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, January 19, 2009

Drugs Telesales

THE DEALERS HAVE BEEN HAMMERING at my phone this morning all declaring "mine's pukka ~ proper sizes ~ I've got both ~ etc etc". I get barely half an hour's break before someone else takes up the cause. Already I'm a fifth of a gram heavier and £7.50 lighter. Someone else wanted me to test his batch and give marks out of ten ~ for free, whoopee!! ~ and sounded really put out when I gave it a six. I was being diplomatic: actually it was closer to a four-and-a-half...

I promised myself I would not waste any more time and energy negotiating a drugs drought, which is what appeared to be happening. Though 150kgs, if I got my sums right, would last the UK's estimated 300,000 heroin addicts a mere one or two days. Even if that seizure was bound for London alone (it was discovered in East London: Forest Gate) then London would surely have got through it within a week...

I've a new drug worker whose foreign name I still cannot recall ~ sounds like Maple Syrup or something. Throughout our inaugural chat she kept huffing "you must address this" and "I am not at all happy about that" and "why are you drinking so much again?" (ten cans a week even though they're high alcohol 7.5% cyder hardly makes me alcoholic of the year. I'm not that much outside the recommended units guidelines and at least I was honest enough to fess up. If she's going to jump on everything I say and criticize I'm just going to feed her porkie-pies... which isn't really going to help either of us.

I walked away feeling she was determined to break me. Mild mannered I may be, but anyone who knows me well will agree that I can be extraordinarily stubborn and will not be pushed around by someone who's working for the satisfaction of their own ego (as I began to suspect she might possibly be...) I will not be "broken" by anyone...

Then again, on waking at the lovely sociable hour of 4:30 I got to musing, "maybe I want to be broken just this once..." broken and fixed up again nice and clean and normal and recovered... Perhaps, just perhaps this drugs worker might be able to help me in that. But "at the end of the day" (as the massively over-used saying goes) any change I achieve is going to be all down to me. To sort out. To stick with. And to force through... As an old university friend of mine used to say, who sadly had an eye condition which was going to result in almost certain complete blindness within a matter of years: We're all alone in the dark...

Do you like my new antidrugs videos, kids?

Here's one I got labelled CNN from America...

THIS IS NOT what heroin does to brain and body. How can I say that? Because millions of people have been given heroin ("diamorphine") in British hospitals~ and survived without their shells broken. It's the most effective painkiller there is.

But the rest of this commercial, in my opinion, is pretty much bang-on.




Have a look at my Price of Heroin clip (top of sidebar, can't miss it). Why on earth that girl weighs just over 4 stone I've no idea. Heroin doesn't do that... maybe she's heavily into crack, which really does wipe out the appetite... maybe she's anorexic... maybe she's HIV... maybe all three, who knows. I just know documentary-makers love showing an oversimplified gloss on the subject. But, as the saying goes, if that film keeps just one child away from drugs then it's surely worthwhile...

I found a fascinating documentary about the famous or infamous Golden Triangle opium Lord Khun Sa ~ which means Prince Prosperous. The journalists went right up over the border into the Shan Province where he's de-facto monarch, looking after his people, as he'd put it, with his own 20,000 strong army. I love the sinster Buddhist-chants motif they bring up whenever they want to evoke "scary"! Sorry the twonk who loaded this up specifically had "embedding disabled by request" (why do people do that?) but click here and you can see the half hour Burma-thon in its entirety...

PS I'VE still not given in on my "no more crack" resolution... wahey!!!!

PPS Amazing garden pictures alert. In my bloghop today I encountered this blog with flowery-leafy-traily snaps of the grounds at Whitworth Hall Co Durham...

15 comments:

Jeannie said...

Propaganda works or they wouldn't use it. I think in regards to drugs a mixture of facts (a cop came to primary school with samples, pamphlets with the history and chemical makeup and effects of drugs), the movie Go Ask Alice, and watching my brother were propaganda enough. I was messed up enough without drugs and besides, alcohol did the trick for me.

Gledwood said...

