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, November 17, 2008

Mince Pie Manure Trotters

THE CRAZIEST DREAMS EVER kept me sleepwaking for 14 hours all afternoon and through the night. First I was demonically possessed in my sleep (lovely!) then I had what kicked off as a marvellous reverie. In this fantasy I was clean of drugs (obviously, else I'd not have been out travelling) and travel I did. The world was my oyster. So to start off with, me and unnamed faceless (yet nonsinister) companion agreed to visit "the toe of Italy". I was so excited to be going somewhere so boastworthy; also I've always longed to explore the length of Italy and the classical cities of Rome, Bologna and Venice aside (plus Milano) Italy's foot is somewhere I'd particularly love to go... so we're all raring. It was a bit like Ewan McGregor and wild guy's overland-by-(motor)-bike John-O'Groats to Capetown televisual jaunt. O! The joy of the open road. First we stopped overnight at a large secondary school that resembled an outsized garden centre. I put my excessively humungous baggage down in the swimming pool changing rooms. Came back for it ~ then ~ bang! ~ gone. And an entire class full of nasty kiddies who obviously had all to do with its disappearance swore blind they knew nothing about my baggage which was enough to fill a small portakabin going missing... this garden centre full of orangeries and fern-filled hothouses (lovely post-Victorian greenhousery... and not a teacher in sight. So there I am devoid of a single possession and the trip's over before it's begun. Lovely. So that's my dreams. Sorry about that: had to get them off my chest...

Now as for the Roborovski Trotters they do indeed smell of a barnyard because they've shredded an entire copy of The Sun into luxury bedding that I don't have the heart to remove. Also all my hammies have been feasting on Mr Kipling's exceedingly yummy winter mince pies. They had nearly an entire pie between the four of them (the robos plus Pingpong my reclusive Chinese hammy)... of course most of these pies have been stashed and I haven't the heart to remove this either... So they shall go on ponging for a while as they thorougly enjoy scuttling in and between a pile of kitchen roll, tinfoil and clingfilm tubes so extensively piled up they are three tube-storeys deep. It's a mince pie laden, Sun newspaper chomping snigglywiggle winter wonderland of "exceedingly" vast proportions... as old Mr Kipling would drone...

Now my "Baby" Itchy has learnt a new trick: to ping down my sleeve, scurry behind my shoulder blades and emerge astonished-looking at the other sleeve, ready to pop out and ping all round again.

But woe betide me should I dare squeak something like "hello you tiny little swine! Are you looking surprised?! Are you tiny?! You ARE..." and then place venturesome fingers at said sleeve-opening as she emerges. Back she'll rear, taking extreme umbrage and terror at my horrible human-smelling hand, diving back into the human-smelling tunnel of my elbow-sleeve where she's convinced she's secure. (But woe betide I but a hand up the sleeve from up the inside. This provokes panick of such pinging proportions she literally comes flying out underneath my hand like a roborovski cannon ball... shooting across the blur of my duvet... landing pillow-wise, dazed and wondering how on earth she got there. The silly swine!

Righty-ho, it's taken approaching half an hour to post this: my 50p is up! So I'd better go. I hope you had a cheery weekend, y'all and no nightmares!

I'm off to attack 300g of four cheeses stuffed pasta (tortelloni) ~ Morrisons special offer at 99p a pack. So I got 4...

L8Rs!¬ ;->...


Eartha Kitt "+ friends": Santa Baby

10 comments:

Akelamalu said...

Strange dreams Gleds!

Your hammies sound as though they 're having a whale of a time. Are they supposed to eat mince pies?

Fire Byrd said...

Mince pies and Santa baby.... yes Christmas is coming. Just don't give the hammys and tinsel to decorate their cages with!

Puss-in-Boots said...

I like travel dreams...they save me a lot of money. Pity about your luggage...what a way to end a dream, but then that's what happens, isn't it?

As for your little hammies, they sound as if they give you hours of fun just watching them...but the pong wouldn't be too savoury with all that "off" meat...and probably farts, too. Eeeewww...presuming hamsters do fart?

Crushed said...

My dad used to play that Eartha Kitt track a lot...

Good luck with the nightmares, sounds like you're getting sleep paralysis..

Vincent said...

That robo story made me laugh, very funny. I love it when animals do things like that :-)

Merle said...

Hi Gleds ~~ Strange dreams indeed.
Did you get the special pin-point glasses you posted about? If so, how are they going? I am glad your little hammies give you so much pleasure.
Take care, Regards, Merle.

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: are they sposed to eat mince pies? Not really but it's not going to kill them...

Fire Byrd: when I had a huge toadstool-like mushroom from Tesco's I was thinking of setting up a robo-photo-shoot. They do look awfully cute surrounded by natural accoutrements like blackberries, brambles, toadstools and fallen leaves...

Puss in Boots: my travel dreams always turn into nightmares tho!

the hammies don't really pong unless you shove your head right in the tank. and it's only a roborovski smell. they have a freshly mown harvesty smell naturally so nothing about them is ever rank or minging...

Gledwood said...

Crushed: sleep paralysis... something. I've always been prone to over-vivid dreams... used to wake up screaming every night!!

Vince: those robos are by far the best-spent £23 of my entire life!

Merle: I haven't got the pinhole glasses yet... am out of touch with the friend who could probably get me a pair and haven't a clue who would retail them... yes those hamsters provide hours of fun just watching them scurry about. Especially with the wrestling matches they so love to perform, + expressions of surprise and astonishment when anything as mundane as an old apple core gets chucked into their domain...

CrystalChick said...

Wild dreams, here and on the post below. Wow. Hope you get some calm good sleep soon.
Hey, thanks for stopping by, good to hear from you! I have been a little behind on some blogs, yours one of them. But I can do a little stop by today and say hello.
I totally love Eartha doing Santa Baby. I'm sure I have it on a holiday cd. A couple of the radio stations here have been playing Christmas music for a couple weeks so it's bound to be one once, twice, a hundred times between now and the end of the season.

About the politics. At first I really wanted Hillary. Not that I didn't like Obama, I did quite alot. But I needed time to watch, listen, etc. and by the time it came to vote I was THRILLED, NERVOUS, PROUD to vote for him. I had been wearing a little Obama button on my jacket too and in the voting place one of the workers turned down my collar and said it wasn't allowed. No display of candidate preference there.
I'm very happy that he won. I think he has some good ideas and will work hard for the U.S. It's been so frustrating here for awhile with Bushie in office that people are annoyed and angry and probably don't even know why. It's going to take some time to get things going in the right direction again, hopefully people who voted for him will continue to give him the help he needs. It's going to take alot of people doing what they can. I have hope. :)

Chat soon. Be well. M

Liz Hinds said...

Oh I can see baby Itchy doing that!

I dreamt I went to China in a lift. Dreams are very weird.

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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