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, April 29, 2008

Takeaway Thrills; Old House Nausea

I'M OVER THE MOON about my new home on the one hand; very subdued on the other. I'm going around being awfully polite to people ("these are my new neighbours") and explaining to the important shops that I need two copies of their menu "because I've just moved in up the road" (you can tell what shops are important to me then! Yes!! Chinese takeaway, Jamaican takeaway, Pakistani takeaway... etc... I really must get to grips at improving my culinary command of foreign food; I'll save myself a fortune. I wasn't exaggerating the other day when I said the aroma of jerk chicken comes wafting from every other house. Either I was hallucinating floridly the other night or it really did! Anyway it's takeaway for me tonight (boo-hoo! (tee-hee. Ha-ha!!)) as I seem to have blown the 13A fuse on my "cooker" which is NOT the workman-installed unit you probably think of as a cooker (don't they call it a "stove" in America? I'm not sure. But it's the clumpy big white thing you usually cook on...)... 4 gas or electric rings on top, grill then top oven then main oven. No! That type of cooker is far too posh for me. Mine looks like a microwave. In fact, looks just like one at a glance. It's actually a grill (possibly with oven facility but I'm not getting my hopes up) with two rings on top for saucepans etc. Yes! And after tripping off my main power three times so far, it's now failed somehow internally so I've invested in a packet of these 13A fuses. I'm hoping they'll get me cooking through the next week.

(Cooking food of my choice, that is. Not cooking to death in an electrical fire... (ooer!))

It's so exciting shopping for my new home. I feel all bourgeois and normal and have sudden insight into my parents' endless chattering I endured as a six year old kid from the back of the car as they prattled on about what colour three-piece suite they would purchase and what sullenly drab shade of magnolia paint would go on the walls. (This was the 1970s... and one resolution I took back then at a very young age on viewing the paint chart with all its exotic hues, then seeing the dismally boring off-white my parents chose was never to deny myself colour in the home decorating experience. And I mean the full-on colour. If you want banana yellow walls - go for it! You can live with primary coloured walls, if you want them. My ex-university friends had a sunrise yellow living room and it was beautiful. Lifted the spirits every time I entered. It did not glare on me. Never encroached on the psyche. And I spent many a happy hour in that room... My colour of choice is duck-egg blue or turquoise. I think that shade looks fantastic with bookshelves against it. Very North London. Very funky-bourgeois!)...

... yeah and I've been getting that "buying a new sofa" excitement. Only I was just popping out to purchase a fresh pack of joss-sticks.

Oh no! I've got to get my trotters some bird seed desperately. Before I forget. All hammy food's been nibbled up. Yesterday I put Pingpong the Chinese hammy in the diggery. He's so laid back (like a Chinese version of Grandfather Roborovski, my youtube film from the other day) he simply excavated a cavern at the bottom and sat there looking faintly bemused.

I took my last case of records home last night. That was the classical music collection I've mentioned on occasion. Mother Hubbs's housemate chucked out about 100 classical albums on vinyl. She gave them to me saying get what you can from them and spend it on gear. How vulgar! I thought. I'm hardly a classical music afficionado but that's the point. Like the rest of you, I know a good few tunes - from television shows and commercials and the movies. But I barely know what a single one's called. Don't know who are the best singers or performers (except for really obvious, all-time classic names). At my first secondary school we had a really good music teacher who was something of an expert. The best advice she gave was, don't write off a piece just because it's badly performed. Listen again to another conductor and the orchestra will breathe a whole new life into the story. This advice came alive for me in a branch of Waterstones the bookshop some years ago as the most dismal rendition of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus came piped into every corner of the shop (so no escape from it)... "and he shall reign for ever and ever..." chanted the choir in tones that suggested the second coming of Jesus Christ was to be the worst tragedy of recorded history since the fall of Satan the devil! Honestly I've never heard such inspiring words pronounced with such drear. Another conductor with other performers could make take those same phrases to sublime heights... This is what my music teacher was saying.

