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, June 15, 2009

Lost (again)

I WENT TO MY COMPULSORY DRUGS MEETING (if I don't go I get it in the neck off my Hitleresque drugs "worker") and despite the usual happening (a small collection of folks not nearly as long or as sorely addicted to drugs as me ~ even talk of needles leaves them out cold as they tend to cracksmokers and not junkies and so, in this "therapeutic" setting I must constantly check myself for what I say ~ very healthy) I decided to put out (for once again) exactly where I was coming from and how off I felt this past week and how it's called "depression" and comes in waves and comes back back back and predated my drug problem by over 15 years and how the Mental Health Operative seemed to think certain of my experiences denoted "bipolar" disorder rather than straight depression (though I really, in personal actuality, see depression as personal weakness and my more extreme experiences as evidence of spiritual warfare against me. Psychiatry is a religion just like Roman Catholicism with its own sacraments and "holy" grail. And personally I do not believe in it.)

I don't feel too bad when I keep moving. But once I stop, the blankness and meaningless of nonexistence hits me hard to handle...

So now they're on to re-book my missed psychiatric "picking over my open-hinged sinister worm-a-wriggling-strewn brainbox with psychological chopsticks and soy sauce" session that I only heard about the day AFTER it was booked for me.

Like most religions and their pantheons and philosophies, the great gods of Psychiatry are after me to confirm and prove I'm an irredeemable nutter or (as experienced more normally these days) to devalue my current suffering and put it all down to drugs. Even though it all began more than fifteen years before I ever was into heroin. And ten years before I ever smoked a spliff or dropped acid.

In other words all is meaningless.

On Margate Sands
I can connect...
nothing with nothing...


as the poet said.* And that's about all I have to say....

"Cheer"-io folks...

*T S Eliot The Wasteland III "The Fire Sermon" 301 ...


Does anyone know anything about "la lingvo internacia ~ Esperanto~??"
Here's a filmclip, starring William Shatner, speaking in the international dialect ...

9 comments:

Syd said...

T.S. Eliot...great poet. The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock has so many awesome blase lines.

Gledwood said...

4 Quartets for me:

Ash on an old man's sleeve
is all the ash burnt roses leave
...

Akelamalu said...

I'm worried about you Gleds. :(

Jeannie said...

For the sake of the system, run through the mazes and running wheels so you can also receive the benefits you know you need. Persevere in reminding them that the heroin addiction is a symptom, not the cause of your issues. You have been self-medicating for a reason. It's really too bad that you may have been caught up in the wrong solution but you are in their hands now and are asking their help to find the right solution.

You are correct that psychiatry is NOT a science. They are guessing and supposing. Psychiatry has cured no one and has not even helped so very many. Don't give up on yourself.

Baino said...

Depression isn't a weakness, it's a disease like any other so don't be so down on having your brain chopsticked. It might even help! Oh Gleds, you've got some bad attitude there. And I don't believe for a minute you're an irredeemable nutter . . .It can't harm and might actually help!

Puss-in-Boots said...

You sound very like my brother talking, Gleds. In the end though, psychiatry did help him in that he learnt to recognise certain behaviours that would lead to more drug taking and was able to side step them. Cognitive therapy, not a bad thing in itself. However, anything like that is only as good as the practitioner, and there's the rub. How do you tell a good one from a bad one and what do you do if you get a bad one?

Depression is an illness, Gleds, don't be fooled. It's very real and can have devastating consequences on the sufferers and their families. There's no shame nowadays in saying one is depressed as it is a recognised condition and a lot can be done to help the depressive personality, if they allow it.

Good luck with your therapy, Gleds.

Janice Seagraves said...

Bipolar is the flavor of the month in Psychiatric circles.

My sister after surviving chemo, leukemia and a drug they forced on her because they caught her crying, went to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed bipolar.

My daughter's friend was a cutter, once again diagnosed bipolar.

So you are too.

If I went that's what they'd tell me, I'm sure.

Janice~

Anonymous said...

here's how you speak esperanto:

http://www.esperanto-usa.org/posters/Affixes.pdf

WAT said...

Depression is not personal weakness buddy! U HANG IN THERE! STAY STRONG! Thinking of you here across the pond. I too suffer from bouts of it and my existence in this strange world/dimension, no one has it figured out, so do not feel alone. We're all f*cked in one way or another. Who is truly well-rounded?! It's baloney!

ESPERANTO is not the international dialect. Everyone knows it's English baby! LOL!

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