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!

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Robo-wars!






THESE PICTURES WERE TO ILLUSTRATE THE DIFFERENCE IN SIZE BETWEEN A FULL-GROWN ROBO and an ordinary Syrian hamster. Bashful, Spherical and Itchy could easily hide inside one toilet tube ~ with room left to move around; whereas you can see that an ordinary hamster fits snugly through with head and tail poking out either end!

My roborovskis had a fight this morning¬! I don't know what was wrong with them. I happened to be watching them at the time, it happened around 6am. Itchy and Bashful, instead of doing their weird robo-greeting and that's it, wound up lashing out paws as if trying to tip the other over. Both were squeaking loudly. (Not a super-shrill scream like a mouse's shriek, more like the noise of a squeezy-toy... they are just like living cartoon characters.) Bashful pinged into the teabox. Itchy seemed very upset. Then Spherical lumbered on the wheel and started thundering along. She is so heavy she runs firmly at the bottom. Itchy is so light and quick she runs almost vertical... kicking her feet in Spherical's face. And then THOSE two started squabbling too... I dunno what is eating Itchy. She had better be careful; she is the tiniest one. Maybe she's fed up of being bottom-peck.

I hope she doesn't start a real fight; hamsters can fight to the death. I don't want a dead Itchy!

IN THE NEWS:
BABY THROWN FROM 3RD FLOOR (4th floor to you Americans) OF BURNING BUILDING CAUGHT BY POLICEMAN...

The Sun ~ best tabloid prose...
Mail on Sunday ~ best illustration...
Post-Chronicle ~ has video (actually it's a stills montage...)

CALLING ALL AMERICANS! Yeah! You "caucuses" voters out there... however you do it... (what IS a caucus? why the weird Armenian name?...
You have to stop that dreadful, vacuous policy-less OBAMA from winning! Oprah supports him (I don't know why but, Oprah, if you happen to read this I LURVE your book club my memoirs would make an ideal Choice of the Decade feature thing...) Anyway now not only Oprah but even Schwarzie's wife's nailed her colours to the mast! If this goes on the guy might win. America is in danger! Come on! The guy's half WHITE yet plays the black card every day... all that affected Martin Luther King impersonation... the guy only LOOKS about 12... and more to the point has demonstrated none of the skills (far as I've seen) that come in handy for running a country of 300+million... Come on VOTE IN HILLARY!

MILK, Honey & Cyder... Brit expat blog of the day... in quite atmospheric nonCosta del Sol Spain...

Here's a good photography blog: driftwood

PS: the EUROMILLIONS LOTTERY's peaking at £95/98,000,000 this week... that's $190-196,000,000 US... so even I bought a ticket... (gotta give it a whirl!)... what I find profoundly displeasing (and so typically British-minded. I bet it was the boring Brits who insisted on this petty rule...) after a certain number of rollovers the prize cannot roll over again thus limiting the prize to less than $200 million. I'm sure the American multiwhizzing powerball lotto is bigger than that. Why should everything European have to be smaller and more crap? We ought to have BIGGER BETTER SHINIER EXCITINGER things...
what IS better about Euromillions (so in effect it definitely IS the biggest draw in the world) is that all prizes (in the UK) are TAX FREE and paid IMMEDIATELY IN FULL!
I've heard the American multi-state one only pays out HALF if you want it in a lump sum ... is that true? or else you have to take paltry "enough to buy a broom cupboard opposite Harrods" (ie about $5 million a year) dribbling annual payouts...?
also do they limit the number of rollovers? if so that is a crime against humanity and the lotto-leaders should be frogmarched to The Hague...

***

VIDEO:
Wood mouse, field vole...

32 comments:

Vi said...

My kids are HAMMERING at me to get them hamsters. I just may have to give in soon!

Gledwood said...

That "big robo post" I was going to put up... was for you... about buying/housing/keeping hamsters and what types are like what... here's the crux of it:~

(there are 5 types:
Syrian (normal "golden" hamsters)
Russian winter white: these are the russian hamsters you tend to get in this country they're about half as big as a normal hamster
Russian campbells: come in more colours but temperament not quite so good
Roborovski: half as big as Russian hamsters; v small and fast but better to watch than to handle
Chinese: looks like a giant mouse, holds on to your hand with all four feet like little hands.

