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, October 02, 2009

Sad


I STARTED READING THROUGH various university prospectuses re: language studies and wish I hadn't done it because now I feel this longing building up and I don't trust myself ever to apply and successfully complete any university course. Ever.

The one that got me the most was Cambridge (why apply anywhere crap?). Two stipulations I have about a course in German are that 1: the department should also teach Dutch. Because if you speak French, German and Dutch you an almighty swathe of Europe becomes "yours". Dutch is very similar to German so learning it is a process of conversion rather than discovery anew... The last place I studied didn't even offer Dutch (though they specialized in Scandinavian languages ~ more people speak Dutch than ALL Scandinavian languages together!) And Oxford, by the way doesn't do Dutch. And point 2: they MUST give details of modules or "papers" and reading lists in advance. Which Cambridge do, and perusing down them only increased this sad longing. And Cambridge is such a beautiful town (much nicer than Oxford). In the end I just wanted to cry.

I'm going to leave it there before I have a pathetic breakdown ...

Illustrated: King's College Cambridge (the one with the most spectacular buildings). Cambridge University is split into 20 or so colleges peppered about the town (ie there is no "campus" as such). And as you can see it's a gorgeous place ...

PS: talking of SAD, someone at my old house, what I now look back on as a bourgeois paradise, the house I first moved to in London, once remarked how bizarre it should be that I, by far the most "academic" person in the house, should be just about the ONLY one there without a degree ...

9 comments:

molson said...

Hey Gledwood, you should check out MIT's open courseware site. You might be able to find some language courses. Best of all it's free as long as you can access it over the internets and you don't have to register. Might not be as academic as sitting in a giant lecture hall, but you can't beat free. Here's the link.

MIT Open Courseware

Syd said...

Gleds, what is holding you back from applying and taking the course? I do believe that if I want something bad enough, I can find a way. I hope that you will pursue it.

Bimbimbie said...

Gleds I agree with the two previous comments - if the need is strong you'll try another area of learning, and if it's free, how much better is that? Go on give it a look see at the very least.

Baino said...

Sorry mini rant here but you're so frustrating. You're not even past the gate and you're already setting impossible conditions on even attempting a course. What does it matter where you study. Learn German . . learn Dutch . . together or separately. You'll never do it if you keep putting these divisive 'conditions' on centres of learning. Sounds like you're making excuses when you should be making a commitment! You make me so cross sometimes. Having said that, an online course is a great idea because you do it at your own pace and the credentials are just as admirable as if you attended the college itself.

Lesley said...

I study with the Open University and love it. Their materials are excellent, there's lots of help and support, and you can mix with people at turorials and Summer Schools if you want to. Take a look at their website. Type 'Open University' into google and it will come up.

Gledwood said...

MOLSON: I will try that

SYD: funding. I've defaulted on my student loans, used up about half the grant I'm entled to. I could only do it as I see by winning lots of money or writing begging letters to the great and good and setting up an educational trust in my own name. (Which I would do if I thought I was going...)

JEANNIE: same stuff as did my head in 1st time round ..!!

BIMBIMBIE: I will bc I have to get some "skills" for life/careers etc.

The university thing came up bc I thought "how do I qualify as a translator?"... it seems the only "obvious" way to do it ...

... then again I WOULD really like to go Cambridge...

BAINO: I was trying to keep the post short. I didn't have time or energy to explain exactly why I said those conditions but they have a v real meaning. 1. I applied and got onto and started TWO undergraduate courses in the past and dropped out of both. So I would NOT apply unless 100% sure I could and would stay the course. Re reading lists etc ~ most universities for some unknown reason keep these to their chests like State Secrets. The exact details of the course make a HUGE difference. Uni degrees are by no means the same. E.g. Cambridge does loads of translation work INTO English which I'm good at. The 1st (languages) degree course I went on did NOTHING in that line. As for Dutch, once you're there the itch can strike you to do a subsid' language and if I think Dutch would be that I'd be an idiot to apply somewhere that didn't even offer it ~ surely?

And re Cambridge, I wished I'd applied there straight from school. As it turned out my grades were all lower than they'd ask for. But being "old" now I can get round that by showing how much I've improved even since then and I have just in a month got better reading comprehension than I ever had in the past ...

LESLIE:

Gattina said...

Learn Dutch ??? what will you do with that ? Besides in Holland and a little part of Belgium nobody speaks dutch, as you say it sounds like a German dialect and that's true because in Northern Germany at the sea they speak a similar language. Now all dutch people speak English and if I go to Amsterdam even in Restaurants the menu card is written in English, because they are so intelligent to recognize that with only dutch they don't go far !

Baino said...

Hi Gleds. Well have a go then but It will still cost you I'm sure! Unless you qualify for some sort of grant. Not sure what the set up is there but here, you don't start paying back your student loan until your salary hits $38,000 pa. And if they have reading lists, I'm sure if you spoke to one of the course admins they'd tell you what they were - sometimes Uni's don't know themselves until just before the Semester starts. Sorry I told you off but I just call things as I see them. I wish you luck, really . . go for it!

Changedit said...

Dutch is actually not that similar to German, nor is Danish ... although the pastries in all three countries are similarly delicious. But go on, Gleddie ... apply for it. You can do it, I know you can!!!! Fishy xxxx

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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