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!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Things About Me You Probably Guessed Already...

Merle and Janice have given me an award!
Thanks Merle in Melbourne Down Under and Janice in Southern California for the Honest Scrapper Award. I am to reveal a collection of facts about myself so here goes.

~ I have given up smoking crack. Or injecting it. Or "speedballing" it. And have kept to this resolution for three weeks in a row now ~ wahey!

~ I only really got addicted to heroin aged 28!! I had been messing about with it "casually" for a few years before that. And I never took any illegal drugs till I was 19.

~ I made up for lost time by dropping acid within a few days of my first spliff. I didn't realize I was taking 4 at once and blew my head off.

~ 2 of my acquaintances have been murdered. Both with knives.

~ I once spent an entire night tripping stuck in the nasty nursery rhyme:
Half a pound of tuppenny rice,
Half a pound of treacle;
Mix it up and make it nice:
POP! Goes the weasel!

And all the acid-spangled long night through that over-inflated weasel was just about to get it with the needle.

~ This might be the night I had a Strawberry Fields moment all of my own. The man at the 24-hour garage had decided to rearrange the biscuits displays, which were scattered wildly about the floor... so in my brainfrying state it was Custard Creams Forever..!

~ It is impossible to calculate how much heroin I've taken in my time, but in the last 8 years it's 1.2-1.5 kilos at the very least. (Yeah, and I feel so clever and proud...)

~ Roborovski hamsters (pictured) are the smallest, fastest and least amenable to taming of any hamsters. And I have three...

~ I can do typing 60wpm (actually it might be faster; I've not timed myself in years) and shorthand 70 wpm (not bed considering I learnt out of a book) ~ yeah, because I so want to be a secretary. (No journalist actually.)

~ My True Ambition is to be a pop-fictionalist writer of bestselling novels. I have an idea fermenting inside me that Jeffrey Archer would kill for.

~ I don't go in for best friends, or favourite this or that; but, as would-be novelist I do admire Jeffrey Archer. His plot-driven short stories are some of the best of our time. I know from his Prison Diaries that he has an empathy for my ilk of problems and found himself living some of the circumstances they can lead to...

~ I have never been inside and don't ever intend to go.

~ I once got so bored of television I lived without it for about 2 years!

~ I was born in the Chinese year of the "rat or any other cute 'n' furry rodent such as hamster", 1972, hence my obsession with all things beady-eyed, cheek-pouched and wheel-running like robbies and harvest mice among many others. Technically I am a "water hamster".

... and that's about all I could think of as I trawled round Morrisons for cooked chicken thighs and basmati rice...

I hereby pass on this award to: Noah from Oklahomah, USA who blogs frankly about life "using", Lucinda from New Jersey, who's given up opiates already aged 17, Melody Lee from New Mexico who's pulled herself a good deal onto the straight and narrow but will always be cool as strawberry icecream, Bimbimbie who blogs the parrots cackling and cawing wild in her garden in Queensland, Australia and Whitenoise, a real live Canadian commercial airline pilot!

Criteria of the award are to link to the blogger who gave it you, post a collection (ideally of 10) honest things about yourself and to pass on the award to as many folks as you please...

12 comments:

Puss-in-Boots said...

That is interesting to read about you, Gleds. I don't really go for memes, but every so often one comes along that grabs my attention and I do it. Anyway, a good post about your background and thoughts.

Lucinda said...

Haha, gracias!
Now I've got to go pass it on...
= )

Baino said...

Great post Gleds and very interesting. So much talent (and you make jewellery) you shouldn't waste these gifts.

Queenneenee said...

I could NEVER give up my tv! Kudo's on your three weeks, thats awesome Mr. Gleds. Unfortunately I also have people (family) who have been murdered as well. They were shot though. Anyway, good post my man.

Lucinda said...

Gleds, I know you gave me the award... But I'm giving it back to you as well(?) I don't think that really works, but whatever. You're definitely one of my favorite truth-speakers. = )

Bimbimbie said...

Hi Gleds thanks I'll try and do justice to mine but to be honest I might not be sticking rigid to the rules*!*

I love the look on that little fur face on your previous post :)

David Tellez said...

I didn't think there was anything you could honestly tell us, that we didn't know before (I've been reading past posts) since you are like an open book, but I guess you can always learn something new from someone! Thanks Gled!

Whitenoise said...

Thanks, Gled. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks peeps... thanks Luce, now I've an excuse to pass it on again...

I'll be back tomorrow but time's running exceedingly short 2nite...

Merle said...

Dear Gleds ~~ Thank you so much for letting me know you had done this. Cingrats you did very well. Three weeks is a great start, so stick to it. You have some good ambitions that you should not waste. You have always been honest with us, but we still learned more about you. I will
pray for a miracle for you to get off everything and go forward with your life. Take care, and look after yourself. Love and Best wishes, my friennd, Merle.

Janice Seagraves said...

Hi Gled,

Hey you did it, you posted the award! Good on ya, three weeks dry that is great.

BTW, tag your it.

Come by my blog and see the contest rules.

Janice~

Shadow said...

well hello stranger. i'm glad to see you still have your furry beauties... cute, cute, cute they are!!!!

i hope you get to write that book. jeffrey archer i've read before and i like his books too. so come on, start writing! and tv??? wouldn't miss it at all...

look after yourself now!

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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