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!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Crazy in LA


I SAW AN AMAZING TV PROGRAMME ABOUT AMERICA LAST NIGHT. Louis Theroux (son of travel writer Paul) was trawling the LA market for the most lurid life-improvements he could find. And boy did he find them!

Image, the body beautiful. Plastic surgery. "If I see it" (if I see something askance with my body) "that's enough" (then I get it "fixed"). Said the receptionist at one top clinic (who got free "procedures" as a perk of the job).

Talking of "perky", her breasts had been "enhanced" to the point they appeared ready to break free and float just like helium balloons to the ceiling...

The worst character of all was the botoxic image consultant life coach who, for $2000 a day will tell you what changes she sees fit for you to make. The changes might be surgical or practical but every one is for your "happiness".

"Butt", breasts, eyebrows... All can be nipped and tucked to oblivion. This poor lost sheep of a woman with $2000 a day to spare was being shipped from pillar to plastic surgical post by her surgically enhanced mekon of a "guide". She must have spent $10,000 on that set of procedures alone.

I cringed the very most when Lost Sheep came to the subject of her boyfriend of 8 years. Life Coach was studiedly quiet as soon as he was mentioned and I knew what was coming. Lost Sheep Girl had "empowered" herself by dumping him. Life Coach gave her a big hug and dabbed at tears that weren't there. When men can't see the inner wonderfulness that is you "we have a four letter word, don't we? Next! Next!"

I wanted to throw a brick at the TV.

What I found most depressing of all was the knowledge that underneath these glossy smiley LA people were the same twisted knots of hatred, frustration and anxiety that curl within us all.

When will they invent plastic surgery on the brain, I wonder? So bad feelings can be isolated then permanently cut out.

Surely when it happens it will come first to LA!

PS Illustrated Jocelyn "Bride of" Wildenstein... rich surgery-obsessed American divorcee who exceeded even Michael Jackson's "perfectionist" extremes...

Click here to watch the show.

STOP PRESS: HERE'S SOME AMAZING CLOSE-UPS of an Australian mouse from near Brisbane...

MUSIC:
SEAL: MAN'S WORLD
This is a masterpiece



SEAL: CRAZY
He has that rare type of voice... "primal"...

12 comments:

tut-tut said...

Yuck!

But I do love Seal . . .

Crushed said...

That is a very scary picture you have there...

I wonder if these people need life coaches because they lack that more ordinary concept- friends.

Gledwood said...

Tut~Tut: mmmm

Crushed: UR damn right

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

I would imagine that the pressure to remain "youthful" in places such as Los Angeles is huge. Everywhere you turn there are "beautiful" people. So sad. I could never imagine hacking my face apart because of insecurity. Shame on people like this "life coach" for propagating these ideals of beauty, it’s a myth folks. I once watched a show on the same thing, except it concentrated on Miami, which on a large scale is an equally vain place. Been there, wouldn't go back. It focused on people who were so desperate to "fix" themselves that they would go to these back alley chop shops and have surgeries performed. As you can imagine some of the outcomes were quite disturbing. One of the women had liposuction done on her stomach; the person who performed the surgery didn't stitch it properly so by the time she got home she was oozing her guts. You can thank me for the graphic details later ;)

Gledwood said...

"Eeeew!" as they say in LA

Zen Wizard said...

I would like to think that this superfluous obsession with looks is confined to the Los Angeles area--but when was the last time the USA elected a bald president?

(Answer: Eisenhower.)

Test after test shows that we attribute various qualities (like kindness and intelligence) upon people based on their appearance.

It probably relates back to some Darwinian natural selection thing.

In the case of large breasts, it DEFINITELY relates back to some Darwinian thing--surgically enhanced breasts have no practical function--i.e., contrary to popular belief, they don't even float. (I saw it on "Manswers.")

If you have some horrid injury or dental problem that can be fixed and you can afford to fix it, I guess why not go for it? We have to remember that surgery is painful, dangerous, and traumatic, though.

Footnote: For where this mentality really inverts itself, we had a school superintendent in Georgia who embezzled money and used at least part of it for plastic surgery.

Is it worth prison, a lifetime of not being able to vote, a lifetime of not being able to get certain jobs, your pension, etc.??

Bimbimbie said...

The funny thing about these docos about plastic surgery (to me) are the surgeons, mostly male - many don't appear to want to go through this sort of cosmetic surgery themselves.

And to answer your question - yes all photos from my place. Did you see the mouse that visited ... Nov 25th post

Gledwood said...

ZenWizz: people have done ALL SORTS OF THINGS in the name of beauty!

Bimbimbie: no I missed the mouse... will have to have a look..

yeah you're right about those drs. one particular surgeon featured last night was pretty smarmy. Insisted on taking near-naked pixx of all female patients. And of course had not been touched by the surgeon's hammer...//sorry knife himself.

The most ridiculous were the male patients who had supposed pectoral implants that looked more like women's breasts than some women's actual breasts... hmmmmm

molson said...

A paper bag with two eye holes is cheaper than plastic surgery. The paper bag has other uses as well and can be recycled. Plus a hat is a great fix for baldness. I wonder if "Life Coach" has figured that out yet?

Vincent said...

That was a funny post. I hate everything fake. Cosmetic surgery only needs to be done if there's a medical reason. I don't want to forbid it as I think people are free to do with themselves what they want, but I do appreciate 'real' better than fake.

Anyhow, g'day now :-)

Baino said...

I'll be honest, if I was a gazillionaie, I might go for a bit of a nip and tuck. Not the facelift but a bit of body sculpting and complexion enhancing. There's not much worse than watching your body go south when you feel 25 inside . . .then again . ..Seal has nasty scarring that I first thought was traditional stuff but he actually has pock marked skin and he's still HOT! (hope for the fat biatch yet)

Gledwood said...

Vince: but WHY? WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYBODY WANT TO LOOK LIKE MICHAEL JACKSON? The guy literally has a HOLE in the SIDE of his nose (a 3rd nostril)... I mean..(!!)

Baino: I might have a chemical peel myself. + eye-bag-ectomy as I look like I've done 3 rounds with tyson (mega dark circles...)

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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