Alcohol... mmmm... I used to think it SO boring, then I realized it itched a spot I only realized wanted itching after heroin... then the 2 substances kind of tangoed hand-in-hand...

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

You DO want to be "broken", don't you?
Can't you change your phone number so the dealers can't tempt you that easily?

Gledwood said...

Yes I could change my number: more to the point I have to tell any friends I DO give it to NOT TO KEEP PASSING IT ON TO DEALERS which is what's constantly happened in the past

as for being "broken" not really. they say you have to "be willing to go to any lengths" to get clean so maybe if that's what it takes... but no someone "breaking me" that SO MUCH is not my style even though I do so thoroughly enjoy playing laid back and passive I'm not ACTUALLY like that at all at heart

the worst I can see with this new worker is an unspoken war breaking out and she WILL NOT break me

i will submit to change but i WILL NOT BE BROKEN BY A SELFISH BITCH DRUG WORKER no way hose, not unless it's really my last straw situation...

Akelamalu said...

Please change your number so you can't be tempted. I don't think someone can 'break' you or anyone. If you give up drugs it will be by your own doing, I'm not sure you want to give them up :(

Lucinda said...

Good job on staying off crack!
= )

Baino said...

NO Crack - big tick . .still buying . .big no no. Seriously, give the drug worker a chance. Her approach might be different but you never know. Turn off your phone. If it's a mobile, ignore the dealer's calls.

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Maybe you should reconsider your definition of friend if they can't be trusted not to give your number out to the people you get your junk from. Just sayin is all. Try the drug worker Gledwood. At this point it seems like you don't really have much of a choice if you are committed to getting clean.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Well done staying off the crack, Gleds. I don't think that social worker is for you she arouses negative feelings, Gleds. The whole point is to have someone you're comfortable with but who won't let you get away with porkies. Personality clashes happen...request a different social worker. Good luck.

My Daughter's Addiction said...

Glenwood. Find non-user friends. Stay away from users. Don't answer calls from dealers. Tell them you're not using anymore and not to call you anymore. Tell them it's not personal just stay away. I don't want to sound critical...I don't think you need anymore criticizing, you've got enough with the selfish bitch drug worker.

Maybe the [selfish bitch drug worker] isn't really a bitch at all. Maybe she's insecure and criticizes everyone. Use the Robo technique. Ask her how she is...[genuinely concerned face] and if everything's okay. If she asks you why you asked ...just tell her that she seems a little stressed. [again concerned face]. Act like a little Robo...kinda sweet and furry-like. Maybe she'll think you care and stop being so bitch-like. Unless she really is just a freakin' bitch and then you'll have to use another technique. We can call this one the Romeo technique [lol].

Just don't let her upset you to the point you use her as a reason to change your direction. Puss-in-Boots might be right, you might consider requesting a different worker.

Here's a link to a video that reminds me of my daughter and what our family went through with her, honestly it makes me cry when I watch it because its like I'm there. She acted so crazy and I would try to keep her from leaving the house-I didn't know what was wrong with her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZeSER3t04Y

The price of heroin clip...that girls got anorexia for sure...it almost makes me sick watching that video.

Stay Safe.

Janice Seagraves said...

I don't know if I can add anything to this, but just stay the course. Don't get tangled up buying again, and please stay clean.

Janice~

The Prickly Press said...

Completely understand the not wanting to be 'broken' part...seems to me that would be a difficult recovery. Question is, are you getting what you want? If not, perhaps a new approach...

Anonymous said...

Hey! Thanks for leaving me such nice comments. I'm reading thru your blog right now. Very interesting!
Laura

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: not enough

Lucinda: ;->...

Baino: the worker might just be different. i am highly cynnical about her. one thing i did notice she does not listen

Eileen/Reeny: fellow user then not friend

Gledwood said...

Pussinboots: I might well have to ask for another one

MDA: the worker never listened to me though that made me think... hmmm. very hard for a user to get nonusing friends though I know the answer ~ stop

Janice: %->...

Prickly: don't know if I'm getting what I want

L: cheers

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