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!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Hands Off!

I AM FED UP of being emotionally blackmailed and pushed into drugs group meetings I do not want to go to but attend mostly so it looks good on my record. The reasoning is the same as drug-dealers use: well what else would you be doing? A real disrespect for my own time. Today, my worker rang up pretending to be someone else. I know it was her as she ended with "don't let me down" ~ typical of the coercive language my worker uses when it was I who was supposed to be going for a shiatsu/massage thing, I who'd reap the supposed benefits, I who would only let myself down by nonattending. The appointment (already a missed appointment, which is why I had barely an hour's notice) will go free to a staff member if no "client" is there to pick it up. So it wasn't being wasted if I also failed to show.

How come I have let myself get pushed into this? Maple Syrup (my druggie worker) acts like it's a crime when I don't go (and I haven't been so far). Other times I simply forgot, or couldn't get there on time. She has no respect for the fact that I'm doing other things today, tomorrow, every day. And I'm not telling her what. I don't have to justify myself. So anyway I pushed myself into this appointment thinking it was shiatsu. I really didn't want to go. Turned out it was some kind of massage. The last thing I wanted was somebody grabbing at me. They all think push push push your boundaries down, face fears; you always feel better. I have pushed pushed pushed before; against fear, despair, fatigue. And do you know what happened? I drove myself into a breakdown. I pushed so hard; and I felt so increasingly ill. Something had to give ~ and eventually it did.
So I'm not doing that again, especially when it's mindgames: her pretending to be someone else.
A big drawback to NA is the tradition of hugging thy neighbour at the end. Sometimes I've found this so difficult I've just left early to avoid it... It was the same today: I did not want anybody near me.
I turned up late in a bad mood. Went very reluctantly into the treatment room, then said "sorry I cannot do this" and ran out as fast as I could.

8 comments:

Jeannie said...

It's certainly going to appear like you aren't cooperating. Which probably isn't good. Likely, she thinks of you more as a misbehaving child than an adult. While you don't owe her a play by play accounting of your days, you should confide with her your discomfort and why you lack enthusiasm for the appointments. She is there to try and help you so she's just doing her job. If you appear to only resist her efforts rather than taking part in your own well being, she will lose interest and look to help you less and just go through the motions to fill her quota.

Akelamalu said...

I get the feeling she is just trying to help and encourage you Gleds, though why she would pretend to be someone else I don't know. If you really don't want to go to the meetings etc why don't you just tell her and she can concentrate on someone else?

sally in norfolk said...

I also think she is just trying to help you...although you just wont see it like that :-( if you dont want her help then say so then she can help some one who does want her help :-)

Gledwood said...

Jeannie: I used to be into all that shiatsu and stuff so I'm open to the idea that it can be beneficial and I do want to have it one day. It's just that they phone me with hardly any notice when I'm really not up for going (and in the past have just forgotten and fallen asleep ~ or not been able to make it in quick enough) and I feel I'm blowing chances I don't want to HAVE until later because I'm not ready for them.

Akelamalu: I do want to go to the meetings I am just fed up of being nagged at and treated like it's such a big deal with inquisition why did I DARE not go last week/ etc. It's not the meetings but the manner of persuasion I'm against I spose...

Sally: Actually you have a point in a roundabout way about "help". There's no help she can give except direct me to the meetings, so getting vehement about that, as far as she's concerned, is the only way she can help any "more" if said help's being missed ... maybe(?)

Baino said...

Oh Gleds. Your comment note says 'don't hold back' so I won't. It's hard. Attending meetings, getting motivated, accepting whatever they're offering but they're not doing it for themselves, they're doing it for YOU. Sometimes you have to make the difficult choices, take the hard road. Do you really want to clean up? Doesn't sound like it much these days. Just because you attend doesn't mean you have to hug thy neighbour .. just politely shake their hand and say 'nope, I'm not the huggy type! And just because pushing your boundaries didn't work last time, doesn't mean history will repeat. It's all in your attitude.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Ah Gleds, there speaks a rebellious streak in you. Although I can't imagine why your case manager or whatever would pretend she is someone else, I do believe she has your best interests at heart. Therefore if you do go against her, then yes she will give her time to someone else. Unfortunately, there will probably come a day when you need her services and she's not there for you.

Have you thought she is probably as frustrated as hell in dealing with people who are reluctant to be helped? That is probably why you feel she is pushing you...she probably sees a human being who has something to offer if he would only but realise it.

What do you think? Having said all that, I still wish you all the best, Gleds and hope that "this, too, shall pass."

Janice Seagraves said...

That stuff about pretending to be someone else sounds so juvenile.

Can you tell her you need some notice before she signs you up for another massage or whatever?

Janice~

Gledwood said...

Baino: indeed you CAN do that but they make such a big deal of it ... what an irony when my first "high" was on the "hug drug" "ecstasy"...!

Pussinboots: I don't know why anyone works with druggies like that. It's a near-impossible task with a really really low success rate

Janice: that's it! That's all it is. I would like to be clean and tidy and put my clothes which were half washed in a broken old washing machine through a lauderette first. That's all...

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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