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!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Bankrupting Electric Fags!

I WAS ALL FOR PURCHASING AN ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE this morning ~ (for giving up smoking, obviously). This stick looks just like an ordinary cig and indeed lights up when dragged on. It also delivers heated "atomized" nicotine from replacable cartridges. No smoke is involved and you can theoretically "smoke" one anywhere ~ though explaining this to a brain-dead security guard might take quite some doing.

But imagine my horror when I discovered that one such cigarette, a charger and spare lithium battery complete with only 2 full strength cartridges (you get 4 weaker ones but they're useless to me ~ I can easily do 40 cigs a day and you want to see the ashtray-like stains on my inner teeth ~ absolutely disgusting. Anyway imagine my horror when I found out the introductory pack was £43!!!!!!!

Having recoiled and (partially) recovered I thought "well I could save up for one". Of course, unlike far less glamorous smoking cessation products these are not available on the NHS.

I did once try Zyban (buproprion) a USA-licensed antidepressant licensed here only for giving up smoking. Basically you take it for a week. Smoke as normal. Nothing happens. Carry on taking it. Within 2 weeks cigs taste of old tyres and the desire to light up all the time rapidly diminishes...

Talking of antidepressants, I only took Zyban for 2 weeks and got no untoward effects. Now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place regarding these because I'm feeling more and more I need them ~ exhausted all the time, wading through mud, dismal blah blah ~ and yet they tend to have the most extreme effects on me when they do work (sometimes they do nothing at all). Suddenly from sluggish, morose and boring I'm hyper-alert, rushing around, barely sleeping at all etc etc. The last one I tried (Zispin/mirtazapine) actually made me hallucinate a dead body in the bathroom mirror (not my reflection, it was reflecting sideways so this corpse was hanging "off the side of the door"). It was well creepy and refused to go away for over 5 minutes. And no I didn't dare try and touch it. It was actually sparked by a load of "drying" clothes (in other words clothes stored there for lack of any better place to go...) At the time I was blaming all this on my efforts to quit drink so I really don't know. What I do know is I'm too tired to risk flipping like this. And also, within a few weeks the initial excitement had totally worn off and, despite continuing with the pills I was feeling more depressed than ever before! So what on earth am I going to do?

I had the concluding interview about my psyche. The Operative had shrunk back from the Childhood Monster Theory (thank God) and we tried to tackle the issue in an adult way (certainly a first for me). Then I go bang into a meeting with my druggie worker who bangs on at me that I'm not depressed at all. I just enjoy shutting myself up alone 24-7 and need to be forced out under duress and psychologically broken and remoulded in the image of the virus that spawned HER.

Nasty business!

NOW HERE'S A TUNE... this is always voted Greatest of all Time in UK polls...



And here's another, in honour of what the Druggie Service are doing to my head...

I think this proves what an A1 voice Farrouk Bulsara/Freddie Mercury had...


13 comments:

Jeannie said...

Wow - you have an extremely addictive personality. Or perhaps it's your body. As if you are exceedingly sensitive to certain pleasures out there but not necessarily to their substitutes. Have none of your workers or doctors picked up on that? I've often wondered about that aspect of things. ie: my husband has a very sensitive nose and taste buds and I think even the textures etc. are pleasurable - he obviously gets far more pleasure from eating than I ever did.
I like to drink more for its anaesthetic properties - to stop feeling.
It's very interesting isn't it? From a clinical view - not that it doesn't put you through hell. I wonder if there's any way to mellow - but if it feels so good to you - why would you want to? You need to find something beneficial that makes you feel good. - (Like your nutritious meals which you also seem to love)

Gledwood said...

the worst thing is I'm almost immune to heroin and had a high tolerance from the start, but anything liable to cause hallucinations has a REALLY STRONG effect on me

no idea why!

think i'll stick to boil int bag cooking from now...

Noah said...

anti-Ds just depress me. They had me taking the tricylics, SSRI's and anti-seizure meds for migraines there for awhile and I was just fucking miserable. Opiates are the best anti-Ds out there IMHO and somewhere I read a medical paper on using small amounts of opiates for just that. Here is a PDF document on how buprenorphine effects depression.

Gledwood said...

I think my brain just does not like being perturbed by these things... buprenorphine (when I tried it) made me heartily SICK then came on to me in a huge vivid rush. Suddenly colours were bright, music 10x more intense again I could barely sleep... it settled down within a week but I don't like feeling unsettled like that, in the end I felt I needed Valium to dampen myself down.

Gattina said...

43 £ for a cigarette without smoke ??? Crazy ! When I was 20 everybody smoked and everywhere, even in museums, cinemas, shows courtroom etc. and I have friends they are a lot older than me. I think this cigarette witch hunting is only business ! Stone men already smoked !

Gledwood said...

Yeah ~ I remember getting told off for walking into a shop with smoke coming out of my face... (exhaling)... THEN I thought to myself, see the farcicalness of this, imagine walking about in ancient history smoking like that... it's mad, man! Crazy!!

Unknown said...

Yeah. i ordered two anyway. In the long run, it's still a bit cheaper than cigs in the us, thanks to the great obama, cig tax went up $2 a pack in the last month....

I'll give em a try.

UBERMOUTH said...

You must not forget to remind yourself of all what you have accomplished!
Exercise releases the same dopamines as drugs. Could you not use your addictive personality for good and simply become addicted to something more healthy?

I know that sounds simplistic, and ,except for smoking, I have never been addicted to anything-except Diet coke and chocolate- but the rush from exercise is incredible.

The Bumbles said...

I have a very addictive personality. After 18 years I quit smoking 2 years ago with the good 'old nicotine patch - I liked still having it pulsing through my blood less and less to give my brain time to work through the mental withdrawals. I also joined a gym so I wouldn't get fat eating and drinking too much beer instead. I still drink too much beer but I gotta have one vice - right?

Baino said...

Gleds if you're smoking 40 a day, you seriously need to get some other distractions during the day. I'm a smoker right, but I'd be lucky to smoke 10 or 15 and that's even through the evening . . .get busy man . .take up knitting . .gives you something to do with your hands. (I'm joking but you know what I mean)

Gledwood said...

Fractalmom: $2 a pack! That's extraordinary. They have to claw back those squandered billions somehow...

Ubermouth: I do try and walk everywhere, which does help (a bit)...(>!)

Bumbles: that's a good idea. When I stopped (and I did for 6 months straight, including new year's eve) every time I thought of cigs I reminded myself "cancer, thrombosis, pneumonia, emphesyma"... etc...

Baino: 40 is a bad day now. Really I can do a day on 20 superkings, as long as I break the long ends off and roll them separately...

because I roll my own I don't really count now. I imagine a normal day's somewhere like 25-35...

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Somebody is going to make BIG money on those vciggy-substitutes and it ain't the people who need them! Re the anti-depressants, if you feel you need some , why not ask for a different type? [You don't drink while you're on them, do you?]

sally in norfolk said...

dont you know everything that is good for you costs a fortune to buy....

like umbermouth says the answer is exercise :-)

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