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!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Sage Donkey Derby; Continuing Robo-honking Squabbles; Cod in Parsley Sauce on Mushroom Tortelloni with Broccoli Recipe...

OR TONKEY TARBY... as I'd like to say in my "retarted" so-saying...

I've been eating Sage Derby cheese grated on my cod-in-parsley-sauce on mushroom tortelloni... the granny at the counter always cuts me an especially small chunk for grating...

Here's the recipe: it's yummy. (Half-industrial, I'm afraid..!)

You need:
1x Sainsbury's own (or Birdseye) frozen cod in parsley sauce £1.09 for one
1x pack Sainsbury's value mushroom tortelloni £1.59 for about 600g
One "tree" of broccoli (though you won't use it all; not for one person)...
A cheesegrater and something to strain pasta and broccoli from water...

Cooking: (serves one: multiply accordingly for further personnages...)
Put boil-in-bag cod-in-parsley-sauce in saucepan full of hot water. Bring to boil. Do not cover (this forces water into the bag; a lesson I learned early on!) it takes at least 20 minutes to do though you can give it an hour for really tender fish. Any much less than 20 mins gives a sushi-like effect which is to be avoided. So when adding broccoli and pasta bear the total cooking time in mind. Chop broccoli, separate as much pasta as you'll need (about a quarter of a pack should do per person...) if pasta's stuck together do not bother to separate: this will make holes that let in the hot water (not ideal!), cooking will separate it naturally so don't panick... the broccoli and pasta have the same cooking time: about five to eight minutes (eight minutes according to the label) so add 15-20 mins into the fish's boiling time. Boil all up. Remove bag of fish. Lay pasta on plate. Grate one layer of cheese over. Add broccoli. Grate another layer of cheese. Add the cod in parsley sauce. It will cover it with a beautiful white sauce. Add more cheese. You can also add parmesan: I do this on top of strained broccoli and pasta in a dry pan. I also add about two large pinches of pepper. Do it this way (esp. using Sage Derby cheese) and you have a meal of perfectissimo proportions!

The tonkey tarby refers (of course) to my trotters! See that picture of a white West Highland Terrier (aka terrorizer!!) ~ lady's leg in easy gnashing distance: that sums up Baby Itchy's character. Not only her aggression, but her furry fur when all bashed up and licked to pieces. She looks ever so cute when wet...

The tonky TARBY is my poor robos running round and round like a furry trotting horserace with the tyrannical Baby Itchy chasing Bashful and Spherical both! I can't believe she goes for old Momma Spherical. That is so disrespectful. But with a honk and a squeak she pings after both larger ladies (all fullgrown robbies are larger than Itchy who just is genetically tiny)... In despair I sought out advice about Itchy the Tiny's sudden character change and was advised that since spring is springing all around she probably wants a boyfriend! If true this is hilarious.

I thought I had set this off by adding more tubes and an empty parmesan container and more places to hide, sparking territorial rows over these new sleeping places. Traditionally my three have slept in the "teabox" (which they still have: it's a lightbulb box inside another box now: nibbled out to make entrance gaping enough for even Spherical to squeeze her lumbering frame inside.) Spherical weighs at least twice as much as tiny Baby Itchy, which makes Itchy's arrogance all the more unpalatable... They used to sleep inside here, atop their seeds, quite peacably together... or go all three inside their old burrow. Perhaps by complexicating their living arrangements, so I thought, I'd messed everything else and made Itchy suddenly territorial. She doesn't half chase the others round: and see them go: in human flight they're running well over 100 miles per hour! Honking, squeaking and virulently wrestling at other times. Quite naughty Baby Itchy ~ as I told her on numerous occasions...

Itchy's out of solitary. It was never an ongoing option as that "handbag box" is far too tiny to accommodate her. So I've let her back in with the others to run the gauntlet of her aggressive pinging and honking... today I am removing their extra tubes to simplify conditions to match days gone by... if that doesn't work to placify my manic donkey derby of roborovskis... I don't know what I'm going to do...

Videos:
Pendragons: Magic Trick (very well done!)
Duck Raids Campsite (exceedingly entertaining!)
Mamas and Papas: California Dreamin' (classic footage)
Scott McKenzie: San Francisco (see them flower kids play glockenspiel!!)


Reportage:
CRYSTAL MENACE: read the Sun's excellent double-page spread from mid-Feb about the horrors of crystal methamphetamine, the crack-like smokeable, injectable, snortable and swallowable super-speed that rots its users' teeth and faces within months of daily use... view the gruesome before and after slideshow...

