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 27, 2009

Desirous of Some Detecting

I WAS IN THE LIBRARY, ABSENTLY leafing through a biography of Queen Victoria when I stumbled across the following screamingly funny passage about the deaf Duke of Wellington at Windsor Castle dinner parties.

Has anyone seen that film The Young Victoria? It's about her romance with Prince Albert. I love a good costume drama but our local multiplex cinema specializes in the sort of bland, loud, slap-bang schlock that just makes me fall asleep and doesn't appear to have screened it at all...

IT COULD BE especially tiresome when the Duke of Wellington was one of the guests since he was so fearfully deaf and shouted so. "Very good looking man," he once bawled in Lady Lyttleton's ear, referring to the Tsar, Nicholas I, who sat immediately opposite and understood English perfectly. "Always was so ~ scarcely altered since I saw him last ~ rather browner ~ no other change ~ very handsome man now. Don't you think so?" Lady Lyttleton felt compelled to shout an answer, "Yes, very handsome indeed." On occasions the Duke would talk "as loud as thunder" about some matter of delicate state importance which should have been mentioned only in Cabinet, and the Queen would blush "over and over" and at last succeed in interrupting him by "screaming out upon some other subject".
Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria A Personal History p144

Now do any of yous know The Number One Ladies Detective Agency novels by Alexander McCall Smith. They're hilariously funny. He's a white man but Zimbabwe-born and educated and purveys his grasp of African English extraordinarily well. BBC World Service Radio turned them into plays and they're now on BBC1 television, Sunday nights.

The following extract is from the one volume I have; it happens to be the very story they're showing this weekend:(decade old disappearance of an American on the edge of the Kalahari and Mama Precious Ramotswe of course cracks the case...)

MR J. L. B. MATEKONI, proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, found it difficult to believe that Mma Ramotswe, the accomplished founder of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, had agreed to marry him. It was at the second time of asking; the first posing of the question, which had required immense courage on his part, had brought forth a refusal ~ gentle, and regretful ~ but a refusal nonetheless. After that, he had assumed that Mma Ramotswe would never remarry; that her brief and disastrous marriage to Note Mokoti, trumpeter and jazz aficionado, had persuaded her that marriage was nothing but a recipe for sorrow and suffering. After all, she was an independent-minded woman, with a business to run, and a comfortable house of her own in Zebra Drive. Why, he wondered, should a woman like that take on a man, when a man could prove to be difficult to manage once vows were exchanged and he had settled himself in her house? No, if he were in Mma Ramotswe's shoes, then he might well decline an offer of marriage, even from somebody as eminently reasonable and respectable as himself.
Tears of the Giraffe, Alexander McCall Smith p1

Illustrations, top down: Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, TV adaptation; old Queen Victoria; young Queen Victoria; Princess Beatrice (the Queen's granddaughter, child of Prince Andrew and Fergie (Duchess of York)(a more than passing resemblance to the young Victoria, don't you think?)); No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency L-R Mma
Makutsi (secretary), Mma Ramotswe (detective) Mr JLB Matekoni (Mma Ramotswe's husband-to-be).

YOUNG VICTORIA trailer
It's directed by Martin Scorsese, by the way...




THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY
It's on HBO in America, by the way...




GOA TRANCE
I was surprised, on my Googling, to learn the "vibe's still alive"...
I "leafed" through loads of footage till settling on this, which has the best soundtrack.

THIS IS ONE VIBED-UP PARTY. JAPANESE GIRLS ON EEEEEEE ARE THE BEST!

To see more trancetasticality, click here...


9 comments:

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

I really enjoyed the Victoria trailer and the "No 1" extract. I like those books but I like the 44 Scotland St ones better. Loved the quote about the Duke of Wellington.

Puss-in-Boots said...

I'm a great fan of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Fabulous stories and so different from the blood and gore one can get in other books (which I also like...James Patterson especially). I also love McCall Smith's Scotland Road books, too.

Ah, the poor old deaf Duke. Yes, it would make conversation hilariously funny...can one imagine Queen Vic screaming anything out. We are not amused...heheh!

Crushed said...

I find it hard to make my mind up on Queen Victoria.
In many ways she was quite a narrow minded woman.

She did, I guess, restore the prestige of the Monarchy, but she owes that perhaps to Disraeli.

Crushed said...

And yes, in your to your query, I did used to bosh to this sort of thing :)

Still have a lot of it on hard drive to compose posts to :)

Gledwood said...

Welshcakes:... but not the Goa trance ~ I don't blame you!!

Pussinboots: yaeh I found the idea of Queen Victoria "screaming out" heartily amusing!!

Crushed: Queen Victoria refused to wear a crown, open parliament or do anything for years on end, which I think is totally out of order. She had a complicit agreement with the people ~ You wear a crown and put yourself on display on certain state occasions and in return you get free houses, jewels, prestige and a living for life. To break that agreement, I think, was totally unforgivable...

Syd said...

That's a good story about Queen Victoria. I can imagine the Czar and what he thought.

Tatyanna (and Dorian too) said...

I think they are making a motion picture about those books too, here in the US..have you heard?

Liz Hinds said...

I love Precious! And the tv adaptation is good.

WAT said...

Holy cow! THE YOUNG VICTORIA! I love period pieces! I CAN'T WAIT 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

Copyright 2011 by Gledwood