HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

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!

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Raccoons!

FURRY FRIDAYS ON SATURDAYS.

This is specially for Kat'rina Sweden ...





YOU don't get raccoons over here. They're totally a North American critter. Sometimes I think my hamsters look like raccoons, because of the cute furriness and beady eyes ...



In some ways they're equivalent to our foxes, because they sneak into gardens, root through the trash ... etc. But they're much friendlier and less sly ...



... most of the time! But even when they're peeved they still look cute:



As well as snaffling our food, they love to climb "our" trees ...





... and get in places they're not "supposed" to be ...



Raccoons have a wide, varied and versatile diet, and this brings them into contact with humans. Just like (some) people they like to wash their food before eating it. This is called "dousing":



The raccoon breeding season is in late summer. Females carry their babies all through the winter ... finally giving birth to an average 2 to 5 young in the spring ...





Baby raccoons are tiny ...





... and cute.





And grown-up raccoons do entertaining things sometimes as well ...




Raccoons love catfood. Cats don't always love raccoons:



HAVE A CHEERY WEEKEND, Y'ALL!




23 comments:

Baino said...

They are great aren't they. Not that our American cousins would agree. I once saw a doco, David Attenborough I think about how wiley they are at breaking into things. Love their little burgler's mask.

Cathy said...

Grew up around them, they'd run up the trees and sometimes, if you gave off the "right" air, they'd accept a piece of cheddar from you hand - sometimes swiss lol but watch those teeth, yikes. Another little furry creature you're addicted to eh? You'd never make it as a road-kill guy. It's a common practice in many parts of the USA - w/the way things are slipping downhill, it might be a viable food option. Hope that doesn't make you queasy? :-|

Sweden said...

THANK YOU gledwood!!!!!!! i LOVE LOVE LOVE raccoons, that was so sweet of u to do furry friday with raccoons, here is the raccoon i took care of for a few weeks !!!!!

http://sleepymaniac.blogspot.com/2009/07/theodor-kaczynski.html

just copy/paste url and check out THE cutest raccoon baby ever!!!!
and ps
my moms dog Jake is a "goldipoo" its a mix between golden retreiver and standard poodle, since u asked what breed he was.

loves ya gledwood!!!!!! lol

Jeannie said...

We had a lot of raccoons at our cottage growing up - one continually got in the garbage bin regardless of how my Dad tied it down...he shot it - it was a new mother and you could hear the wee babies crying in a nearby tree.

And an old one chose to die in our yard years ago but I haven't seen any in the city since.

Sweden said...

check out the now famous completely hairless raccoon, she is hanging around near my house in parkdale, soooo weird huh, check out the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdpWlZz2W_4

supposedly she lost all her hair due to some weird disease, and people have been asked to try to rescue her (there is a number to call the wildlife center so they can pick her up) since she will probably not be able to survive the winter without ANY fur!! freaky looking thing.

Puss-in-Boots said...

What an entertaining video. Cheeky little bugger and the cat wasn't quite sure what to do. I loved the look on the cat's face after the first foray by the raccoon. If it could speak, I reckon we'd have heard four letter words...

Gledwood said...

Baino: the swines!

Cathy: o yeah I'd eat a roadkill deer any day. Someone told me how to peel the fur off...

Sweden: you're welcome ;->...

Jeannie: what a horrible story

Sweden: OK I'm checking now

Pussinboots: o yeah! I think the cat quite liked the raccoon bc if it had gone full-on that rac' wouldn't have come anywhere near it

Gledwood said...

ps I don't want to think about dying raccoon babies in a tree. But I can't stop now

Gattina said...

They have such sweet faces. I have only seen once a real racoon in liberty and that was in the States at my aunt's house. Otherwise I have seen them in zoos ! Not so a nice place for them.
Re letter boxes, it all depends where you live, there are a lot of houses where the letter boxes are in the house too. I think it is the same in the UK, because at my friend's house in Eastbourne the letter box is also standing at the end of their garden.

Laura said...

They can be vicious little critters at times. My husband was once chased by one when he was throwing out trash and inadvertently came across him.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Oh, they are pretty! Love that one of a baby on a hand.

molson said...

Raccoons are cute until they break into your house. Then they aren't so fun. I had one get into my roof over my bathroom. That started a war in which I finally prevailed and convinced the raccoon to take up residence elsewhere.

Louise Bowers said...

They are very cute, I'd never seen one that hadn't been made into a coat before.

Janice Seagraves said...

Yeah, their cute until they get into your house and kill your cats. It happen to a friend of mine, my mentor actually. She's still upset about the death of her two babies.

Janice~

NH said...

That's so weird, i just wrote about how mad I was last week when I saw four raccoons almost get hit by my house the other day. They're all over around VT/NH but I love them. They're so smart and crafty.

Akelamalu said...

Cute pictures Gleds, except for the one where it's baring its teeth! LOL

I see you left comments on my post in Welsh - is that yet another language you're learning? :)

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Great post and photos, my dear Gleddy.

Hope your weekend was good.

Love,

SB

Gledwood said...

Gattina: I know what you're saying re letterboxes but (probably until fairly recently) nearly 100% of people have them. I really think it's an imposition having a hole directly into your home anyone can shove anything into... not nice (potentially!)

Hey I heard raccoons are wild or rather ferral in France... and slowly advancing north towards Calais and the Channel Tunnel ... along with those naughty chipmunks!

AnonymousDrifter: really? Their teeth look pretty heavy-duty to me...

Welshcakes: aye!

Molson: do you think it pinged around much inside ..?

LornaLilo: hadn't been made into a coat... UH?!?

Gledwood said...

Janice: KILL CATS?? NO!!

I have to say I looked at that raccoon vs cat and thought ~ well the cat could get that raccoon away if it really wanted to.

I also thought: that racoon could KILL that cat if it really wanted to, too!

So they ARE like foxes then. Foxes will e.g. sneak into a farm and slaughter an entire shedload of 100s of chickens in one night

supposedly in the natural order of things they'd return night after night to eat the rest of their kill... but it still sounds ridiculously excessive to me...

Nellie: aye ~ just like foxes again!!

Akelamalu: no but we had to do it at school. Because I went to 2ndary school in Wales. We all had compulsory Welsh lessons.

But if I'd not bought my own Teach Yourself Living Welsh tome I'd have been totally lost, the lazy way they taught the language over there.

The Welsh teachers, having picked the tongue up from the cradle, had never actually "learned" a language in their lives. Totally unlike our French and German teachers. And the difference really showed in INEPTITUDE!

SarcasticBastard: it was quite pukka, ta; apart from the nightmare I'll post tomorrow ... and yours..?

Bimbimbie said...

Awww you find the cutest fur babies Gleds*!*

WAT said...

Raccoons are cute, but very wild and dangerous, and they can get really really big.

Gledwood said...

Bimbimbie: aye-aye!!

Wat: I've never seen one in real life...

O I have seen a porcupine in India. That was fearsome!!

Vincent said...

Awesome. Beautiful animal! That cat is a bit dumb. But the raccoon is also very smart how he takes the food with his front paws while keeping his head back!

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