32 comments:

Zen Wizard said...

Let's see: Summer of Love; Cheese Recipie; Burro Show; Dog Humping Woman's Leg; and Rodent Recreation....

I don't know how you did it--but you put it all together: In one seamless, continuous post!

Anonymous said...

A. I had Toad in the Hole for the first time and lemme tell ya....that there is some gooooooooood stuff, however, I will say that eating it all the time will inevitabley result in cardiac arrest.

B. If there is one thing that I should definatley see (apart from the Tate) in London what should it be?

Monogram Queen said...

Mmmm I want to delve into some different cheeses...

My baby calls broccoli "little trees" hehe....

Zen Wizard said...

When the titles are really long, they bleed into the first Comment--hey, but the price is right!

You have to click "Show Original Post" even though you don't necessarily want to see the original post.

The answers to your other queries are HERE.

Gledwood said...

Cheers: is there some mysterious thing where ... aargh the 2nd half of my comment has escaped my brain... why? why??!? WHY???! AARGH! I DON'T KNOW!

Anyway en reponse a votre commentaire chez vous j'ecris:

I'd much rather be writing fiction than fact and have 2 novelistic ideas in my head... but I gotta finish my memoirs 1st things 1st... they're burning away at me and HAVE TO BE DONE!!!! many thanks for the advice I shall take it huggingly to heart haha!!

Gledwood said...

EILEEN: I've just written out a post about shopping, sightseeing, museums, galleries, pubs and clubs of London... as I said I shall post it up by Monday latest if not by tomorrow: I REALLY need to buy extra time to do that and that kinda relies on good luck! You can wait till Monday tho?... right??

Buy the Time Out Guide to London before I forget it's the one us locals would use

;->...

Akelamalu said...

Oh cheese is my big downfall on the diet - I just love it, any sort of cheese, the more the better! We had some lamb chops last night with cauliflower cheese, carrots and roast potatoes - yummy.

Bimbimbie said...

gleds, how do you post your music videos on your side bar without getting a string of other artists or covers attached ?

Anonymous said...

Thanks man! I am super excited about it, London just seems like such a facinating place. Rob and I want to check out a show or two (as in music not musicals). Is there a newspaper or something that I could pick up or get online that may list club nights and live music venues? We have something like that here called NOW Magazine that will list all the Indie stuff... again thanks alot!

Anonymous said...

AHA! Your "quite naughty Baby Itchy" might not be a 'baby' any more ... teens can be VERY difficult! My parents went all the way to California to find that dream AND San Francisco but they ended up with an acid baby and had to quickly return to Sydney - me! Their happiness stopped there. HAHHAHHAAAA *manic laughter*

Unknown said...

So Itchy’s behavior has not yet been diagnosed?

Nicole said...

I like your recipe Gled. It's economical, filling and not too bad nutritionally. I also like that you cook it all in one pot. Like I said to you ages ago, you could do a cook book for people on very tight budgets and with limited means of cooking. You have shown that it's still possible to make good food no matter what the circumstance.

Jeanette said...

Hi Gleds, Now theres a recpie I going to try I like cod. mushrooms and broccoli,
Robo squabbles hehehe . Keep well.

boneman said...

ALWAYS love new recipes and such, though I'll have to make a few switches. Say, peanut butter in place of cod, maybe pudding in place of cheese, and half a can of drained fruit cocktail with a spoon of seedless blackberry jam instead of sage....

(?) =))

You gave me a great idea for a post, and for sure, I'll get back with you after it's up.

You'll like it, I'm sure!

Anonymous said...

GLEDWOOD. Thanks for the tip about The Time Out Guide, I just went online and took a look, it is exactly what I was looking for when asking you about a magazine for club nights, arts and culture etc. I have already taken note of 1,000,000 things I want to do! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Spiky Zora Jones said...

I think they say it's 1967 people want to transport back to. San Francisco and LA were hot with new music.
I'm surprized I wasn't named something wierd like Moon Unit Zappa...BTW, I love Frank Zappa and the mothers of invention. Walking down the street with my hair gassed back. Yep, I know 60's music. My parents are both passed away, but oh...mother had a collection of music. We still go through her records albums and put them on.

