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!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Taking Care

I'VE JUST HAD TO LOOK AFTER A FRIEND who nearly overdosed in front of me... had to watch on her, check on her, keep squeezing the hand (nicer than waking them up saying "are you OK? are you OK?" which is just annoying for the other person) making sure I get squeezes back... yes all due to lovely heroin.

Heroin the "love" of my life. And that's the saddest thing... it's like a bad relationship where you're consistently abused, battered, let down and cheated upon and yet still you turn back and back again and again because it's the only thing in the world that makes you feel better...

... like that Bob Dylan song:

I'm on the pavement
thinking about the government;
he's in the basement
mixing up the medicine...


heroin is like the ultimate balm...

imagine a medicine that soothes every ill within seconds of ingestion, the ultimate easing balm... that's what it does. Sad as may be, I have loved heroin like nothing and nobody else because no matter how I have otherwise felt, it always made me feel better than before.

And apart from that I don't know what else to say.

I had a long talk at the drug service. My worker, whom I've clicked with, said "you seem to be drowning in this moroseness"...

Drowning? That's exactly it.

The day before I'd spent entertaining the repetitive thought of curling up under a hot shower, digging nail scissors deep into the pulse at each wrist and lying there bleeding...

morose?

Then I told her I was learning Japanese, and she said "what do you want to do for the future?" and I said the only thing I could think of that I could easily get qualified for (something that does not require a degree or long training course) was the TEFL Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate. It costs about £1000 to aquire and once you have it you can travel just about anywhere in the world and get a nicely paying job, as I say, teaching your own language. And because I have troubled to pick up two more languages approaching fluently and another three more basically I do feel qualified to do that job well...

... so as for the future...

... let's see ...

;->...

It was Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday last week...

VIDEO: SPECIALS AKA ~ FREE NELSON MANDELA




VIDEO II:
MOBY: Go
This tune incorporates the dreamlike theme from Twin Peaks...




VIDEO III:
NUCLEAR TESTS

I found a really poetic compilation of nuclear test fireworks, it was absolutely beautiful... Nuclear fusion is the very power of God Almighty in action and this video is the nearest thing I could find to it today...




PS:
This may be old news to some of you, but I heard it on BBC Radio 4 this morning... my blogging acquantance, Olive, from Sydney, Australia, "the world's oldest blogger" died last week aged 108... RIP Olive...

15 comments:

Nicole said...

You would be good at teaching. My friend Gianna lived in Japan for a few years doing the same thing.

Anonymous said...

I agree about you being a good teacher Gledwood! My son did the course and can speak a bit of Japanese especially after visiting Japan! It's a good skill to have anyway, for many occupations that can take you somewhere ;)

Anonymous said...

It´s a good sign that you are thinking about the future.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Oh dear, that's sad about your friend, Gleds. Hope she's out of the woods now.

I so envy you being multilingual. I love languages and high on my list is learning Italian. My granddaughter, who is 16, can speak and write Japanese. She's done it at school since about grade 5. Should stand her in good stead in life.

Baino said...

Gleds . . DO IT . .the language course that is, not the scissor thing. You need the distraction. I hate hearing of suicidal thoughts when you clearly have a brain.
I mentioned Olive in a comment last week. Very sad but an amazing life. I'll miss her blog. Japanese seems to be the language of choice, especially in OZ.

Merle said...

Hi Gleds ~~ Nice to hear from you, I haven't got round to visiting much lately. Thanks for the news of Olive. She died early Saturday 12th July and her blog is still there. I think Mike will post more of her stories. Her death made the US news also. I guess living to 108 is newsworthy. You take care of yourself my friend. Glad you were able to help a friend. But please take care of you. The English teaching sounds like a great idea
and gives you something to work
towards. Take care, Love, Merle.

Unknown said...

Hi! I haven't popped by in a while, so just now catching up on your posts.

