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, May 29, 2009

My House Is Worth A Million Dollars!

I JUST FOUND OUT THIS today glancing in an estate agent's window. Houses like the one I live in part of are apparently deceptively large with several "reception rooms" and more bedrooms. Asking price: just under £700,000.

(NB: It's a bit posher than the "property" illustrated...)

Which reminds me, my one remaining hamster, Spherical Roborovski (I call her "Spherical" but actually she was the only one of three with an ordinary robo-body; the other two were "runts" which probably accounts for why they died early...)

Anyway: Spherical is now lady of her own manor with a luxurious 2-storey nest comprising several interlinked cardboard rooms with doors cut out by me. With Pompidou Centre style toilet tubes linking the exterior. Very swish for a Mongolian Pygmy Hamster ...

Having lost my Gothic German Bible for several days inside a duvet (don't ask ~ I don't know) my Biblical German is coming on in leaps and bounds. Some of the words seem far more expressive in German than English. E.g. what do you think a "winestick" and an "oil tree" are? I'm also fluent in Biblical vocabulary and can now say Slave/Servant, Righteous, Faithful, Whore, Wrathful, Revelation, Tribulation, Temple, Priest, Angel, Vision, Unclean, Prophet, Apostle, Disciple ... etc etc.

The word for Revelation by the way (Offenbarung) means literally "open-baring". See what I mean about expressive.

Anyhow I must dash. This stingy internet caff only rents out by the half hour and I am soon to be "terminated"...

PS: Yes ~ my Lutherian Bible has pages exactly like the one shown. No wonder it took me over a month to get used to the swirly Gothic typeface...

13 comments:

Syd said...

Hey, I can read some of it. And I took German years ago. Take care of Spherical. Will you get more hamsters?

Gledwood said...

Someone asked whether I might get a companion for S, but I was told they are only guaranteed to get on if they've shared a nest since babyhood...

It's those Gothic capital letters - on every single noun that make reading "olden" German so very difficult. & up till the end of WWII EVERY SINGLE book published in German was printed like that!!

Jeannie said...

Winestick? a rod?

oil tree? olive tree?

Baino said...

Well at least you're getting a broad education. I love the typeface rather than the words. Glad Sperical isn't feeling lonely! They're beautiful houses, looks like Wilsden Green where my daughter stayed last year.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Reading German, eh? I wouldn't like to try reading the typeface, though, beautiful as it is. It's too hard on the eyes.

Poor little Spherical...she must be lonely without her stable mates. Unless she's a murderer and you don't know it!

That's a beautiful residence, but think of all the cleaning...no thanks!

Gledwood said...

Jeannie: yes an oiltree is indeed an olive tree! A "winestick" is a vine ...

Baino: yes it is just like there ... the houses are quite a bit bigger than they appear from outside ... apparently our garden is really nice because I know someone who's looked it up on Google Earth. But I've never seen it ...

Pussinboots: I don't THINK Spherical's a murderer. She was always top peck, being tubbiest. Itchy was most fractious ~ starting fights when she was on heat. Which was every 4 days according to the books, but the fights were far far less frequent...

If I had a big house I'd get in an old lady called Olive or Marge or do the rounds in rubber gloves with the radio blaring... or just let it get dirty ..(!)

It's most aristocratic to have a house full of dusty rooms (though the small suite used every day should be pretty pristine, methinks) ;->...

Akelamalu said...

May Spherical live long and prosper! :)

Bimbimbie said...

You should try some of those biblical German words out next time you have problems at the council office ;)

kellylebelly said...

Hiya,

That 'swirly' typeface is classified as 'Black letter'

See links for more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackletter

They come in various fonts. Blackletter is just the category the fall under.
These are the fonts available from different foundries:
Font shophttp://www.fontshop.com/fonts/category/blackletter/

Fonts.comhttp://www.fonts.com/aboutfonts/articles/fontinfo/04-01-2005.htm

Linotypehttp://www.linotype.com/2221/blackletterfonts.html?PHPSESSID=85e4a0e8d97e53e1d937d989f818d939

From a calligraphers angle:
http://www.black-letter.co.uk/catalog/

-----------------

For more typography links worth visiting, here are a couple:

http://www.typographer.org/index.html

http://ilovetypography.com/

xx Kelly xx

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: thank you I hope she does so too. She's showing no sign of slowing down yet...

Bimbimbie: aye!~ I might that!!

Kelly: thanks for all that. I think the specific style of Gothic blackletter was called Fraktur but it has unfortunate associations with the Nazi past. Perhaps because that's when it was last used. But it was actually the Nazi party who modernized the script, insisting mass publications should be printed in ordinary Roman font. They believed the blackletter typeface ~ barely legible to the rest of Europe ~ would be a hindrance when the 3rd Reich was running and in charge of the entire continent of Europe...

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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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