HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

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, January 21, 2009

The Fix

I HAVE TRIED TO FIX MYSELF IN COUNTLESS WAYS; and I'm not just making tawdry puns about drug-injections. Recently I took to viewing videos keyworded "heroin" on youtube. Some of the best embeddable ones you'll see scattered about here. I think it's in the Khun Sa link I gave a couple of days ago, there's footage of Thai and European/Western ("farang") addicts at the famous Tham Krabok monastery near Chiang Mai where patients are given vomiting drinks and told how to restructure their lives. One among them told how he'd injected his savings then his car then a house. (I know someone who smoked nearly an entire house (as crack) and injected the rest (as heroin) in little more than a year...) This particular man said he spent every day using telling himself it was going to be the last.

Contrary to what you might assume (as a nonuser), once heroin's got you, when you're clean and basically tilting downwards towards withdrawal your only fixation's going to be getting getting getting your heroin. Once you've the luxurious swirl of opiates in veins and brains THEN thoughts turn to the terrible habit that's gripped you and how you really must do something (this or that, whatever the newest thing to do happens to be). But that's the luxury of being high and a vast step removed from truly feeling the realities of any situation.

A good illustration can be found in the Carlos and Dadinha vid. You needn't watch far. Just a couple of minutes into it you'll see her swaying on a mattress declaring "we've lost everything". Look at it and see how little she appears to care. That's heroin in a nutshell. A drug for those who wish not to care...

This is why heroin addicts find it so difficult to stop and stay stopped. Other drugs might be far more exciting and intense in their effects. There is nothing very exciting about heroin, even at the start. What it does best is kill pain, give confidence and knock off life's harsher edges. Heroin becomes a very mundane part of life ~ almost like having a cup of tea. The hits mark punctuation points in the day. The eventual effects are subtle, so subtle you might easily say living with them is a bore. The problem is, living without them is agony.

I don't know whether I really am ready to stop, even now. Still not sure.

Burma's Heroin Trade video

Here's the Wat Tham Krabok official site...

... here's the Wikipedia article that (strangely) suggests the Thai Govt suspect the place of being a centre of international narcotics distribution... well clickit and see...

11 comments:

Corpse Doll said...

This is totally off topic to what you've just written (im not really sure what to say), but your wee hamsters are adorable!! I wish i could have one. I've been looking up things on youtube too. Mostly intervention and heroin/meth videos. Thank god for youtube huh?! Anyway, thought id just leave a random comment.
Take Care, Melissa

Gledwood said...

I had to look everywhere for roborovski hamsters. It involved making 10 or 15 phone calls. Someone in South Kensingtom (which is a v expensive area) said they'd have a joblot of baby girls in about a week at £15 each... in the end I took a journey 2 hrs each way, spent £22 on three they were the ONLY roborovski hamsters on sale in London at that time, far as I could tell. So glad I got them they're the most entertaining pets I've ever had (but not to hold: to watch)

Noah said...

Speaking for myself as you well know that is truly the only person I can speak for - I am not ready to quit. I just need/love it too much. It makes life bearable by dulling that harsh edge. Even when I am not high the anticipation of getting high is enough to get me through to that next hit.

I also have viewed all the videos on YouTube on smack and watched all the Intervention episodes on H use. It's an obsession I guess.

Gledwood said...

intervention? isn't that merely legalized KIDNAPPING...??!?

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Man. I got nuthin over here. What a battle Gledwood.....

Akelamalu said...

Well if you don't know, it won't matter what anyone says. It has to come from you m'dear. x

Jeannie said...

I just can't imagine although it would be nice to have the harsh edge off life. To be put on pause for a while and just not worry about a thing.

Frankly, I think I probably recede into my happy place a little too much without any drugs at all. And usually a drink or two does the trick. When it doesn't, I get scared.

Janice Seagraves said...

Hi Gled,

Come by my blog; I have an award for you for you honest post about your adiction.

Janice~

Gledwood said...

Eileen Reeny: hmmm...

Akelamalu: yeah i know

Jeannie: i used to be able to retreat to a place without drink or drugs so i don't even know why i bothered taking heroin to start with

Janice: cheers i'm going round the supermarket for roast chicken to make chinese stir fry and shall try and come up with them while i wander...

Eileen/Reeny: actually what on earth were you saying there???!?

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Just what it says....What a battle....you seem to be so conflicted is all, hence, the battle analogy, nuthin' more nuthin' less....

What do you think I meant?

Coke Addiction Kinda Sucks said...

Hey, man - thanks for the comment. I know you've commented before, but I just now got around to checking out your blog. I'm likin' it, so I'm gonna have to start reading:)

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