I've taught in Japan for two years and have been teaching ESL in Canada for about eight years now. It's great that you are learning Japanese, because when I went to Japan, I had NO knowledge of the Japanese language. BIG MISTAKE!! I learned Japanese while I was living in Japan, but wish I had studied the language BEFORE I went abroad!

I speak English, French, Spanish and Japanese...which really help when traveling!

Wishing you the best :) If you ever have questions or want to know about TEFL and life in Japan, feel free to send me a message :)

Gattina said...

It's very very difficult to pull yourself on the hairs and out of the sh..t. You are in a constant fight with your brain and yourself. This language thing would be very nice I know that English teaching people are very much wanted ! Also only for conversations.

CrystalChick said...

God Bless Olive. I had only visited her blog a couple times after you first mentioned her. OR maybe I saw it on your sidebar.
Always keep your hopes and dreams alive! I think you would be a good teacher.
Continue learning and go for it!

Anonymous said...

Teaching is a great option... especially you can easily travel. I teach French as a foreign language as you may know ;)

But you need to get better, clean up, move on. You're strong and you're so lucid about drugs it shows you're smart.

I assume heroin feels great, users aren't stupid. Yet...

Monogram Queen said...

Gleds I am glad you were able to be there for your friend, and see another evil of heroin.

Whitenoise said...

Hey Gled, greetings from San Franciso...

Keep going to NA, dude. It's going to click.

Gledwood said...

Nicole: that sounds cool

:Anon I'd want to go to Japan too...

Eileen: definitely

Pussinboots: My friend is fine thanks it wasn't so terribly bad an ambulance was needed or anything. Not at all nice though, really...

I envy your granddaughter getting the opportunity to do Japanese at school... I'd have done Chinese and Japanese if I had the choice, not French and German... (or why not all 4? + I've always wanted to learn Spanish it's one language I do not speak & yet keep coming across it and not understanding it wrankles...
The choice of languages in schools here is: French, German, Spanish, Italian if you're really lucky. One highschool that IS teaching kids Mandarin Chinese won't do it for the GCSE (lower school leaving certificate)... the headmaster couldn't even explain why...

Gledwood said...

Baino: I'm definitely up for doing it. Have to find out how to get that TEFL cert and how £££ive it will be... Japanese is the big language not Chinese? I suppose Chinese is more recent... I keep getting people telling me I ought to be doing Chinese instead... imagine learning Italian and everyone saying NO you should be doing Spanish instead because of South America when you want to go Sicily...?

Merle: thanks for that lovely message...

how weird to hear about the death of an acquantance from the mass-media like that? I still find that weird having "spoken" to her via Mike and her comments boxes...

on the American news? wow!!

C: I really am looking for a good Japanese textbook that teaches how to WRITE the language as you go... ALL the ones I've come across here are dreadfully patronizing, assuming it's just too difficult which I find ridiculous. In fact the kanji are about x10 EASIER than I expected... soon as I got to realize there are only so many radicals (which are, after all supposed to be an aide-memoire) suddenly it's WAY easier than expected...

Re European languages: I got a bit bored with how very much variations on the same theme they all are: Germanic, Romance, Slavonic and so on...

Gattina: how odd you should get in touch I was going to drop by TODAY in fact..!!

You're right about the English... when I went to France aged 18/19 so many people only wanted to use me as a free English lesson..!!

Gledwood said...

Crystal: I will do. Thanks!

Zhu: Hey how are you?

Drugs: you're right of course. No way could I leave the country, let alone go/or do anything interesting without first getting self clean... otherwise I'd put myself in such great danger!

My greatest regret was not following my heart towards Japanese when I was still 18 and had not made the crucial mistakes I have...

Japanese are such a "straight" society... knowing myself I'd be to terrified not to just go along with the flow there...

MQ: I've seen that before. It's always horrible and the person it happens to (unless they really are in such a bad way they need IV Narcan) really has very little idea of the stress they've caused

:-<..

Whitenoise: Re the message: cheers

+:~
I've just realized why you call yourself that name; you must get a hellovalotta whitenoise up there... isn't it supposed to be awfully "entrancing"..??

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