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!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Middle Eastern Chic


I HAVE BEEN very slowly learning some Hebrew (yes on top of Spanish: I'm a sucker for punishment). Slowly being the operative word. I got 4 books from the library: 2 on Biblical; another 2 on modern. The Biblical Hebrew "grammars" (the one from the 1950s claims to be "simplified" ~ well I'd love to see a complicated version. What do they do there? Write the explanations in Arabic??)~~ these are totally impenetrable.

Only by poring over Teach Yourself Modern Hebrew did I eventually get somewhere. I can now read and write the script in both printed and handwritten variants with and without vowel pointings or "vocalizations" as scholarly types like to call them. Though I still make the odd howling error. E.g. mistaking a T for an M or an S. Compare Tet, Mem and Samech on the chart. It took me a week to get the 22 consonants plus a handful of vowel signs (which look so similar I have to take off glasses and peer at them from 2 inches away to read any distinction in the 1950s book, which appears to have deliberately picked the most arcane and confusing font possible, where entire groups of letters look just the same... I have always had a fascination with Near Eastern history and culture, ancient and modern...

& NOW FOR SOME MUSIC...
THIS IS a CLASSIC:
OFRA HAZA: IM NIN ALU
Famous in Israel and surrounding countries for years, this song became an international hit in 1988 after rappers Eric B and Rakim featured a sample on one of their tracks... The video is shot in Petra in Jordan. Ofra Haza died in 2000 of pneumonia, a complication of AIDS...
Im Nin Alu means loosely if the doors are locked ... Originally a Hebrew poem by a 17th century rabbi, some of the words were incorporated in Haza's 1988 hit.

18 comments:

Jeannie said...

Good for you. I intend to get back to the Rosetta Stone Spanish. I'd wanted to learn Hebrew years ago but let it pass.

Gledwood said...

Hebrew is about 10 times harder than Spanish!
BTW with Rosetta Stone do you actually learn to put written sentences together?... Or is it more listen and repeat and learning the spoken language? I know it's on CD roms but don't get exactly how it works...

Akelamalu said...

Gosh you really tax your brain don't you? :)

Laura said...

sheesh, I'm lucky I can speak passable English and that's my mother tongue. You really put your brain to the test!

Gattina said...

Unfortunately they only sold these old fashioned Madonnas (the other one is not the youngest either) but I haven't seen any white Michael in the shop, lol !

ninja said...

I plan to take on Yiddish one day.

Brother Frankie said...

this is a beautiful poem. i have always loved ofra haza. there is a website with the English trans of her work.

(kudo on the hebrew, i skipped it in seminary, had to redo for scripture translation)

Brother Frankie
A Biker for Christ

Melody Lee said...

Hey Gleds, I saw your wasps and have to say it was a lil unerving seeing them so close up. I am NOT a bug kinda girl! I have no issues with reptiles, rodents or anything else I can think of...just most species of insects.Shhh, don't tell anyone ;)
I wish you continued success with your language studies.
I'm fortunate in that I learned to speak both spanish and english when I was a toddler. The spanish has made it possible for me to read and understand french and some italian as well. I tried to learn portuguese from my stepfather but gave up pretty quick. Aside from that I've learned how to say NO! and Stop that! in russian but that was out of necessity haha.
XOXO
~Melody

Cathy said...

How beautiful! I have a special fondness for Hebrew and Arabic because of their relation to calligraphy (in my eyes) and there's so much incredible poetry written by these obscure scribes and Rabbis from centuries old. I've used calligraphy most of my life and it's more than natural now. Wonderful post.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Wow, that's no mean feat, Gleds. Congratulations on your achievement. I'm fascinated by Arab and Jewish history, but I've never thought to learn the language. I've taken the easy way out to learn the Romance languages...

Janice Seagraves said...

Good for you learning yet another language. My sister is picking up Spanish with her frequent trips to Mexico and my daughter is trying to learn Japaneses watching anime in that language.

As for Me being a writer I'm just trying to brush up on English and English grammar my mother tongue, lol.

Janice~

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: my brain would rot otherwise!

Drifter: yeah but you have to!

Gattina: !

Koala: why Yiddish? I can just about follow it because I nearly speak German. They have a funny way of rendering the SCH in words like "Schule" "Schuhe" etc... round S, Shin S, Heh H or something like that...

Frankie: are you a Catholic Priest then?
Wouldn't you have to learn Greek, Latin AND Hebrew to be a priest? Wow that would make my head whirl. And aparently NO-ONE spoke Greek or Latin in the hardcore classical form. Though New Testament Greek and Biblical Hebrew do follow "vernacular" forms that only became arcane with the passing of time...

PS why do people say "Abba" for father when the modern word is "ava". Or is Abba Aramaic?...??

Gledwood said...

Melody: I can swear in a panapoly of tongues too, hahar!!

Cathy: I watched a film by Miramax (well it had their name at the beginning but it seemed to be made in the Middle East) it was in Arabic... called Children of Heaven or something.

I did go to Morocco and before I went was expecting a country full of sand, like a giant beach with square white houses, women dressed head to toe in black and ultra-modern cities full of black glass. There were these things but those countries are so far more cultured than I'd imagined. The food is far better than ours. And fresh tangerine juice ~ wow!

PussInBoots: it is a bit complicated with the vocabulary. It bears no relation at all to anything in English...

Janice: Japanese is the other one I wanna learn. I love the funky writing as much as anything...

Brother Frankie said...

kind gledwood,

i was once a catholic, but like most things in my life, walked away.

after study of the scriptures i have found that the priesthood had ended with Jesus Christ. Him ending the levitical line and fulfilling the "priest forever" after the order of Melchizedek.

we, believers, now have access to God without the need of a priest.

So, i am just a teacher/preacher, like john the baptist. (i wonder if he was an addict? mushrooms maybe?)

I have an extensive library which i use when i am digging into the old writings.

you are correct on the abba thing. there are a lot of ideas as to just why it was translated that way. could be some phonetics, some Arabian, some drunk king james guy (joke)with a quil...

either way, i do enjoy your gift of writing.

Be Blessed,
you are loved

Brother Frankie

Gledwood said...

I need a gift for SOMETHING ~ ha-har!!
Wasn't Melchizadeck symbolic of Jesus Christ... or something? I don't understand all that...

Brother Frankie said...

cool stuff.

alot has been written about Melchizadeck. Some say he was the preincarnate existence of Christ. Technically it would be called a theophany, which is an appearance of God in a physical form.

but you are right, i consider him symbolic or pointing towards, if not Christ Himself.

You are appreciated.

Brother Frankie

Barb@TimeIsShort said...

Hebrew is beautiful. My parents (Angus & Batya) are fluent but they are also founders of
Messianic Israel Alliance

That is a true challenge yet wonderful, at least to me!

Brother Frankie said...

Messianic Israel Alliance is an awesome group, and they know alot about the priesthood and the lineage i was talking about..

okay, ill be quiet now.

(hi aunt b)

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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