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!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Breaking Up In The Night

YESTERDAY AFTERNOON I VERY NEARLY HAD AN ARGUMENT with one of my (surviving) best friends. It was over money for drugs. I got the drugs, went home with them and took them and slept early through most of the evening and most of the night until BBC World Service handed over to Radio 4 on the FM frequency then I was awake for the day.

I had woken in the night with my mind falling apart again. My head had illustrated the bleakness behind my eyeballs with post-apocalyptic-type manga cartoons, mostly black and white but good enough to capture. I wish I was able to capture these things.

Then the day began. My hamsters were beside me on the floor stashed beneath two giant long tubes the length of their domain. They looked exceedingly cute hiding behind them...

Last night I found some really weird Chinese food on the pavement, the apparent result of someone moving house. Not Chinese takeaway, I mean the actual oddities a Chinese person might store in their kitchen cupboards. "Woodberry and wild date tea" (or whatever it was). Sweet lemon soap-like stuff for drinking. And some oddly sacheted Chinese breakfast cereal that I eventually stopped eating dry and eventually made up with hot water as per instructions, preparing a highly palatable soya milky wheat broth (has to be tasted to be believed). Genius people those Chinese.

Before that I'd been perusing the takaway menu, longing for ginger-fried beef strips with spring onions and mixed vegetable fried rice and satay chicken with curried vegetables and mixed vegetable fried rice... I'll shut up now or I'll make myself hungry again...(!)

ANOTHER (home-made) video for Randy Crawford's "Almaz":~

I think this is a really beautiful tune...

No official promo was produced for this song, released 1986 in the UK only where it got to number 4.

The real Almaz was Randy Crawford's best friend, so the story goes, and this song written, recorded and released to mark the occasion of Almaz's wedding...


14 comments:

Monogram Queen said...

You have GOT to give up the drugs dude! I know you can do it!

Akelamalu said...

You know I hate it when you say you've done drugs. :(

Akelamalu said...

You know I hate it when you say you've done drugs. :(

M- Filer said...

So, do you take H and then fall to sleep straight away? Just curious, never did that one?

Walker said...

That's one hell of a sleeping pill.
I don't know about the chinese road kill though.
I have seen some funky chinese food.

Lucinda said...

Do you mean literally seeing manga behind your eyelids? I feel like that would freak me out, usually I see a lot of weird shit when I close my eyes, like "demons" and "mouths" flying towards me... haha, now saying that I sound nuts, but you'll know what I'm saying. Closed-eye hallucinations are scary as shit occasionally, I have to calm myself down from freaking out completely. Once I saw my favorite teacher sitting at his desk waving at me when I closed my eyes...
Rereading your post you probably just dreamed manga, so I should probably shut up...

mmm vegetable fried rice is so good... = )

Puss-in-Boots said...

Chinese food found on the footpath...I prefer to buy mine.

Gleds, Gleds...drugs, not good for you and btw what's manga? Pardon my ignorance...

lettuce said...

glad it was a "nearly" argument, not an actual argument

and gledwood, catching up here, so sorry about your loss of your friend.

:-[

Nicole said...

I always love looking through the isles of the Asian supermarket. A lot of things I wouldn't even know what to do with, but I'm fascinated nevertheless.

Bimbimbie said...

Playing catch up with you again Gleds,
I hope your thunderstorm has eased a little - you can't rush these heartfelt feelings - think of the best poets and writers, their pain and grief is palpable only because they have lived and felt it*!*

Bobby D. said...

KD Lang is coming to NYC!!!! yay! and to the Apollo Theatre Double Yay!

Gledwood said...

thanks everyone

Drift Wood said...

just got on to you blog yesterday! reached you thru a friend. Posted some comments on your tripod 31-12-2007. Those would get intimated to you? not much of a blogger as yet. :( Cant share your craving for chinese food.. thou heroin/alcohol were similar for 20 years. lost a lot of friends along the way. "clean" now. Keep posting!

Drift Wood said...

just got on to you blog yesterday! reached you thru a friend. Posted some comments on your tripod 31-12-2007. Those would get intimated to you? not much of a blogger as yet. :( Cant share your craving for chinese food.. thou heroin/alcohol were similar for 20 years. lost a lot of friends along the way. "clean" now. Keep posting!

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