God do you know anybody that didn't take acid while listening to inagoddadevida? I imagine my mother may have...but she said...no, she didn't. What fabulous music they had back then. Peoplethough didn't know how to dance, huh...as per the video will show. The music said much...Kent State, war, antiwar, Nixon, love, peace, change...Cosby, Stills, Nash, and "Southern Man"' Neil Young, Jimmy Hendrix, The Guess Who, Joanie Mitchel. Beach boys, I could go on and on...so I better stop here.

fab post.

ciao babes.

sofia said...

just drop by to say hi!!!
but i`ll try your recipe and then i`ll tell you if i like it or not.
;-))

CrystalChick said...

Hubby just saw Sage cheese last time we did grocery shopping and said the other day we really should have gotten it. Now I definitely will have to next time. Looks interesting.
Have a nice weekend. :)

Anonymous said...

I'd try but I'm afraid the recipe's ingredients are UK only...! Half industrial... oh well, we're modern people aren't we :D

Love the California Dreaming video you put up on top BTW.

Tatyanna (and Dorian too) said...

HI! Sorry I've been away...
Man, can I ever relate to that feeling of NOT being able to accept that the "party is over." I am afflicted with your same, well, affliction! More and more party and always taking all the drugs at once and wondering why there aren't more, and more again. Damn.

Tatyanna (and Dorian too) said...

PS...I believe the Mamas & Papas WERE the first to release California Dreamin' ....am I correct? Hmm.

Steve said...

Hey Gleds, thanks for the memories. I met my wife at the Monterrey Pop Music festival and we sat together watching the Mamas and Papas singing that from about the third or fourth row.

As I recall, aintnever, California Dreaming WAS the Mamas and Papas song, their first big hit. I remember listening to it as a student in Germany and being transported back home to the beach in LA.

It was the Mamas and Papas that got me to Monterrey which turned out to be the first big pop music festival, the one before Woodstock. It's where I saw the Who, Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel, Gracie Slick and the Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, and on and on.

Deb said...

mmmm, that sounds so good gled.

Frustrating when you lose your thoughts on here, isn't it? Just happened to me too...a very long email that took me hours to put together. Ty was in the room and I was not a pretty sight!

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: o yeah! have you tried the mostly strong cheddar (weak is a waste of money, esp. for cooking) with stilton/Danish blue or something like Sage Derby added in little amounts... that makes a fantastic recipe!

Bimbimbie: on the sidebar?... i change the 1st value to 315 and the second to 200... that is the width and height in pixels things... otherwise it will come out too high and wide... try it yourself if you can't leave the youtube html in a message just go through it altering "<"s to "("s and it should reproduce in a message and using such system I can tell you precisely what I alter it's quite easy... take IT easy yourself and happy red parrots (no hatchings from said egg yet..??¬!??>>!??!??)

Eileen: Hey you're welcome I've got it all in the can should be able to post up tomorrow, all things hopefully considering... around 10:30am local time assuming I'm up then¬!

Anon: yeah I loved that hippie shyte!... yeah I'm well aware not a genetic biological baby no more but still PHENOTYPICALLY TINY! TINY "BABY" ITCHY! Poor swine!

Gledwood said...

Nick: no! except for "springtime" plus my adding extra potential sleeping accommodation... they only come on heat every 4 days so spring springing should make little difference in captivity; that should be absolutely FINE in captivity... I REMOVED the extra potential bedrooms so all are sleeping together again and HEY PRESTO! Fewer honxx and squeaxx!

Nicole: you're dead right I would love to do that... and if too UK-based as in what's available boil-in-bag I would give an international recipe to make cod in parsley sauce to go ATOP pasta... surely that would be delicious... I just gotta learn to make a white parsley cheese sauce first!

Jan: Hi Jan~! Yeah I'm sure you DO know how to make a white sauce... just get a big sprig of parsley stalks and finely chop that in... if you can get ~Birdseye in Aus, just get Birdseye "cod in parsley sauce" otherwise just use cook's perogative yourself I bet you're really good at that... it's the perogative that makes the cook; just as ~"manners maketh the man"... if u see what I mean..??!? ;->...


BoneMan: peanut butter in place of cod that IS a little weird but cod satay THAT I would INDEED be willing to sample...

Gledwood said...

