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 02, 2008

Like a Log

ALL THAT HASSLE AND WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT: a bus runs from as close to my old road as a bus can get right to the end, a few houses away from my new one. All that five-minute traipsing and changing bus was in vain!

Last night I returned to the old dump to remove the last of my papers and socks. (Little bits of stuff and rubbish everywhere.)

I fully cleaned and excavated. (As fully as I could do by a 40watt equivalent energy bulb and with one Cillit Bang spray and two sponges.)

A downside of cooking in one's bedroom was that when I had cause to move out I used the bed as a packing area. The mattress has now taken an entire leaking bottle of soy sauce. It looks like I've diarrhoea'd it and stinks. (Of soy sauce, thankfully ~ not diarrhoea.)

O man! The effort of trundling the last of my stuff at 1am last night right along my own road and up... missed the one night bus that would have got me directly there by a "so near yet so far" 30 seconds (impossible, of course, to run). So had to wait on a deserted highroad with humungous suitcase and outsize tartan washing bag bursting with odd socks and trailing scarves along the pavement...

Still I found myself leaving a few books and sundry things. These are piled by the door with a note to the landlords promising to return by midday today to remove them and "finish cleaning". (As if that job will ever be finished in there!!)

Of course I get back (after half an hour nervously smoking with said trailing possessions by the main road). Cannot sleep and so have endless chocolate milkshake and Turkish pide with jajeek (cacik) dip. Which is my way of saying tsatsiki: the yoghurt-garlic-mint-&-cucumber dip I can never pronounce.

When I finally did get to sleep I slept like a fallen tree. For hours. And hours. And hours. Right round the clock. Long past midday. (Well my landlord could phone me if those books are such a problem.) To 6pm. And woke up feeling like the second day of a skiing holiday ~ ie acheing all over.

I did Sainsbury's tonight (far better choice of stuffed pasta than Tescos). Am looking forward to dinner of Basics Mushroom Tortelloni (£1.59 for 600g) and broccoli sprinkled with Sage Derby gratings: yumm!

MUSIC:
ENYA'S "HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING"

This tune, as featured in this year's Xmas campaign for posh nosh supermarket Waitrose.

Here's the Waitrose ad (1 min)
I love this ad. I think it's really well done. Enchanting...



Here's Enya's official (rarely seen) promo video for the track. The Ireland here looks almost identical to rural Wales. Wales tends not to have churches though, it has some rather Eastern-looking "chapels"...

But what is meant to be going on at 0:54 secs: through the car window (woman reading paper "Kuwait is free" but something very little and easily palmed is passed through.) Is this my dirty mind, or was that meant to be a drugs deal?



Here are shots from the Hubble Space Telescope set to the same tune:~


5 comments:

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Man, moving sucks the big one! When I was younger I was moving a couple of streets over, having no cash I had to use a shopping buggy to transport most of the small stuff over. I think I made about 25 trips that way. Thinking about it exhausts me. Enjoy your dinner and your new digs!

tut-tut said...

It is a relief when everything is out and it's all over and done with. Have a good dinner.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Well, I'm out of it for a week and from what I can gather, you've moved house. Hope you are happy there, Gleds. How are the hammies taking all this upheaval?

Baino said...

Soy sauce on your mattress! Tip it upside down (the mattress, not the sauce!). Glad you're in and comfy. New start?

Gledwood said...

EILEEN: I really needed a shopping basket but would have to wait till after the weekend for the £ to buy one (how sad!). Would have transported all back and forth in a supermarket trolley but visions of being stopped by police with half a tonne of possessions & being told "you can't do that: unload it now!"... kinda put me off

TUTTUT: cheers; I did

PUSSINBOOTS: I closed them inside an empty toothpaste box yesterday night. They spent hours scrabbling at the corners until Spherical chewed them out...

BAINO: o no it's far too late for tipping upside down... o i see wot u mean... yeah I did but there's fag burns on the other side from when I was really depressed and sleeping sans properly fitting undersheet...

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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