Right and there, dear reader I have imparted the sum total of my classical musical knowledge. Suffice it to say the Berlin Philharmonic's supposed to be the world's best orchestra. And the very thought of returning back to that old dump I used to live in, the one with NO LOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR, the one where Evilstein had given me NO KEYS TO MY SECOND ROOM so my stuff was completely inveiglable from the street at all times, except when I barricaded myself in behind a heavy chair and a latch that did work (most unusually for THAT house!)... the sheer thought of returning and hunting through the mounds and binbags and piles of stuff I had to leave behind - and I know I'll find stuff I want, but nothing I shall miss... just the very idea of going back there makes me feel physically nauseated.

And that, my dear friends, surely says everything!

18 comments:

Monogram Queen said...

I am very very happy about your new digs! So many positives!

Anonymous said...

Have to read up, new place, new everything ... I hope it works all good for you!

tut-tut said...

My god! fall back on your chair and rest.

Bimbimbie said...

Glad you are enjoying the nesting process at your new place. Forget the old place, enjoy the now and new one *!*

Baino said...

Good for you . . I love yellow walls. My livingroom/kitchen is all yellow and blue, very sunny and cheerful. Go the duck blue wall! (plus fresh paint smells great!)

sofia said...

it reminds the first things i`ve got in my own house and how excited i was with my green sofa that i buyed with only 139EUR.
i was absolutly happy!!!
i imagine you are like that too!!!
good for you!

Anonymous said...

WOW it's great to hear you excited and happy in your new nest :)

lime said...

well it sounds as if you are in a much happier place and for that i am glad.

if you liek color youshould come sit in my oddly dark pink brick living room. i'm trying to convince folks lime green would be good for the kitchen.

M- Filer said...

Gee, I guess I have fallen behind with you, I thought you were moving up stairs, apparently something has changed and you have moved a bit further...out of the neighborhood. I'll have to scour the posts to get to the bottom of this!

Janice Seagraves said...

Hi Gled,

Yes we do call it a stove here in the states, and if it's electric it's sometimes called an electric range.

I hope you enjoy your new home.

Janice~

Gledwood said...

Patti: it's not horrible like the old place. I even keep the surfaces clear. Quite extraordinary.

Mago: it's far better than the old shyte-hole

TutTut: I can't rest I can't do it

Bimbimbie: have hardly been to sleep yet cannot rest can't do it

Gledwood said...

Baino: un4tunately, what I forgot to say there but will do here is that I'm not supposed to paint my new walls. and yes they are MAGNOLIA

Sophia: yes darling but I haven't REALLY gone much further than joss-sticks (so far). Have looked everywhere for a shop selling wild bird seed locally and CANNOT LOCATE ONE. How dreadful my robos might starve to death now!

Anon: weeeeeh!!

Lime: lime green for a kitchen? I suppose I would do. Not a lime bathroom though. Bedroom? Possibly...

Gledwood said...

J: oh yeah I so much remember that conversation. Please do remember to spam me again! I love it!! Makes me feel so popular!!!

MFiler: yeah: moved room. spent about 2 weeks in new room surrounded by excessive clutter. now moved HOUSE into "studio flat" (or apartment, if you prefer)... this one has a mound of rubble (ie my old possessions) at the foot of the bed but no mounds and piles and mini-everests all over like elsewhere...

Janice: cheers dears. yes! and I got the electric range working again!!!

Akelamalu said...

I have a feeling you're going to be very happy in your new place. x

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Well, you seem to have a new lease of life there, Gleds and I am pleased for you. What you say about classical music is so refreshing. Love from Sicily x

Bobby D. said...

I had banana yellow walls (or lemon) once in my boudoir as a teen--I woke up and was STARTLED every morning-- seriously! we moved though, shortly after I painted-- I'm sure the landlord was annoyed.

Anybeth said...

Mmmm. Jamacian takeaway. We don't have that around here. I have make do with my own cooking, chicken and jerk sauce from a bottle.

lettuce said...

so pleased to hear about your new accommodations!

happy sofa-hunting

oh, and freecycle is GREAT for furniture, house bits and pieces etc.... - and free!

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

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