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, February 19, 2009

Fruit Shortcake Biscuits

NOT BECAUSE I'M "NUTTY AS A FRUITCAKE" but because fruit shortcake are my favourite non-"cream" biscuits (I have such babylike taste~ has to be sweet, preferably chocolate, etc...) but these are a grown-up delicacy that go really well with hot, sweet tea. Hot, sweet tea is just about all I've been up to lately because I'm so so ill!

Hmmm...
No honestly it's just a "community virus" with exhaustion and depression sequelæ, as over-Latinated physicians like to put. So I believe. And dit-de-dit and dar-de-dar... And so an obsession with Great British Biscuits results.

I know this talk probably annoys you people, but today I am minded yet again to kick off heroin, like an ill-fitting worn-out jackboot into the trailing dust where it belongs. Not to go "cold turkey" mind (I add for those of you not familiar with my meandering, winding go-nowhere life) but merely to bump properly on to the methadone I've been on for years ~ only using still on top. Nowhere near as much as I might use without it, I should add. But still using far too much. Any using at all is too much when heroin is the drug. I am fulsomely bored of it.

Only this afternoon, as I wandered down the high road with my new biscuits, I got to reminiscing about crack and the great whooshing physical rush of the stuff, and the tidal-wave of a high you surf after your brain's recovered from the druggie equivalent of being shut in a microwave on full power for a minute or two. (This being the effect of a big pipe, at least. In the beginning when I used to smoke not realizing most people broke up the rocks into more manageable portions, the sheer intense force of that cocaine rushing my brain all at once used to sweep me utterly away. So as my ears stopped whooshing, my dazzled eyes, no longer snowblind told me I was in a calm, bright place... a place I've been to a lot on drugs. It's like floating in the full power of the sun, serene and not burning... Then I'd come shooting back from this place-non-place back to the "reality" of being 1000ft high and WHHHOOOAAH!!! It's those effects, and the very suddenness of them from unwrapping the crack, to shoving it on the pipe, to slowly burning and breathing steadily in... within half a minute at most I was totally out of it in la-la-land.

So why don't I crave that immense high? Or even miss it? Partially because it's absolutely incompatible with anything resembling an ordinary life.

And yet heroin with its effects so subtle you could easily miss them and feel nothing other than dull and tired. THIS becomes the object of my greatest adoration. Why?

Perhaps there are no answers and I'm not up for wasting the energy to find them. I just want out of this life. At long long last.

Of course this means I will have used within two days (if past form is anything to go by). But I can at least make this affirmation. And at least try...

As NA say, you can only do one day at a time...

13 comments:

Catherine Vibert said...

Hey Gledwood,

I've been taking some time off of blogging to paint and let my arms recover. Blogging is my horrible addiction, not heroin, but can be pretty bad sometimes. Anyway, the difference is that the subject of my blogging are the people I've come to care about. Like you my little hamster loving friend. I can't offer you any advice, but I'm caring about you in any case.

Whitenoise said...

Keep trying, buddy. Keep going back to NA.

Lou said...

Glenwood, you are a pretty sharp fellow. Imagine how witty you could be without the dope. Ditto
Whitenoise's comment.

Queenneenee said...

Hey Gled, sorry you still feel sick...Try to hit that NA meeeting down the road. I am hoping for the best for you, I really am. Nothin better than seeing an addict get well. I just love it.

Velvet Ginger said...

Hey Gledwood, you stopped by my blog & wanted to know if you were familiar to me. Yes you used to come to my blog, I used to come to yours.
I hope you are feeling better, keep eating those biscuts, it's takes much courage staying straight, you are on the right track, hang in there!

Gledwood said...

CATVIBE: that's cool ;->...

WHITENOISE: aye I will

LOU: I hope so!

QUEENEE: thanks. of course I MISSED it but there's one tomorrow I can go to same area. i think i will make a date...

VELVET GINGER: ah see! I thought I remembered you but you changed your avatar, surely? I have a v good memory for faces (usually)... did I say how I found you? By going to a blog I don't know at random (I found it accidentally searching for an image) then keep jumping out out out through comments or personal links till you find someone you DO know. It took a lot longer than the "legendary" 6 degrees of separation I can tell you... about 30... then I fouhd you!!

Anonymous said...

Every quitting is a victory - just quit over and over again.

molson said...

Saw this on IBD's website...

"Discovery gives hope to addicts
A drug commonly used to treat nausea, ondansetron, may help treat the severe withdrawal symptoms experienced by addicts of heroin, codeine and other opioid drugs, says a Stanford Univ. study. Addicts trying to quit opioids often suffer from agitation, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, spurring many to resume taking drugs. Many current treatments involve taking other opioids, replacing one addictive drug with another. The Stanford study found the nausea drug reduced withdrawal symptoms and was nonaddictive."

Maybe this could help you Gledwood. Of course you have to have access to it. That's always the tricky part.

Baino said...

What happened to the search for clinical trials. You're so up and down! I want to hug you and slap you on the side of the head at the same time. Baby steps Gleds I can tell you're getting closer now than you were six months ago. You have lots of friends out here who would help if they could. Just say the word. As for biscuits . . you aint tried nothin' till you've had a Tim Tam!

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Try and try and try over and over again, I agree with Baino you seem closer now to getting clean than you were before.

Gledwood said...

CITIZEN: well it's 24 hours later and i've not used YET...

though I have been miserable as sin. actually what am I complaining about? I expected that

MOLSON: I never heard of that I am googling as we speak

the only other nonaddictive treatment was ibogaine but it's a flaming hallucinogen! not REALLy what I want right now

BAINO: ok I know I know but you know HOW HARD IT IS to get on those trials? I've asked loads of times about trialling "something" but they don't even listen. So I will have to go in with a sheaf of print-outs ready-highlighted. Just saying something will achieve nothing

REENY:

sally in norfolk said...

yep keep trying Gleds and one day your dreams just might come true :-)

Gledwood said...

%-/... hopefully...

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