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!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Flexing My Muscles

I THINK I MAY HAVE COME UP WITH a more positive way of viewing former abortive attempts at staying off heroin (not going cold turkey (though I did try that once) but by sticking to prescribed methadone). Rather than seeing these as failure (no matter how politely worded, that is how I saw it), perhaps what I have been doing is flexing muscles I have got used to not using. So each of these tries, you could say, is practice or even a dress-rehearsal for when I do it for real...

That's about all I can come up with positive-thinking wise.

Other than that I've been trying to distract myself by scrawling in a "reporter's notebook" and writing in a posher hardback notebook with "secret diary" squiggled in shorthand inside the cover... my one worry being that, with the battles I have to decypher my "outlines"... whatever I write in there may stay secret even from me!

PS Please God don't let me turn into a cleaned-up junkie equivalent of the man illustrated... you meet people enough like him at NA...

16 comments:

Akelamalu said...

That's the spirit! If at first you don't succeedd......

I'm sending you lots of positive thoughts and oodles of Reiki to help you and keeping my fingers crossed for good measure. x

Noah said...

Re: your comment on my blog about smack obsession - the tar that I get is straight out of the slums of Guadalajara Mexico by way of El Paso, Texas. Sometimes it is hard and sticky like black roofing tar, other times it is just black and hard with a strong vinegar smell. I often wonder what kind of shit I am putting in my veins but usually not for long. I would love to try some of that gear you get over there across the big pond. Thanks for reading and I hope the 'done is working for you.

Gledwood said...

1. thanks Aka

2. Noa: ooow Mexican tar... never knowingly had that... once some stuff like toblerone dark went round i wondered whether that was it, then i saw a pic of mexican tar which was glistering i've never had shiny gear...

anyway enough! i'm trying to put a clean head on... wonder if i can get a transplant somewhere ~ hey i bet some person even pooer than me from the 3rd world would sell me theirs...
;->...

Baino said...

Excellent resolution Gleds. Baby steps as usual. Methodone works . .I've seen it happen and with someone who's carried a 25 year addiction. He's now off everything and guess what . . has met a woman, moved away from his squalid quarters and is holding down a full time job.

I don't care if you look like the muscle man . . .do whatever works for you. Happy new year! It's NYE here today. The sun is shining and all is well with the world.

Nicole said...

Whoa! Good morning! That photo freaked me right out. LOL

Gledwood said...

Baino: yeah but i don't want to look or mentally be like THAT no please no way!!!!

Nicole: hey it's 5 to 9pm here but i get the message... i often do watch "world business report" on bbc tv at 4am thinking "it's already afternoon in Australia and Singapore" with a huge twinge of jealousy which has a lot to do with LOATHING being awake in the middle of the night and all. ugh anyway that wasn't sposed to be the rant it turned into Hi NICOLE!!

Akelamalu said...

Right honey your wish is my command, here we go....
1 butterfly, 2 butterflies,
3 butterflies, 4 butterflies,
5 butterflies, 6 butterflies,
7 butterflies, 8 butterflies,
9 butterflies, 10 butterflies,
11 butterflies, 12 butterflies,
13 butterflies, 14 butterflies,
15 butterflies, 16 butterflies,
17 butterflies, 18 butterflies,
19 butterflies, 20 butterflies,
21 butterflies, 22 butterflies,
23 butterflies, 24 butterflies,
25 butterflies, 26 butterflies
27 butterflies, 28 butterflies
29 butterflies, 30 butterflies
31 butterflies, 32 butterflies
33 butterflies have landed in your backyard.

xxxxxxxx

Gledwood said...

woooooooo!!!

Queenneenee said...

what I meant by surrender is this. You give up the fight, the battle that we constantly find ourselves in as alcoholics/addicts. We begin to sincerely ask for help. We begin to do what we are told by the people who have been there before us. We accept our disease and TRULY want to stop the madness. We want to become and stay clean more than we want to get high/drunk. It has worked for me since I was able to surrender and accept my alcoholism. I wish you the best.

Queenneenee said...

oh and thanks for your comment and compliment on my pic. LOL. When we took this pic I SWORE I would NEVER show it to anyone. LOL. Now its my default here...go figure. It was a fun day, a sober one too, just being goofy and someone snapped it lol.

Vincent said...

Where did you find that old photo of me?

I think it's worth trying to stay of the heroin longer and longer.

Gledwood said...

QUEENEE: thanks for that i THINK i get it a bit more. i've been to na a few times over many years and grasped most concepts pretty well but "surrender" still defeated me. and still does as you can see by reading me blog...

VINCENT: old foto? dur. right I see. man are you telling me you're a recovered steroid addict..???

Merle said...

Dear Gleds ~~ That post was a good one and I am happy to see you are thinking seriously about getting clean. You have all the support of your blogging friends, me included
So do try to get by with just the methadone. And for goodness sakes don't aspire to look like THAT picture. I enjoyed reading the posts I missed and hearing the Queen's Christmas speech. Thank for that, and thanks for your comment and wishes for 2009. I
would like to wish you the very best of good wishes for the New Year and maybe this could be your year. and you can do it my friend.
Love, Merle.

Gledwood said...

Thanks Merle! & I hope you had a v merry time at "yule"tide
xx

Vincent said...

Nah, I was just kidding :-) I don't like steroids.

jmb said...

Hey Gledwood. I wish you every success in getting of the heroin. Many people function very successfully on methadone and I hope you will be one of them.
May 2009 be a very good year for you Gleds, wishing you all the best.

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