo-paw...)) they've taken up residence in the far corner, in broad daylight, like a pile of mini-hamster pompoms, all grooming, clean and sleeping and alternately itching and dozing and leaning upon one another in the most hilarious manner. E.g. Itchy ends up the most squashed-against in the furthest corner, her head thrown up and down as Bashful vigorously washes. Then Spherical falls asleep sideways banana-shaped against Bashful with Bashful preening her most private of parts for her. I've had to be ever so restrained from laughing at their predicaments...

NOW: on to eggfried bread. There are three possible variations.

1. Plain fried bread. For this you heat a generous amount of good oil in a small pan, preferably with black pepper and chili powder (if liked). Fry the bread until golden brown and crispy. That is ordinary fried bread.

2. Soft egg fried bread. Crack an egg on to a medium-sized plate. Mix yolk into white as if scrambling. Dip bread both sides. Fry until brown. If the bread is nontoasted and nonfried it will be fairly crispy on the outside yet soft on the inside.

3. Crispy egg fried bread. Toast or ready fry (as 1 above) bread. Then dip into beaten egg (as 2 above) and fry. This potentially gives the best of both worlds. Fried egg on the outside (which is not eggy, more cheesy actually) and yet lovely and crispy in the middle. The chili/black peppers are optional but a good thing to consider (along with Lea and Perrons) as you perfect your technique...

And then, my friends, you may well turn out the perfect breakfasts for yourselves...

Poetry of the season:
(Both are extracts; click to read the rest...)


T S Eliot: Little Gidding

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon...



Wordsworth: Daffodils

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze...



IN THE NEWS:

Australian Courier Mail: Horse-Surfing. Mad poms' latest beach-sport...
The Sun: Gored of the Rings. Matador gets horn up bum...


Photo-blog of the Day: GusGreeper. Amazingly sharp ultra-real pixx... clickonit and see...

Life With Dogs... this blog contains fabulous snaps of the Cote d'Azur as well...

Larchmont Daily Photo... this one has a beautiful mirrorbuildinged NYC shot up top...

AND THANKS MERLE for this Award:
The You Cheer Me Up Award
;->...
Excellent stuff!

29 comments:

CrystalChick said...

Strangely... I didn't really know who Amy Winehouse was and then saw her lately in the news here about the grammys, drugs, etc. So I listened to your vid and I do like the song alot. Interesting voice. She looks pretty good in the vid but on t.v. here some of the shots were quite rough looking.
Onto the eggbread...
sounds like french toast in a way. I make it by dipping any kind of bread into a beaten egg that either has some vanilla extract in it, or a little sugar and cinnamon, or mixed with a little milk or cream, fry golden on each side and then drizzle syrup on top. Also, there's another type where you take out the center from a piece of bread, maybe a hearty rye type, heat butter/oil in a pan, put the bread in, crack and egg into the hole of bread, fry, turn over, cook bread and egg on other side.

Gledwood said...

DIDN'T KNOW WHO AMY WINEHOUSE WAS..~?!? Really!¬ What planet do you live on? Oh, New Jersey... hey she was at the Grammies yesterday... "Camden Town is Burning Down," she said. Because it IS. Her favourite pub has burned to the ground along with the best part of some of the market... Camden Town/Camden Market being THEE biggest tourist attraction in London, apparently, before Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, everything...

your recipe sounds intriguing... but what do you do once you've cut that hole in the bread and turned it over... what happens to the middle... do you have donut-shaped fried toast? or do you carefully fit toast and fried egg back together somehow... afterwards...?

please tell. I'm fascinated!

Deb said...

I do both the way crystalchick does.

For the "French" toast, I use cinnamon. You mix up the egg, a bit of milk and cinnamon, then dip the bread in and fry (I use butter to fry it in).

And the other one...you do the little hole in the middle of the bread and then start to fry it. Crack the egg in the middle and let it fry too. Then flip the whole thing over (easy) and you have egg IN toast. It's quite good.

Vi said...

Hey Gled,

If you are interested, we are publishing a blog book if you want to participate. Pop over to mine for the details. I know you are writing your own memoirs, this may help, getting a snipped published!

Vi x

Gledwood said...

