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 09, 2008

Och aye! Ye'll never be a stenographer, ye cannae write fast enough! PLUS: Intellectual Chinese Food


WARNING: THIS POST HAS A SAD SPODDY PART, THEN THE INTELLECTUAL CHINESE PART:~
I'VE JUST BEEN READING the most fascinating site about shorthand.
The site-writer's biog tells how as a child he was fascinated by secret codes (I was too; invented one I could write nearly as fluently as ordinary writing). He says he learned shorthand from sheer fascination, rather than as a business tool. I found his writing interesting because I also learned shorthand (though I did have a practical reason: I always wanted to be a writer of some sort and knew that for journalists shorthand is essential. You're not allowed recording equipment in British courts. And for music journalists dictaphones are nearly useless in concerts and nightclubs where background noise makes anything you've recorded virtually incomprehensible.

I chose Gregg's, the American shorthand, which is barely used over here. In this country most budding journalists are taught Teeline these days, which is very easy to learn but to my mind simply not fast enough. Pitman's, the main alternative is exceedingly fast but really difficult to pick up. Also you need to use a pencil or special shorthand-nibbed fountain pen and lined paper is essential as the positioning of penstrokes on or through the line varies according to vowel sounds. I really couldn't be bothered with all that: I just wanted something I could scrawl with a pen on the blank paper I've always favoured and so I taught myself Gregg's system. I say "scrawl": strangely, Gregg's shorthand looks just as scrawly as my own longhand. And it's just as hard to read back unless you really put some discipline into jotting the outlines precisely.

I look back on my old straight (and yes geeky) self who taught myself shorthand. Fair enough it's not like conquering Everest but I've never met anyone else who learned shorthand from a book and can actually use it. I had all this determination and some sticktoitiveness and look what my life has come to!

I really have to write that bestselling novel then all my problems shall magically be solved.

O yes and remember to kick drugs first...


PS: if you're wondering what the squiggles mean, they begin:
Dear Mr Dean: It is essential that I have three copies of our mailing... blah blah blah blah.... Shorthand courses have never featured the most rivetting of dictations...

stop press the Chinese food bit has to come in a minute as I gotta run...

Sorry: had to dash up the rd where my dealer did me a massive block of "B" for £19. To be honest it was so big I was wondering whether it was real but it looks right, smells right...

CHINESE FOOD:
My Mum bought me
some shopping from Waitrose (homeland of the foodie bourgeoisie) and Tesco (supposedly our best (though less posh than Waitrose, who do quail's eggs next to normal ones) though I shop at Sainsbury's). Now I have everything for a plush Chinese meal including straight-to-wok noodles, toasted sesame oil, proper nondisposable chopsticks (x about 18,000,000 with Chinese writing atop saying "Westerners are berks!" (well that's probably what these things say: who knows? One man got a permanent tat on his upper arm reading "Coca-Cola": it was all over the Sun newspaper... Rice crackers, plum sauce, blackbean sauce, szechuan sauce, chili sauce, a far better soy sauce than the last one I had (even though that had Chinese writing all over it (I'm a sucker for a bit of exotic calligraphy...) that went into my old mattress: remember? like very runny black diarrhoea)... and some other sauce. The upshot being that even though I had no other stir-fry ingredients apart from newborn noodles, parboiled diagonal-chopped carrots (so "authentic"!), some crushed unsalted cashews (must be careful not to eat entire lot direct from packet) and a bit of (non-spring) onion, plus a sprinkling from my half kilo bag of MSG (I'm such a devotee now), tiny bit of dark soy and that toasted sesame oil... it came out amazing! Even better than the local Chinese's efforts, I'd venture to say... That sesame oil certainly is something... Adds a liquid toastiness I had assumed the takeaway achieved by lightly burning everything at one stage... so you can imagine what resulted from my naive attempts to replicate that little effect...

Because I'm wishing to move further from the takeaway and nearer "authenticity" (I use the word advisedly). And I'm not willing to stir-fry dogs, crows, slugs, wasp grubs or anything else of the non-halal variety consumed in China, I'm thining of switching to Malaysian cooking because they're mostly Muslims and I won't even eat pork, let alone anything 6-legged (lobsters have six yuk-spines and they're considered a delicacy even by stupid English people). The best foreign restaurant meals I've ever had were all Malaysian. To me it was a mix of the best of Indian, Chinese and Thai without spicy extremes or yucky sweet-&-sour (I never got the point of that one). Malaysian salads are the best in the world. Anyway I have to go now I've a bag of stir-fry ingredients calling my name.

Cheerio then!

VIDEO
GIRLS ALOUD: I'M NOT THE LOVING KIND
Their new single. This is a masterpiece. The art director's use of a limited palette is rather effective. And I like the way this video moves, like a glossy magazine brought to life... What a catchy tune too!


9 comments:

Akelamalu said...

I learned Pitman's Shorthand at school and passed my exams. However it's that long since I used it I can't remember any of it! How clever you are to teach yourself shorthand and remember it!

Gledwood said...

Do you know why I remember? Because when I used to get high as a kite every evening I used to get this terrible urge to doodle. Sometimes I would end up (probably looking a right state as well) taking shorthand dictations from the news. I just had this violent urge to write as quickly as possible... and so unwittingly I kept those shorthand skills ever brushed-up!

Crushed said...

Write the novel!

How about one about a mission of three hamsters to cook the perfectr Chinese Meal, battling against the evil schemes of evil landlords?

Gledwood said...

Or escaped hammies battling to preserve pet cocroaches against the evil Pest Controller?...??...
;->...

Anonymous said...

Hamsters are good with Chinese food! Yum!

:oP

Anonymous said...

I called Itchy a "furry morsel" once. You should've seen the way she bolted. Never seen a robo do such a magnificent bunny hop in all my time!

Puss-in-Boots said...

Shorthand, ugh! That takes me right back to my schooldays...I loathed the subject and have never used it at work. Although to practice it, we did use it to write down the lyrics of the pop songs...one good way to get the words to a song.

I adore sesame oil and always have a bottle in the pantry...very fattening though. Who cares...

Bimbimbie said...

Hi there Gleds, looks like I missed a lot! Itchy found. You have new home, Ma Hubbard getting ill whilst out here - hope all is going well for her*!*

Gledwood said...

PUSSINBOOTS: we never even had the chance to do shorthand at school, apart from one lesson in Pitmans which got scrapped after just one lesson!
Considering all the girlie stuff we had to do that NOONE wanted :: e.g. hours on end of needlework I reckon they should have provided something a bit better re office skills.

BIMBIMBIE: Yes poor Itchy got cleaned out as well. Got really offended by that one! Plus she did an enormous bunnyhop off me last night and nearly escaped again...

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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