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!

Monday, September 08, 2008

Clique Clickety-click!

O! HOW GLAD I AM to be getting old! So many things thankfully falling away!!

Getting to musing this afternoon, I was reminded of my university days. Mine was a campus university at the opposite end of the country to my home or any of my roots.

There I was in late September, thrown together with 500 other 18 and 19 year-olds, all away properly from home for the first time, crammed together into bombproofed 2-storey H-blocks on a disused airbase barracks across town from the university itself.

Posh rooms on the main campus went to foreign students, exchange students, mature students and the like. In other words, all the more straightlaced and "square" students were chucked in together over there, while us immature students were chucked in together over here! On this disused airbase, as I say, complete with Naffi shop. 500++ 18 and 19 year olds, finally away from home. Just imagine it...

The social whirl was legendary!

Anyway: my mind was jogged this afternoon specifically to a phenomenon I've not experienced for so very many years it had totally escaped my memory up till today: that is, the situation of being young and innocent adn truly wanting to make friends, however you come across somebody (usually of the same sex, and there's nothing sexual about this, it's no "crush" as such...) You're in such awe of this person that you might barely consider yourself worthy of their friendship. Merely engaging this person's attention is nearly as special to you as a personal blessing from the Dalai Lama or the Pope.

Does everyone remember what I'm going on about here? And just like me, had yous all forgotten..?

I also remember from my first year at uni how a certain group of second years who all lived together in a house on Fairfax Road, seemed held in awe. They were thee people to be with, to be invited to be with, to be seen with and most of all of course to be friends with.

I met them all quite inadvertently in the course of my very first and brainfryingly bad LSD trip.

Sucha traumatic drug experience rubbed my face in the fact that most of my just-aqquired friends, being "straighties" knew nothing about what had happened to me. Only the hash-smoking druggier students "understood" the horribleness I'd survived to any degree and to this day I've never met anyone able to describe a trip as horrendous as the one I had.

I plainly remember standing at a crossroads: and I took the wrong turn. I gravitated towards these people.

One of my new acquaintances was a long-haired hippie from my own year called Zebedee. he and his friends appeared to do very little else each evening except congregate in somebody's room after 8 or 9 o'clock. When the telly wasn't on, something like Reactivate 2 (tekno) or the Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds would be tinkling in the background. On and on we would smoke until the early hours.

Zebedee used to boast all the time of his friendship with these Fairfax Road people, constantly namedropping people and drugs and spinning anecdotes of waht such and such a person might have said or done on a trip of LSD or E. (We were very young back then, ecstasy was the drug of the moment and the whole experience still had a transgressive "awe" about it...)

I recall getting a little over-obsessed over a couple of people. One was the girl who introduced me to "E". On entering and leaving my own block every night I would traipse slightly out of my way to crane my head round, counting the windows along her floor to see whether she seemed to be in or not... How sad is that?!?

Then one of the all-hallowed people from Fairfax Road mentioned to me that it was her birthday next week and she was throwing a party. The Fairfax Road party was thee social event of the season. A student E-rave of some renown. A nationally known DJ span the records and people talked about the night for weeks afterwards.

So you can imagine how offended I was and how acutely my nose was shoved out of joint when I mentioned this casual invitation to E-girl's boyfriend who promptly dis-invited me, saying, "I'm on the door that night. I'm going to have to turn so many people away." And so I didn't go. I was such a delicate flower back then that a little remark like that was enough to put me off. If I felt I wasn't welcome then I couldn't cope. I spent that Saturday night down the pub with my own milder and more boring friends who were so "straight" that they weren't even aware of such a party, let alone whether or not they'd been invited. I was in such a glowery bad mood that people were constantly asking what was wrong ~ but never in 1,000,000 years was I about to confess...

Come on, personal experiences in the commentary box, please!



Vid:
The Orb
Little Fluffy Clouds
(gets ***** 5 stars on youtube: this is ambient classic...)