Syrian always and Chinese nearly always have to be housed individually one per cage. Russians and Robos can live in pairs or groups.

I should be able to post it up tomorrow!

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I wish i were a hamster that could squish into a toilet roll. *Sigh*

gypsy said...

heheheh...

had fun readin it...

nyways u have been tagged...guess u know abt that alrdy...well, use the windows media player....

:D

cheers!

gypsy said...

b/w blogrollin ur this blog....

Gledwood said...

Eileen: I dunno why but I had this thing that I wanted to be able to shrink down to mouse size and hide... also to shrink objects down and blow them up... imagine the profit you could make by x100ing a 1 ct diamond..!?!

DS: windows media player...? I heard of that I'm not so technologically phunky o! is that the thing that plays crappo other people's music in internet caffs and I never knew how to turn it off? ha! well they get radio 4 blithering out from me hahahaargh!! right I will try that thang just bear wimme while I get that "thang" to work...

tut-tut said...

Oh my! You DO have some strong opinions about B and H!! Well, we'll have to see, won't we, what happens in all the primaries . . . I always seem to pick a loser, if that's any consolation to you :(

Gledwood said...

well... I know I'm not American but that Obama... I really don't get how he managed to get this far... what substance? HILLARY! HILLARY! yeah yeah yeah!!

Anonymous said...

I think they give you the whole amount of the lotto winnings in Canada. I know that you can purchase tax protection if you are going down to Vegas and gambling. They tax heavily on winnings there. My Grandparents live in Florida and if you win the state lotto there, they basically take half and give it to you over the course of a century ;)

Akelamalu said...

Hope your hamsters haven't fallen out with each other Gleds!

The Euromillions is an obscene amount of money now, it's better that it's divided amongst many rather than just one winner.

Monogram Queen said...

That toilet paper roll really does illustrate the size difference.

I remember in highschool one of the dandy insults to fling was "hamster brain". Wonder what that was all about???

Bimbimbie said...

Just got a mental picture of you, all kitted out in a Hillary cheer squad outfit *!*

One thing I've always wondered is why they allow celebs to get in on the act and endorse their favourite persons anyway. Yes, I know it's to capture votes but people can't be that dumb they need a celeb to tell them how they should vote?

Bimbimbie said...

Just got a mental picture of you, all kitted out in a Hillary cheer squad outfit *!*

One thing I've always wondered is why they allow celebs to get in on the act and endorse their favourite persons anyway.

Zen Wizard said...

You are training them to crawl through a narrow cylinder?

What possible utility could that have??

Oh, wait...my bad...

Anonymous said...

OHHHH I hope PEACE arrives soon for your roboroviskis! They are much smaller than I imagined. Toilet tubes wouldn't really suit them for attire, besides falling down all the time. Imagine being LOST in a toilet tube and it just keeps rolling. We have a bush rat who visits every night, very cute and not like a rat at all, and a possum who gnaws above the bed at 3am. I really liked the Wood Mouse video and the Mail on Sunday illustrations were very good:)

molson said...

American politics are an utter mess. Don't bother trying to understand it. Nobody in the States gets it either. Someone will get elected. Nobody will be happy about it. So much for independence. The fourth of July still makes for one fun holiday though.

Did I see a were-robo swine gnawing on a human finger in one of your photos? Vicious little swine.

Sorry if I sound a little goofy. I spent the better part of the evening pouring beers down my neck. I'll be better tomorrow.

molson said...

...and no, they weren't Molsons. They were Labatts. Canadians know what I'm talking about. ;-)

Tatyanna (and Dorian too) said...

oh man, you had to go THERE didn't you?? obama is MY man, i'm one of those obama girls i suppose. are you kidding me? hilary doesn't have one single screw working that her husband did, and he wasn't ALL that.

our country IS GOING TO BE in trouble?! bah! future progressive participle?? our country is fantastically run AMOK right now TODAY. shit.

as ever, i love you anyway. in the american spirit, i shall agree to disagree... :)

Odat said...