Eileen: I'm glad I picked out the right thing for you TIME OUT is the weekly magazine you buy (for a price about $4 with EVERYTHING in it so get that plus their guide to London you'll be sorted)... clubs as you know change all the time... if you're more into slightly undergroundish hardhouse/techno (man! speak for myself I'm 10 yrs out of date here haha!)... mooch round the trendy shops/stalls round/near Camden stables market and Camden lock market and other places in Camden you should find what you're looking for... last major party I heard of was UNDERTOW but that's still 5 yrs out of date! The SE1 club is a MASSIVE 1/4 mile long railway arch and one of the largest (but weirdly shaped) clubs in London that is worth visiting... also Fridge in Brixton... also Brixton Academy... Coco in Camden (former Camden Palace) has BEST LIGHTS in town... SW1 club I used to go Sunny Side Up on Sunday afternoons (E in the afternoon; no lost sleep: how civilized!!)... and so on I should as I say get that post to you by tomorrow it IS a bit straight very museums and walksy but should encapsulate what many a book will NOT put in my 200 words if you get what I mean... bear in mind I do NOT go clubbing/etc no more otherwise I'd give a detailed what's what...

ps: hey have you got a husband? did yous both leave a message "ensemble" for LBC or BBC London radio..? Had to ask every EILEEN I hear transatlantically I wonder if it's you and there's been 2 or 3 in the past week...

Spikey: well my Mum says she didn't do nothing stronger than purple hearts in the 1960s they were about 5p each in them days so she says... she also says she wants to die tripping on lsd... then again she knows all about this as she did a drugs counselling thing in her past... not REALIZING her son was a heroin addict what ironies on ironies!!

Sofia: d'you think you'll get all the ingredients? if not can YOU tell ME how to make my OWN parsley sauce for MY cod?... I'd be FASCINATED to hear from you! SERIOULSLY... thanxx!

Crystal: o yeah: the Sage Derby cheese is lovely but not in HUGE amounts if eaten directly in the lump... it would grate very well with cheddar to make a fantastic cookery topping so that's what I'd recommend it best for... blue cheeses also go excellently that way!

Take care and all the Sage Donkey Derby Best for Ya!

Gledwood said...

Zhu: hey you've altered your blog url AGES ago... let me alter that PROPERLY now... so sorry so TYPICAL I'm CRAP/CRAPPO/ multicoloured cheesily DOGGERELLY DOGGONE!

Oh CA Dreaming: yeah! Glad you do!! Don't you adore that sexy slim Michelle? Or is Mama Cass more to your taste? Or funky grey hat man? (Did he keep such a grey hat for all those many Mamas and the Papas years..??!??) or ugly (or to be more PC lookishly challenged) guy with REMARKABLE VOICE... isn't HE the alltimebest..???!? Hey thanxx for gettin' in touch again Zhu it's excellent to HEAR from you! Take it e.z.!

Aintnever: yeah you're RIGHT about the Mamas and the Papas but I left that in to see whether any knowledgeable person WOULD ever get bac in touch with me!... hey you're phunkin'-ly right about the tune... ain't it a classic!! Cheers so much 4 gettin' back in touch!!

Steve: yeah the Mamas and the Papas bring back all manner of "if only I'd been there" memories, even to me myself!... if only I HAD been there, tripping in the fields at dawn... fantastickantickationalita! Excellentia!

Debs: argh yeah you have my absolute sympathy NOT pleasant... even though I try to save (highlight in blue thing y'know whatever you call it in the mouse, if you can't physically save to disk... and so on...) MAN! doesn't it DRIVE you round the FRIGGIN' TWIST..?!? NASTY BUSINESS!! hey done get outta touch

Gledwood said...

Debs: "done get outta touch"..? I meant "s'il vous plait: stay IN touch.. merci beaucoup!"

Gledwood said...

pps le canada, c'est une nation bilinguale, non? ou quoi~...??!?

Liz Hinds said...

that's a long time to cook fish! Your creation sounds tasty though.

George loves broccoli.

Deb said...

gleds...if you want to hear irony (I've been reading your responses) when I was the front line worker for the alcohol/drug center here I was heavily immersed in the cocaine world and would sometimes go to work after being up all night. No one caught on...shows how much they knew!

Gledwood said...

Liz: in boil int bag parsley sauce, seriously it benefits from an hour if you can give it that... otherwise it is quite acceptable after 20 mins' solid boiling time

Debs: I remember you said something like that b4... that is quite remarkable... did you really manage to turn up unsuspected after bingein' every night?... did you have to make excuses about some new lover or somethin'..?

I'm not at all surprised they didn't spot you. People are crap at spotting drugs. I remember being under Treatment and in basically mild withdrawal and a fellow patient (much to my disgust) saying I looked "stoned" when I felt anything but stoned, calm or anything like that...

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