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, August 21, 2008

Abscess Pus and I Know the Bach Tune Now...

I DRAINED THE FOUR baby abscesses on my thighs the other day. I didn't even know anything was wrong until I clonked into something on the bus and went YAROOOO!! in full Billy Bunter fashion. Closer inspection later on revealed a lovely boil-sized hot-spot on my right thigh. A couple of celulitis attacks aside (and not to mention the great barbiturate burn of February that I thought was going to put my in hospital) I've been very lucky with abscesses. You have to realize these can get bad enough to hold literally 100s of mls of pus. I went to a draining session at my friend Rebsie's house and the abscess had burst already the night before: all over the carpet. It looked like somebody had been violently sick all over the place and that was the pus! Mother Hubbard did the kneeding and squeezing whilst I was the one who dashed to and from the kitchen boiling up sterile saline to "irrigate" the newly emptied cavity in Rebsie's thigh. She was lucky, for though it was big (like a packed-out wallet under the skin) it hadn't tunneled inwards towards the bone. I've seen one that had, both pre and post surgery. This had to be packed with tampon-like material and I saw for myself two pus-tunneled "fingers" (that you could literally have stuck your fingers down, had you felt so inclined)... stretching right into the flesh of the thighs and dangerously close to the bone. Bone infections are the very worst kind (apart from bacterial infection of the heart)... they really can call for amputation. And I've met anough people with missing legs in my time...
... yes this was all down to my "skinpopping" habit, which is what you do when you can't get a vein. The gear is injected under the skin rather than direct to the bloodstream, which gives any nasties a longer chance to fester, and just occasionally they do...
... do I drained all four of mine with a giant blue needle and got nowt more spectacular than a few beads of pus and some runny bloody weepiness, all of which I carefully mopped up with alcoholic swabs and lots of tissue paper...
... Hmmm.

Poor Baby Bashful's still lost and peering fruitlessly in the dark. Makes me want to cry...

I've been researching my new literary project. My longest cherished ambition in life has always been to be a writer of fiction. My trouble has been that as a youngster I just didn't have the inspiration of anything much to say. Now I'm older (though I won't claim to be wiser) I do feel I have a certain grasp of human nature. This I shall apply to my story (an historical tale)... and let's see where it takes us!

I was inspired today to dig out my old poem tome and if you click herebelow you can read three of my works on Gledwood's new Poetry Blog!
Please comment profusely under each "work".. many thanks!...

All this talk of pomes and tomes has made me starving hungry for cod in batter with intellectual tomatoes and oven chips, so I really must dash now...

VIDEO:
I had been wondering for AGES what on earth this tune was called. It sounds fantastic when played any way except in that dirgy off-key cello style (which I think it was written for) but really ruins the potential of the tune...
This is well worth some moments of your time...
BACH'S PRELUDE played by the most sublime guitar...



12 comments:

Nicole said...

I suggest you buy a small bottle of Australian Tea Tree Oil. It's the most amazing disinfectant and wound healer. It doesn't sting like alcohol does. When I had my operation and they left the cut around my belly button open, so it could heal itself from the inside (because there was a lot of wound moisture), I used tea tree oil. I'd dip a cotton ear bud into the oil and then swab gently around and over the wound. It accelerated healing and kept the wound beautifully clean and disinfected.

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Monogram Queen said...

Okay Gled I just had to skim, I can't stand even thinking about pus and skinpopping etc. *shivers* Hope you are okay though sweetie!

Akelamalu said...

I couldn't read all that Gleds I was feeling decidedly queasy within the first paragraph!

I can vouch for Tea Tree Oil too, but only the Australian stuff, it's the best.

molson said...

Skin popping, boils, and pus. Not pleasant to contemplate at all. Go with the OZ tea tree oil. Sounds much better.

Blind robo-trotters? Aren't you're robos approaching senior status? I would guess loss of eyesight that probably wasn't all too good to begin with wouldn't be out of the norm.

Anonymous said...

People go to great lenghts for their addictions huh? I was barely able to read the portion of your post about the boils and such because I found it so disconcerting.

Poor wee hamster :(

Baino said...

Stop skin popping! God Gleds, talk about gory detail. Interesting in a macabre kinda way. God I hope your needles are sterilised! Get on with the book and hopefully it'll form some sort of diststraction. I'll visit the poems on the weekend. I have to go to work *sigh* but at least it's Friday. Wahey! Oh, I had a cold sore under my nose and tea tree oil cured it in a couple of days. Brilliant stuff!

Lucinda said...

Ugh, abscesses, yeah, I wasn't even skin popping and I got one. Those are nasty, but I've already told you about that whole deal. I can't imagine draining it on my own, though I did stick a needle through mine to shoot up... haha, yeah, not so brilliant. My aunt died of an infected heart, it basically had been so chewed up by the bacteria that it just collapsed (it made for uncomfortable dinner conversation, as any family conversation about addiction will do). I hope that you don't get any more (though I guess that's kind of ridiculous), but I really hope that you don't. There is nothing fun about an abscess, but, again, I don't need to tell you that. For me, it was more out of youth and stupidity (no duh you shouldn't lick your needles, haha, it's common sense to me now).

Haven't seen you on my blog lately, come by any time! = )

none said...

goldenseal root powder is great for filling infected areas. It dries the wound and kills the infection.

I buy the capsules and break them open and pour them into any open wound. The teatree oil is good too sometimes I mix them.

Puss-in-Boots said...

All I can say is eeeeuw! at your too graphic descriptions of what came out of the boil.

I tell you something though, Gleds, if I ever felt the desire to do drugs...you've put me off that for good. Not that I've ever had the thought...all I've done is had a joint when I was young and silly. That was enough for me.

Hope your leg heals cleanly. Take care.

Bimbimbie said...

You ARE turning into a Dr Gleds and yes get a bottle of Oz Tea Tree Oil*!*

Gledwood said...

OK I promise no more stuff about boils (for now)... I'm presently on a teetree hunt. And I'm pretty sure Bashful IS blind...

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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