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, May 13, 2008

Good Day Sunshine II

IT'S BEEN ANOTHER GOOD DAY SUNSHINE AGAIN... still it has not sunken in that I "live somewhere else"... life is butter dream (life is margerine, as the song goes...)

I tried making my robos (these are my Mongolian trotting hamsters, Jumoke) a really tiny nest out of a swan filter tips box (not the cig pack shaped one; the proper box shaped one.) to see if they'd pile in like a warehouseful of quality fur coats with quivering pink noses... But they'd be literally stacked three deep if they slept in there... so of course they didn't risk it. (Bashful does, but sleeps alone though)...

Yesterday they were ever so funny. Poor Itchy (bottom peck, as ever) is fast asleep. Spherical, for some reason, decided to clamber on top of her to use Itchy as a living robo-pillow. And on Spherical dozes. Itchy was either fast asleep or squashed to sheer unconsciousness by Spherical's gargantuan weight... she's looking more enormous than ever these days. Were she not blest with those distinctively perky ears
and beady trotter eyes you could almost think she was a normal hamster, she's so enormous... anyway those two are double-decker stacked and dozing away then Bashful decides to climb on top of Spherical... and then the entire robo-tower fell down. I so much wished I had a video camera to youtube this; it was absolute classic!

I've been reading the Bible in GERMAN to try and improve my command of said language. Because I do know certain passages it makes the comprehension element far, far easier... unfortunately my German Bible is a 1912 edition and hence printed in the heaviest pre-WWII letter Gothick. You think "blackletter" is hard to understand? Try this traditional German print. A "k" has the kucky-bit at the TOP not bottom... Uppercase A, V and U all look the same, as go S and G. An L is dangerously similar to a B. (In other words all the letters look the same.) In fact, on perusing a page I was reminded more of those mysterious South-East Asian languages like CAMBODIAN than anything you'd think of as "German"... I racked my brains as to why, then realized it's because Cambodian, Thai, most Indian languages etc are printed in imitation of ancient scribal hand using the traditional writing implements (often a brush or oblique palette knife or split reed); this Gothick script is based upon traditional monks' writing too: hence a real (if bizarre) resemblance...

Yes I have itchy feet again (not athelete's foot: the desire to travel). It was all set off by my finding a distinctive green-and-silver "concert ticket" stub on the street. One of my worst habits is the constant examining of rubbish I happen to pass... what gig did they go to? I nosily wondered. Actually it was no concert ticket, but a train/tram/tube/bus ticket from FRANKFURT... and what got me was that on perusing the legalistic gobbledygook on the back I understood every word! "Thank you for choosing to travel with us. This ticket is printed on thermal paper so please keep away from direct sunlight, radiators, oils and solvents. Altered or damaged tickets are not valid for travel." This made me think: hey I really should think about going there (Berlin though. Not Frankfurt. If I'm going to Germany it has to be Berlin or if not Alpine cuckoo clock villages or the Black Forest (as long as there IS a forest still there. Maybe it's like Nottingham's Sherwood forest and nonexistent today!)... I'm thinking of picking up my subscription to my German magazine again (Stern). It's like a non-middle-aged version of Time... or the Sunday colour supplements all rolled into one. Quite a good read. I never got it delivered, just ordered it from the local papershop. At £2.80 a week I thought that was quite good value for "fluent German" (as if THAT's ever going to happen: ha!)

Take care everyone!!

17 comments:

Akelamalu said...

You can read German? I'm impressed!

Gledwood said...

Yeah I did an A level in German. Though I have to say that an A level doesn't necessarily mean you can read German at all!!

Asta said...

hi
I'm a wiwe fox tewwiew doggie..my boyfwiend is an aiwedal..they awe much tallew and weddish bwown and black..WFTs awe twicolow, wif mostly white and I only weigh 18.5lbs..wheweas aiwekids awe awound 60 lbs. hope that helps
auf wiedewsehen, hehehehe
Asta

Anonymous said...

You do find clever ways to fill your days!

Gledwood said...

Asta: oh so THAT's the difference... I was SERIOUSLY CONFUSED for a long while!

Eileen: yeah man I most certainly do haha~!!

Gledwood said...

ps Asta: I lurve that doggie-beard!!

CrystalChick said...

I would sooooo love to travel. We're considering a trip for our 25th anniversary later in the year but prices are terrible.
My Father's family was German. His grandmother didn't speak any English from what I remember him saying. So we must have a few relatives lingering there still, but I never was into family history.

Bimbimbie said...

Sounds like the beginning of an intriguing mystery novel ... man finds foreign travel ticket on city street. How did it get there? Who traveled with it? Where are they now?

Interesting to see the old German type and handwriting. I'm glad not all of those characters were adopted into the English type would have been confusing - especially with the S, V, Y *!*

Bimbimbie said...

Sounds like the beginning of an intriguing mystery novel ... man finds foreign travel ticket on city street. How did it get there? Who traveled with it? Where are they now?

Interesting to see the old German type and handwriting. I'm glad not all of those characters were adopted into the English type would have been confusing - especially with the S, V, Y *!*

Anonymous said...

Now the Black Forest and Berlin are two places I've been .... but before the wall came down ;) I love the German language and their type but learnt the language as a small child which makes it easier. My Opa had a library of books written in Old German but I liked the funny drawings of monks the best :)

Unknown said...

That bloody old German script! The first church I pastured was founded by Germans in 1840. All of the church records were hand written in German. When someone contacted the church to obtain information on the ancestors I not only had to struggle interpreting the German written a century before on paper that was disintegrating but also that damned German script.

Nicole said...

Gled, ich finde "Stern" auch ziemlich gut zum lesen. Ein bisschen von allem und nicht so politisch wie Der Speigel.

Nicole said...

P.S. There is still lovely forest to be found in Germany and I think you'd like Berlin better than Frankfurt too.

-eve- said...

Heheheh! Well, that IS cool, being able to read the back of a random ticket...! :-)
I can just picture your tower of hamsters. They ARE so cute... it's so relaxing just to watch them eat, even :-) Round fat balls of fur.. ;-)

Deb said...

I long to travel gled...never have. One day I will.

My son's g/f is studying german as part of her music program...she is planning a trip to Germany next spring. Ty is now trying to save up to go along with her...SO jealous. I just need to win that damn lottery and then I'll be set...I'd drop everything and just go - EVERYWHERE!!!

Monogram Queen said...

My family on my father's side is German, his crazy great aunt was supposed to be a witch and had a German bible with the sixth or seventh book of Moses in it. The one that dealt with witchcraft. Your post made me think of that.

Every time I watch "Wonder Pets" with my little girl the hamster makes me smile and think of your wee ones.

Tea N. Crumpet said...

I took three years of German in high school. I miss it.

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

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Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

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