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!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Surely I Can't...

...PUT UP ANOTHER POSTING titled "marathon sleep" ~ but that's what I did last night.

I went to bed last night absolutely frazzled. Too exhausted to look at the TV screen, things were swimming in front of my eyes. I felt too blurry for words.

So I slept right through from 9pm to 9am. Still too exhausted. Slept another two hours 10am to midday. Then I had to get up. Didn't want to preserve the sacredness of sleep.

I missed Ugly Betty to retire early last night ~ so I must've been exhausted.

Though people ~ and even some doctors ~ say you "shouldn't sleep too much" ~ I feel far better for it.

I suppose I'm going to have to go for this multivirus test ~ HIV/AIDS (don't think it's that); Hep B (already immunized); Hep C (have the symptoms, but then have had such symptoms for years and the last test showed negative) and syphilis (don't have the symptoms).

So I don't know. My druggieworker wants me to go through this test but I'm unenthusiastic about doing it via someone I know even though she assures me it's not "in my name" ~ that's still not proper confidentiality. And even if I did have hep C no way on earth am I having liver biopsies ~ or even worse interferon combination therapy. No way!¬

PS My blog's taking so long to load I've temporarily shortened page length to three days at a time. You just need to click "older" and so on if you do want to Scroll Down ...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

didn't want to "preserve" the sacredness of sleep ... or disrupt it?

Jeannie said...

I would dearly love to get a couple night's sleep like that. But I wake up too early.

Akelamalu said...

I feel like s**t if I have too much sleep - I don't think too much is good for you. I hope the sleep is not symtomatic of something serious.

My Daughter's Addiction said...

I hope your okay..
Could it be allergies? I feel extremely tired if I breath lots of dust. Like going into an old bookstore, attic, basement, dusting or using a vacuum. I develop the "sluggies" for the next couple of days. I even feel as though I'm running a slight fever. Doctor says its allergy related.

Syd said...

I need to get more sleep also. But for some reason I've become a nighthawk.

Gledwood said...

Anon: yes I got it wrong. Really I didn't want to disrupt the sacredness of sleep.

Jeannie: wish I could wake up too early for once. But feeling OK

Akelamalu: I don't know why but I felt like I'd been out raving all weekend or something like that. And I hadn't. Just been living my boring life. And felt that frazzled... why??

MDA: o no allergies ~ hadn't even thought of that

Syd: I used to work nights. I'm a night person so the cream of my life was stolen from me and all I could do was sleep ALL DAY till I had to get up... just to work again

nasty business

Baino said...

Half your luck. I'm a five hour a night sleeper. Just can't do it captn. Why would you need to be tested for syphellis for heaven's sakes. Just do it and then you have peace of mind. Isn't too much sleep a sign of depression? Are you using this week?

Cathy said...

Just a note Gled: most blogs that load slowly are "graphic intense" and that's the cause - images, not text. So you slept to your satisfaction eh? Wonderful!! It's a semi-guilty pleasure, yes? Technically it's impossible to get "too much sleep" the guy that made that up was someone's boss waiting for someone to punch a clock.

Cathy said...

Note: Hep C is tricky, you can have symptoms (or not) but test negative, then positive, then negative again. It's in the nature of this virus. My brother went thru the interferon treatment and got his health back, and even remembering that fatigue he'd do it again - actually what choice do you have? Get the biopsy Gled, just do it so you know. Labs can't always give you a definitive answer. OR: You can ignore it

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