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, June 12, 2009

New (old) Trainers!

WILL these posts starting with almost exactly the same sentence never cease?? Yesterday I found new trainers (sneakers if you prefer) by a bin where I used to meet my old dealer. They weren't as nice as the one illustrated (I would luuurve a pair of runningshoes like that).

I'm not ordinarily one to go through trash or other people's skips ~ unless I see something I particularly like. Last week, by somebody's gate along my road, I found an enormous bag full of crockery, saucepans, ashtrays, mugs and plates. What I particularly liked was one plate made of glass (I love transparent things) and another two and a mug made out of that enamelled metal (in white with blue highlighting) ~ the type you'd take on a 1950s caravanning holiday...



So America has analogue television no more! Across the entire nation, so I hear, old-stylee signals have switched off, leaving apparently two million or more Americans who can't afford digiboxes in the televisual dark.

Britain is in the midst of a characteristically longwinded tv-switchover. Digital terrestrial is broadcast just about everywhere, so in London you get about 40 channels through an ordinary aerial. At least two thirds of households are said to get tv in this manner already. The Rupert Murdoch controlled Sky satellite system has more than 10,000,000 subscribers (just over one household in three) offering 200 channels+; cable (now run nationwide by Richard Branson's Virgin group), which ironically has more "bandwidth" actually offers fewer channels ~ so no wonder they get less than half as many subscribers as Sky. Cable's biggest advantage is that finally, at long, long last they offer video-on-demand and the TV broadcasters' catch-up services direct to the TV which otherwise you'd have to watch online. After ridiculous delay, the BBC finally unveiled a satellite service ~ Freesat HD ~ to rival Murdoch's Sky. This one beams 150 channels subscription-free ~ again outdoing Virgin cable in quantity at least.

Once analogue transmissions are closed down we should have room for 200 channels free via the rooftop aerial. But knowing how crap modern Britain is, I'm sure this won't happen...

I would love to get one of these multichannel services but Sky, the best one, demands access to a telephone landline, which costs £10 a month on top of the £20 a month subscription fee for all the channels except movies and sports. For them you pay about £20 more ~ not cheap. I'm afraid if I did have all this I'd do nothing but watch tv. I was also interested in going to a specialist satellite shop and getting a dish for German and French TV. Lots of immigrants get Turkish, Arabic, Polish etc telly on giant dishes. As far as I know you can get this set up for not much more than £100 ~ though knowing my luck just as it was done my evil landlord would want to move me on yet again ..!

Anyway I'll get German telly when I move to Berlin/Vienna ...

Pickles galore - Whiskey Galore ~ this is a famous classic Britflick about a ship running aground off the Scottish islands ~ a massive cargo of whiskey washes up on the beach ...



Bananarama: it ain't what you do (it's the way that you do it)...
A classic tune used in adverts all the time...

9 comments:

Jeannie said...

Funny you should post this just now - my son just wrangled a deal to get a better cable package including HD bundled with various phone services. They come to install it today - I'll have cable in my room - so much for never watching tv.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Gleddy,
I have cable now. All I do is watch TV. I can record the programmes and watch them when I want. I love it!

Liz Hinds said...

Oh I know just the sort of enamle mug you mean! Old men use them to keep their teeth in.

WE have a digibox and freeview and about 25 channels but there's never anything good on!! I much prefer digital radio espcially bbc7. Now that's worth getting.

Zen Wizard said...

I lost my TV privileges with the Crash of 2008.

Of course the Crash of 2008 was all my fault. (That is not a joke; it was really partly my fault...)

Anyway I hear digital TV is lovely. Not at all a conspiracy by the cable giants to FORCE everyone to pay $40 per month instead of just getting rabbit ears at a junk yard and watching the dreck for free...

Baino said...

WE have a hard rubbish collection twice a year where you can put pretty much anything out on the pavement and they pick it up. You'd be surprised how small the pile is after people have rummaged through it. Another man's trash and all that . . .we're switching to digital too. By 2010 they say. We've got the arial but no set top box or digi TV. And I have cable but it's not connected to the TV (that's what you get when your brother is an electrician . . nothin')

molson said...

I'm thinking of ditching my cable cause I'm running out of stimulus. I picked up one of those fancy converter boxes using one of those $40 govment rebate thingys. That's all I'm getting for a bailout. I'm keeping the internets though. Gots to have my internets. Hey what's up with all that dumpster treasure you been finding lately? Baby corn! I'd be all over that. Baby corn's the next best thing to toast and I eat toast everyday. I crap you negative.

Bimbimbie said...

Bananarama *!* ... have to admit to liking their background pub music style of songs ... Shy Boy and Really saying something come quickly to my mind.

Gledwood said...

o shit ~ out of time again. i have to reply on sunday/monday

Vincent said...

Oh, I thought maybe you found a satellite dish ;-)

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