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!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A Brave New World ...

DRUG-FREE and frightening ...


I am making yet another attempt
at living completely heroin-free. I failed before because I didn't know how to do it. Now I have better ideas. For one thing, because I'm miserable without that in my system, no matter how much methadone I take, I came to the conclusion I somehow have to learn to enjoy misery. How on earth I shall manage that I don't know.

I don't want to go on injecting all my life. My veins have run out and unless I want to go in the femoral (crook of the thigh) or jugular (neck) I really have run out of options. Sticking needles in the feet and the veins still blowing is unspeakably horrible. And it makes me feel like a desperate, desperate junkie.

Well I think I passed one test today: as I walked out here I spied a dealer ambulating down the other side of the street. In previous times I'd have called out, coughed up all my money and promised to settle the balance (because I didn't have £10 on me) tomorrow. And I didn't. Of course I was rewinding this over and over my head for the next half hour ... but, y'know... one step at a time ...

PS Tiny trotterdonkeys of the deep... Yesterday's seahorses post now has the videos I omitted to add: see the very end of it.

... But here's perhaps the oddest looking seahorse of them all: the East Asian Dragon Seahorse, filmed here in Singapore Sea Life Centre:



PPS Good luck to all Germans on today's elections. You'll need it...

12 comments:

Jeannie said...

What a wondrous creature!

I don't think you'll learn to enjoy misery BUT perhaps you can learn to reinterpret the feeling into something else. I should listen to myself here.

I once had a terrible toothache - I suspect it was really a sinus infection but it behaved like an abscess. Painkillers were no help. Pain is your body's way of telling you something is wrong. So I told my body I'd got the message thanks and then meditated on the pain. It stopped feeling "painful" although I still felt it if that makes any sense - and I fell asleep. Perhaps your misery is telling you something too. And heroin is not the correct answer because the misery keeps coming back right? You need to search for the right answer. I know you don't have a lot of respect for Maple Syrup but working with her for the right answer might be the only way to go. You may have to meet them halfway - try some things you know won't work just to prove it to them - so they will take you seriously as well. As long as you stonewall them, they'll see you as a shifty uncooperative druggie that doesn't really want to get well. Take all the help you can get. All the best.

Akelamalu said...

I will be rooting for you Gleds, I really hope you succeed. :)

Gledwood said...

JEANNIE: Maple Syrup annoys me because she treats me like I'm 15 not a 37 yr old man... Having said that I partially want to get clean just to get her off my back. And to drop the happy-happy act I put on and she seems entirely taken in by. I want to tell her only a fool would give up heroin and here I am ~ a complete and utter fool. So your work is done, Maple ~ thankyouverymuch!

AKELAMALU: ;->...

Gledwood said...

PS JEANNIE: You know what you said about separating from pain that's still there... that's, incidentally, how opiate painkillers work. Not that I want any opiates anymore ever again ...

Gledwood said...

note to self:
on ddr from zdf television:

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/3/0,1872,7894947,00.html

Baino said...

Baby steps Gleds, you just made a huge one. Keep trying, keep going out without a razoo in your pocket. Thinking of you.

Alice in Wonderland said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Merle said...

Hello Gleds ~~ Congrats on one day clean. Try very hard, it should get easier if you stick to it.. So many
of us are wishing you well, so try for us as well as yourself.Only have to take one day at a time. Saying a prayer for you my friend.
I am glad you liked the joke about the confessional. Take great care Gleds. Cheers and Hugs, Merle.

Gledwood said...

Baino: I don't think I'll be carrying a "razoo" 'cause I ain't got a clue what on earth one is ... thanks for the best wishes tho!

Merle: {;->...

Laura said...

I hope your struggle gets easier.

Syd said...

Gleds, I hope that you succeed. I really do.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Good luck, Gleddy. I believe you can do it. I believe in you.

Love,

SB

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