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!

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Thrown

REGULAR READERS may have noticed a sudden change of tone in this blog.

This is down partially to my having discovered ~ through my blog's followers who somehow found me ~ a new set of bloggers either using or going clean, writing about their experience the way I used to ~ when I wasn't drowning in trivia! You can access this new world (new to me) via my "users' blogs" link up top. In a way you could say I'm replying to what many of these people have said. I also feel I need to leave a witness statement of how life is ~ scungy as it may be ~ while I am still using. Or swaying between temporarily on-methadone-clean and back-on-heroin dirty.

I must leave details of where I am, especially as I intend to move away from this place.

I hate being like this. The pain of living stuck between two intentions, totally at the mercy of the whims of my illness hurts too much.

What also depresses me is the realization I've come to ~ via some of your comments @ that Clean is something I might want. And sincerely desire it. But I just don't want it enough. And that hurts me.

When people really turn the corner, they say they would go to any lengths to get where they have to be. I've shown myself unwilling to do this.

Yet I want it. I do want it.

I'm also depressed that methadone doesn't hold me enough. The dosage I'm on should replace all the feelings I can get from heroin enough that some people say that, at this level, they can barely feel heroin at all. Yet this is not the case with me. Some years ago I used to be able to take 70mg a day and feel a bulletproof hold around me. Now the hold feels all too frail and ragged... Perhaps addiction has marched on with sister time...

Nowadays on the methadone I wake feeling like an ice block every single morning. I'm not withdrawing, I'm not "sick"... but I do feel blank and empty and under the weather. Heroin of course takes all this away...

... So I don't know what to do.

I'll leave you with a hamsters song I sing to "Baby" Itchy ~ my One Tame Robbie ~ when I'm feeling dur:

Itchy's covered in fur
Itchy's covered in fur
Eee-aye-a-dairy-mouse
Itchy's covered in fur


Hmmm: hardly liable to win me poet-laureate-hood, is it?

Here's a classic from Youtube... from a Japanese TV show (hence "hamu-STAAA!" CAT AND HAMSTER... this lil' kitty seems to think the winter-white Russian hammy is her OFFSPRING..(!)
And I take it the cat IS a "she"... (somehow looks that way...)



And last but not least, here's something more inspirational I'm sending to my Gran, who's slowly dying of cancer in a nursing home. She's so morphinated she's barely conscious these days. I know William Wordsworth is her favourite poet, so maybe it'll bring back some sparkle from days of yore...

The following lines from Wordsworth

Ode
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!


PS WHEN I WAS LOOKING for pictures of a "secret diary" I stumbled across this reference to the Secret Diary of William Byrd... has anyone out there heard of this guy?

Oh and BTW here's the Mamas and Papas: I got Creeque Alley back again (as some of y'all may have noticed, the one on my sidebar hasn't run for about 35,000 years...) so THAT has been replaced by THIS herebelow... which DOES indeed run very well indeed. The clip is from the Ed Sullivan show, which I know OF well but have never seen in my life...

10 comments:

Jeannie said...

I used to watch the Ed Sullivan show. It was one of those shows the whole family would watch. Watch a few videos one right after another and imagine some lame ass Kraft commercial in between and you've got the whole really big shoe.

I think more than needing to want to be clean, you have to really hate the heroin. As long as you love it, it will have more power.

Ces Adorio said...

Oh Gledwood. I have been exposed to patients who suffered from substance abuse, I can't say I enjoyed that aspect of nursing care. I always felt unsafe around them and was once sandwiched between a patient and a several nurses, physician and police officers attempting to subdue the patient. He had me by my neck and all I could think about was how my husband and family would react if they were told the news that I was dead. I am glad you are consciously trying to become clean. It may require a herculean effort for a task that is almost sisyphian. I hope you summon all your might and courage and I will be waiting, watching and hoping for your success.

David Tellez said...

I think you should continue to write as you write. Be as frank and honest as your heart desires.

There are as many ways to live in this world as there are people in this world, and each one deserves a closer look. And the close look you give us, is, well, to be honest, at times for me it is disturbing. But it's an insight into a world I never knew about. For others it's a world all too familiar and it gives them hope - hope that they are not alone or as lost as they once thought they were.

I like your style of writing. A lot of times, people like to hold back and don't say what they wanna say. It eats them up inside because they can only show part of the truth, rather than the whole truth. But you don't hold back. Heck, you even go so far to give visuals (I can still see that vomit picture vividly in mind...)!

And to give a little encouragement, don't give up. By saying, "Yet I want it. I do want it," you're trying. And as long as you honestly do try, that is what is most important. Because you can give up and say it is a lost cause. But you're not ready to give up. And I think the more you keep trying, the better you get at achieving your goals, whatever they may be.

P.S. I'll send a prayer out to your Gran.

Deadbeaten said...

Hi Gleds -

Thanks for re-posting that Mamas and Papas vid. It is classic!!

PS - I left a message for you on Noah's blog.

Puss-in-Boots said...

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Gleds, when you say you don't want to be clean hard enough. I used to smoke and although I know it's nowhere near the addiction of heroin, I was addicted and also I enjoyed smoking. Then one day, years ago, I suddenly came to the conclusion that it was costing me...my health as well as my purse and that was that...I stopped after several attempts over the years...and this time I was successful.

Maybe someday that realisation will come to you and you will decide that enough's enough. Let's hope, eh, Gleds? Meanwhile, all I can say is keep trying...you'll succeed.

I do hope your Gran is not in too much pain...both she and you will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Vincent said...

I'm sorry to hear about your grandma, Gleds. That's an awful way to go.

My Daughter's Addiction said...

Sometimes people just need someone to give them a little push, a little nudge in a different direction. Look at things differently. I wish there was something magical I could say to push you in that direction.

The only thing i can say:
Hate the drug.
Love yourself.

You will find yourself making excuses...you will justify reasons why you should use. Just remember that's not you...it's your brain...it's the drug. Don't let the drug or your brain sabotage what you want.

Stay Safe.

Gledwood said...

Jeannie: sounds to me like you NEED heroin to get through that Ed Sullivan show...

Ces: I hope it happens sooner rather than later. Then again I'm not meant to wait for it ~ it's up to me to make it happen

DT: I think all I've done is be in prison and imagine that by walking right up to the walls I'm somehow closer to freedom. And really I'm not...

DB: okay doke

Gledwood said...

Pussinboots: somehow the techtonic plates shift and you're moving, right?

Vincent: at least she isn't in any pain. stoked right up to the eyeballs she is

MDA: i find it SO HARD to distinguish which is which sometimes honestly i do!

Baino said...

Hi Gleds. You've been busy and I've been away . . .there will come a time when you WANT it badly enough. I know it's no real comparison but I'm fat, so have turned a corner this week and am filled with enthusiasm and resolve . .I will be thin enough to be proud of my body by the end of the year and trust me, it's hard. Turning the corner is the point of no return. You'll get there. You have so much support from people you don't even know. I'll race you! Ready . . steady . . .

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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