PS Radio 4's weekly Woman's Hour (though nearly 50% of their listeners are men!) Drama: Balance of Power, story of a poor relation of the Duchess of Marlborough who, in 17-something, becomes Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen of England and gets to witness repressed lesbian lust, amongst much else! If you clickonthat you can hear it yourself...

27 comments:

Akelamalu said...

I suppose I was lucky as I always seemed to be in with the 'in crowd' as we called them in the olden days!

Anonymous said...

I was just thinking about all of this stuff the other day! When I was about 15 I started hanging with people that were only 2 years my senior. At the time, they were considered to be pretty rad and mature, I would sit at home with my younger friends on the weekend and freak about what to wear because we would go to the same places. It was only until the advent of Facebook and I was able to see pics from back in the day, that it dawn on me that they were just babies too. They will never know how cool I thought they were!

There...I commented, now go and check my blog for the love of god.

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: I can tell you were always with the incrowd without trying. I can just tell it!

Eileen: dur! I see what you meant now. OK I'm pinging right round...

{{;->...

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

I can't watch video here at work! I am very familiar with The Orb as Svenska and I used to have what we called Saturday night video dance parties with that exact song after we got back home from da club. We be such ballers!

Anonymous said...

I am posting under different names! I told you I haven't the foggiest about blogging!

Gledwood said...

;->...

Anonymous said...

Hi! Great blog you got here! Us Tubbymice love perusing it of a lazy evening after much cheesenibbling and pooing droppings in the cornflakes box...

Baino said...

Just imagine, life might have been very different for you if you'd stuck with the straight mates. Uni was arguably the worst time of my life. Just broke up with the love of my life or so I thought and treated the whole experience as a loathsome extension of school. I never got into the social side of it, hung onto my best friend like a limpit and just endured it. I've never been 'cool'. Never been nerdy either, in fact I'm so average, it's terrifying!

Gledwood said...

hmmm you're dead right

I wonder quite a lot nowadays what might have happened if I'd veered down a different path

studying Japanese would REALLY have put me on that path for sure: the Japanese are SUCH a straight people!

Bimbimbie said...

I sussed out pretty early in life that the so called in crowd are generally nothing more than intimidating bullies with mindless followers. The group who did appear to have the most fun were the ones branded as thick and annoyingly disruptive ... you would find me in the straightlaced and square group probably wishing I was having that much fun too lol *!*

none said...

No college parties for me I was working and commuting. But all my friends had apartments in the same complex so we were able to stumble around from keg to keg on Friday nights.

Whitenoise said...

School was work, work, work. Not a whole lot of socializing. Paid off in the end, but I wish I'd been able to party.

I'm worried about you Gled. Some day I'm going to visit your blog and it'll be static, it's owner long gone... Get help while it's all still worth saving!

Keshi said...

u know I only went to few Uni parties...I was a massive nerd in Uni!

Keshi.

Gledwood said...

Bimbimbie: Strange to say I never stayed in touch with ANY of the "trendy" people. Lost contact with the str8er m8s 2; but feel at least I could get back in touch and the friendship be resumed...

Hammer: o dear: beer. I remember the day certain mates stole tokens from a beer festival. I have never seen such drunkenness in my own house!

Whitenoise: 1: yeah but you're an airline pilot
2: I hope not!

Keshi: I just remember how boring it got when everyone started working. (I didn't: dropped out...)

Nicole said...

Hey! How cool are you adding that new "Followers" feature already! It's only been out for like three milli-seconds and you're totally on it. I just stopped by to say hello. Am going to sleep now, must get rest so I am functional for work tomorrow. Sigh. Can't wait for the weekend and it's not even Wednesday. It's Vincent birthday on Saturday and I hope we can drive up to our favourite winery. Have a good rest-of-the week!

Monogram Queen said...

I think i've mentioned before that I have never did drugs, never smoked marijuana ever. I've always been afraid of being out of control I suppose.

Zen Wizard said...

