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, July 17, 2009

Japanese Hornets!

A TERRIFYING (NON-FURRY) FRIDAY POST:

ALSO KNOWN as the Asian giant hornet Vespa mandarinia, these are the largest wasps on earth:



A fully-grown worker is 2 inches or 5cm long. That's the size (or at least length) of a roborovski hamster like Spherical!



This isn't Spherical but a "roborowski" hamster from Germany shown for comparative scale:



As well as cartoon terrordrome faces these wasps are among the most aggressive in the world. They are known for systematically attacking domestic beehives. 100 hornets can kill 20,000 honeybees in an hour, ripping their heads off with their powerful jaws:



As you can see, they are far bigger than honeybees. In fact the bees' only defence is to mob the hornets in large clumps. These cause the wasps' armour-like bodies to overheat, and this kills them:



Japanese hornets' stingers are said to be half an inch or 1.25cm long and is a "modified ovopositor" (egg-laying device). Venom from these huge wasps contains an enzyme powerful enough to dissolve human flesh. The stinger seen here belongs to an ordinary garden wasp, what the Americans call a "yellowjacket":



Unlike wasps or "yellowjackets" who live on caterpillars and insects through early summer then go sugar-crazy in early autumn, these giant hornets feed exclusively on caterpillars, bee grubs and grown insects great and small (including preying mantis). Unable to digest these themselves, the adults feed these to the hornet babies who possess a digestive enzyme that breaks down the food ~ which they feed mouth-to-mouth back to their older aunties, the worker hornets.



Giant Asian hornets live in underground colonies weighing half a tonne or more (far too heavy to hang down from a tree!) The workers can fly thirty miles (fifty kilometres) without a break. Every year in Japan seventy people die from their stings, usually by blundering into these mega-hornet-cities utterly unawares. Worldwide, wasps kill more people per year than all poisonous snakes combined.



14 comments:

Jeannie said...

Glad they aren't here!

Laura said...

All I can say is holy f***! I feel weak just watching this.

Akelamalu said...

YUK! Some years ago I developed a lump on my calf which got infected and I ended up with a 1/2 inch hole in my leg which had to be packed for 3 months - the doctors at the hospital said it was caused by a hornet! Nasty buggers! I still have the scar.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Very interesting post, Gleddy.

Much love,

SB

Smack Happy said...

Wow, Gleds - you come up with the coolest, most interesting stuff!!

Hope you're having an awesome summer.

Baino said...

Bit different to the usual Furry Friday! I thought we had big ass hornets out here but that's a winner!

Sweden said...

i want to throw up reading that YUCKY

Gledwood said...

Lovely, aren't they!!

Gledwood said...

ps doesn't that hornets' nest look just like the entrance to hell...

Gledwood said...

pps It's "differently politically incorrect" to say this... but wouldn't it be fun to dress in a space suit with industrial strength full-on "dance of death"-stylee cockroach spray at that "entrance to hell"... har har HAR!!

Syd said...

I'm not a hornet fan. I remember the Japanese hornets when I was a child. I didn't like getting stung.

Gledwood said...

you got stung by a Japanese hornet... yikes!

Janice Seagraves said...

I have a natural immunity to wasp and bee stings, but I wouldn't want to be stung by one of those.

Yikes, they are huge!

Janice~

Gledwood said...

what do you mean by immunity? you don't swell up?
i got stung by a normal wasp once, didn't swell either.
hey perhaps that means I'd be good at bee-keeping...

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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