Debs: OK I THINK I geddit... is the little hole something for the egg to hold on then? When Crystal/Mary wrote it I assumed the hole was apple-sized. I take it I was wrong? It is finger-sized and something to hold a fried-egg type thing ON to the bread... hang on do you beat the egg up or just fry it sunnyside down?/whatever the saying is...? o right it IS beaten... cinnamon? never tried that one... will have to give it a go... personally I found it hard getting spices INTO the egg: had to put 'em in the oil ... or maybe I'm just not bashing my eggs up vigorously enough... I dunno! Thanxx for the advice tho I shall try it!

Vi: o yeah! I am popping round as we speak...

WAT said...

Amy Winehouse won big last night at the Grammys and looked and sounded like the terrible hilarious disaster that she is!

You are so right in a few posts back where you mention Obama not really having any strong policies or solutions as president. I'm hating OPRAH now more than ever, because her influence is so strong and not always correct, but just because the man is half black they're all voting for him! IT'S RIDICULOUS!

Gledwood said...

I know it is dreadful... and people thought I was joking when I said AMERICA was IN DANGER... IT IS!...

o man! how much more can you people STAND of that fake Martin Luther King electioneering...? C'mon you Democrats VOTE IN HILLARY!!

Akelamalu said...

Eggy bread - delicious!

lime said...

we'd beat a dribble of milk into the egg and maybe a splash of vanilla and cinamon before frying it. serve with butter and syrup and call it french toast

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: eggy bread = yum. I got that recipe from someone who used to do block pavin' with the local pykies!

Lime:
Lime won a Sassy Mama Award...
Hey Sassy Mama!
French Toast?
My Mum used to buy (the British version) of this readymade from the supermarkets in the 1980s. No eggs: it was just expensive dried bread!

;->...

Keep on sassyin' now, Mama...

Zen Wizard said...

The poet I most identify with is Longfellow.

I can't write for shit, but once the Enzyte patch kicks in...

I think Amy Winehouse--and for that matter, Keith Richards--should get some sort of award at a Life Insurance Actuaries convention for defying their life-expectancy tables.

I can see how someone from New Jersey hasn't been to a record store lately: The highway is always jammed with broken heros on a last chance power drive.

Oh--and it should be noted that Obama won for "Spoken Word Album."

Anyone who has a Grammy statue should be able to run a $405-billion-a-year Defense Department; it's basically the same skill set but with less groupies.

Gledwood said...

What's an Enzyte patch...?

They were cracking jokes about all the Grammies you can get... like the time Homer Simpson won Best Barbers' Shop Combo "thang"... is it true?

I heard one classical composer/conductor-stickwaver person won 22... or was it 32? Grammies between 1928 and 1956. Or something like that...

Yeah poetry's yummy. TS Eliot's one of my faves...

alexgirl said...

I hate you for writing all those yummy bread/egg recipes. I'm trying to diet and now I'm starving!!
As for your question: YA=Young Adult. I'm a writer of young adult fiction. Have you heard of Gossip Girl? It's that genre. And yes, the Human Tetris thing is fabulous. So crazy. I'd completely suck at it! Haha.

Gledwood said...

O¬! Thanx for telling me I'd never have guessed that... Young Adult I bet you could say that is a MOST under-appreciated genre... am I right?

I'm sposed to be doin' a novel. Not doin' it though. I need to do draft 2 which will basically be a total write it again from the start with same characters, same theme, different story...

I'm also writing my memoirs...

... as for your diet... hey maybe I'll put up some of my jazzy salad recipes I used to have... they were pretty yumsome... yummier than a lotta cooked shyte...

;->...

Gledwood said...

Sorry I don't know the title you mentioned tho...

dennis said...

Dennis ADORES Amy Winehouse--Dennis was happy to see her looking fine on the grammy show--BEAUTIFUL powerful voice, Great songs always....have always LOVED Amy!

Anonymous said...

Love "Back in Black"! Number three of yummy bread is what we call French Toast also. We eat it with Maple Syrup YUMYUM.

So what is the next step apart from finding a new wheel and actually laughing at your poor little children? Is there a mite wash available so they can have a bath init? That way you can rule mites out of the puzzle ...

tut-tut said...

hmm; interesting takes regarding H and O . . .

CrystalChick said...

LOL... yes, Planet Jersey isn't too far from the truth sometimes... lol
But you saw my latest playlist, it's hardly 'popular' in many ways.
Exactly right, what Deb said, just a small hole in the middle, like an inch or so in diameter.
Hi Zen Wiz, decent Springsteen reference... altho there's only like 3 or so songs of his I like. Never been a fan.