Looking back in rose-colored nostalgia, my first three years at University of Iowa and then Ohio State were the best, in some ways, of my life--for the reasons that you have mentioned.

It was circa 1975 to 1979--I think some of those years I lived on like four thousand dollars...

But you are "open" to new stuff, and somebody from Tehran is "interesting" and not just a pain in the ass like they are now...

I wish there was some way I could get the innocence back and keep the knowledge, judgment, and just "generally being a d!ck" qualities that I have now.

Lucinda said...

Being still in high school, I can speak of a senior from last year who I thought was amazing. Her name was Amanda, and she was just the coolest, most interesting person I had every met. We were kinda friends in gym class and we'd see each other in the halls and she would say "hi." But, we were never really good friends.

I have a few good friends who are just straight up stoners, and so anything I do outside of smoking weed is something that I do not mention. It's funny we're elitist in opposite directions, I think that smoking weed all day is the dumbest thing, and they think that anything beyond weed is the dumbest thing... I guess that's a personal experience, kind of.

Puss-in-Boots said...

I was a bit nerdy at school and didn't even know about the "in" crowd...sad, isn't it? Later on, when I did get to know about the "in" crowd, I didn't like them at all...thought they were a bunch of pompous gits and show offs.

Baino said...

Gleds, the Japanese are too straight! Who else would be dragged naked by a tractor across a pebbled driveway for a game show or sit for days in a glass cabinet filled with scorpians or eat Minky Whale - ever seen Iron Chef? and GAH! They aint straight, they're erm 'interesting' Clare did an exchange in Japan and they gave her chocolate cake for breakfast . . .that's what they think Aussies eat all the time. Ooh . . a post in there perhaps.

Jeanette said...

Hi Gleds, Sorry ive been a bit slack my puter went down and I lost all of my favorites,,,that I didnt have on my side bar,,
I never joined in the "In crowd" a lot of snobs..I was happy to hang out with "MY"friends and have fun....

Elaine Denning said...

I was never with the 'in' crowd either...they scared me!

Tea N. Crumpet said...

I felt so out of place that I was intimidated by people wearing "Members Only" jackets!

Seriously-- I was never "in" and I watched the in crowd do terrible things to people who wanted to climb in. I didn't talk so they confided in me, but I never went to what they did.

Anonymous said...

What a perceptive piece, Gledwood. I wouldn't have been your friend at university, I was trendy queen of my own clique!

Gledwood said...

Nicole: TA! I only found out about it bc Akelamalu had become follower #1 ~ wouldn't have impinged on my consciousness otherwise...
{{%-/...

MQ: never ever? wow! that's quite something. I think I only knew ONE other person never trying ANYTHING. Even my really str8 Jennifer Saunders lookalike friend did hash cakes once but "picked all the horrible bits out and only ate the chocolate"... yeah right~!()

ZenWizz: innocence is like that. remember though: when you have it, all you wanna do is lose it. odd but true!

Lucinda: I remember how sad I thought some of the stoners were... "underachiever and proud of it" was pretty much their motto, though never put in words. So not not where I've ever been truly coming from. When I DID get into massive underachiever mode it wasn't a pose it was for real and totally unstrived-for and hence unanalysed. I just hated being that way but didn't know what else to do about it...

Gledwood said...

PussInBoots: I was SUCH a dork in school. not a trendy bone in my body!!

Baino: that was my attraction to the Japanese race; also where I think I really went wrong. If I'd studied Japanese I'd have forced myself down the Stright Path just to conform. O, the regrets!!

Jeanette: better to have real friends than just trendy druggiemates, that's most certainly for sure ;->...

Elaine: I know what you mean. Practically no-one scares me now though!

Gledwood said...

Tea&Crumpet: Hi long time no hear how's it going?

What were these terrible things to in-crowd did to people who wanted to climb in with them..?? I'm intrigued~!(_)

MrsTubbymouse: hello there ~ you again. Are you a roborovski tubbymouse?? Has your daughter got the mange..???!?

%->...

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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