Hi and How are you???
Only caught a lil bit of those films...great ones....About the cat kneading...I was told they do that while young to force out the mom cat's milk. So it 's a sign of contentment or "Got milk"? hehe.

Your hamsters are the cutest!!!
Peace

DaBich said...

Hillary! GAWD, she gives me the willies. If she gets elected, the USA is in HUGE trouble. I'd go for Obama over that heartless biatch anyday! (There, I made aintneverscared happy).

to molson ~ Molson's rocks, it's waayyyyy better than Labatt's. I love the XXX myself ;)

Anonymous said...

CAT PEDALLING (hope this comment is posted in the right place)

Cats AND dogs do this as a throwback to their young days. Generally, animals which have been taken away from their mothers too early do this. It is a comfort action performed to imitate the "pedalling" at their mother's milk glands to encourage milk flow. Watch young kittens or puppies with their mother at feeding time to understand. An analogy here would be a young child who sucks his thumb as a substitute for his mother's milk. Comforter.

Anonymous said...

BTW I checked out the true age of our late hamster, we have lived at our present house for three years. We had Hammy at our other house for at least two years as my daughter was still in the juniors when she got him for christmas, this made the hamster just over five years old. No wonder he waddled and shook!

Liz Hinds said...

Look what I found! Go here http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_search.php?submit=Go!

and look down the list for Chinese Curry Sauce like you get from the Takeaway parts 1,2 and 3!

Will come back later and read but wanted to show you that.

lorenzothellama said...

Trouble is Gledwood, coming over here I have spent half the afternoon looking at YouTube clips, following through to other videos about kittens and dogs and things.
Very entertaining but it doesn't get the dinner cooked!
Thanks for visiting my blog.
See you,
Lorenzo.

Gledwood said...

Eileen: what a scandal!

Akelamalu: I know exactly what you mean... I spose maybe they should do one shared out one and one massive prize one. Or something like that. Euromillions was meant to be huge... the winning odds are ripoff: 70,000,000:1 as against 14,000,000:1 in the normal lottery... that's 5 times LONGER!

Patti: hamster brain! never heard that one ~??!??

Bimbimbie: that's American politixx for you... they say this is the most exciting election there in decades... usually the American "starts one year before it happens" election coverage is just BORING... but HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT! though, all the same!

Gledwood said...

ZenWizz: "training them to crawl through"..? it's a question of coaxing them OUT of those tubes!

Anon: glad you liked those things... o no robos are TINY they are even smaller than housemice ... + lacking tails!

Molson: American politix sounds practically corrupt if you need $100,000,000s to get to president... what hope has any "normal" person? That robo was just licking a wet finger... I assume... unless it was doing a Bashful and biting it...

AintNever:

Gledwood said...

AintNever: OK I know Obama's charismatic... but what is he actually going to DO when he gets in?... that point is not that clear...

(OK fair enough I am not American maybe I should shut up)

Odat: I'm scared my hamsters might have "pets" (mites) of their own...

Dabich: yeah but wouldn't you rather have Hillary than Ron Huckerbee?

Or not~?!?

Gledwood said...

RonKnee: that is well over 120 hammy yrs...

Liz: o wow... curry sauce recipe FOUND~?!? EXCELLENT thanks so much! I have a look in a sec...

LorenzoLlama: wise man he say: only cooking the dinner will get the dinner cooked... (so to speak)

Anonymous said...

perhaps it was the occasional leaf-let of ganj which kept him going!

Anonymous said...

perhaps it was the occasional leaf-let of ganj which kept him going!

Sara said...

Just snuck over to spy out your blog. This is a guerilla type operation because I'm at work. Looks like there's plenty of food here for an alternative mind. I'll be back!

Gledwood said...

Ron Knees:

You gave the hammy ganj? No wonder he had a long and happy life!!

Magdalene:

Keep on guerillarring! ;->...

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!































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