Toooo much space needed to discuss politics here. I'll support whatever candidate gets the democratic nomination... it's crazy close right now... they both have issues, but until we get a strong Libertarian or other 3rd party I have to lean to the left and hope one of them can be progressive enough to start making decent changes. But 'we the people' have got to wake
up from the nightmare of the last 7-8 years and stop letting things get so bad. Altho there is also the idea that's it's wayyyy beyond anyones control no matter who is in office......
we'll see....

CrystalChick said...

OH... p.s. was the commercial DAZ... I'm Too Sexy for my Whites?? LOL

Merle said...

Hi Gleds ~~ Good to see you back on the air. Your fried bread and egg recipes sound yummy. Must try but shouldn't. Glad you were pleased with the award and you do cheer us up with your stories and robos and comments. I hope your book or books come to fruition. Thanks for comments, and I would ignore that Don't sleep all you want. While you are asleep, you are not craving heoin and your body has a chance to heal. How is your arm? You may be right about most verbal arguments being between Male/Female and often Married?? Take
care, my friend, VBW Merle.

Merle said...

Hi Gleds ~~ Good to see you back on the air. Your fried bread and egg recipes sound yummy. Must try but shouldn't. Glad you were pleased with the award and you do cheer us up with your stories and robos and comments. I hope your book or books come to fruition. Thanks for comments, and I would ignore that Don't sleep all you want. While you are asleep, you are not craving heoin and your body has a chance to heal. How is your arm? You may be right about most verbal arguments being between Male/Female and often Married?? Take
care, my friend, VBW Merle.

Nicole said...

Regarding the "French toast" or "Eggy Bread", in Croatia this is typically made with stale bread. It's a recipe for using up old bread. My mum makes it mostly salty, I like your twist with pepper or chilli, I'll have to give that a go.

Gledwood said...

Alexgirl:... what am I SAYING... young adult~?!? THEE bookmeister (meistress; if you prefer) is SE Hinton SURELY... excellent stuff ... and a guy who wrote a book called "I am the Cheese" that was powerful

Dennis: I have both her albums... her Dad was on BBC London radio just now saying how excited she was to win 5 Grammies ... everybody's slagging off Natalie Cole for saying an addict should not win (she who's only famous bc of her FATHER...) yeah Amy is Bigtime Genius for sure...

Anon: What I've decided to do is get antimites/antifungal powder. Put this in a tube in a u-bend shape with the powder filling the U. Then let them dig their way out THROUGH the powder... that way they get covered every day and don't hate me for spraying them... I cannot do spraying ("cover your pet's eyes"..~?? how do I do that when my pet is 2in long, barely tame and HATES being picked up as all except Itchy do...?

TutTut: H & O? OK I get the H but what is the O?

Gledwood said...

Alexgirl:... right I am The Cheese: written 1977 by Robert Cormier. Worth a look (about a disturbed young man in therapy...)

Crystalchick: hey you jest about the Right Said Fred but I think it may well actually have BEEN Daz... hang on let me google it...

Merle: thanks my arm is GOING DOWN... I picked the scab off and squeezed it... I am not "supposed" to do this but have found that although there was not legions of pus, squeezing and kneeding gets the crap out for sure... it's much better. A bit weepy under the scab but a scab is ALL that is left... all the redness bar a tiny remnant GONE! Hurrah!

Nicole: fried bread with chili? O yeah the chili removes the oiliness flavour, making it more palatable esp. if you go for plain fried... i never knew that egg fried bread was "french toast" ... our "french toast" was a packet of posh overpriced early 80s stale bread!

Gledwood said...

Hey Mary Crystalchick did you KNOW this~?? Or were you joking...? It IS Daz!! Look at my top video screen today... Right Said Fred Do Daz... no word of a lie!!

;->...

DaBich said...

OK, better late than never here...
I like my "fried toast" which is french toast drizzled with dark Karo syrup, it's sweeter than maple syrup. :)

I'm sorry, I've never liked AMy Winehouse, never could see what anyone saw in her...I guess I'm in the minority.
Give me Godsmack or Nickelback or Seether anyday!

Monogram Queen said...

I covet Amy's beehive

Gledwood said...

Dabich: I don't know any of those three you named... Winehouse i DO LURVE for the characterful and superexpressive voice... MAN! she has something going for her... just MAKE SOME MORE CDs AMY! C'MON!!

Patti: covet the beehive? It's less beehive than derelict hornets' nest..!!

OK OK FAIR ENOUGH it is pretty cool...

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