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!

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Fire Chaos


NO FIRE ~ but a great deal of chaos.

I slammed in
a pair of Morrison's own quarter pounder beefburgers in the middle shelf under high heat fan oven-grill combi with drip-tray to catch the slimy expectorations.

Within three minutes so much smoke was seeping from the sides of the door you'd think my own secret Bonfire Night was smouldering away in there. A minute later, predictably, the smoke alarm went off, but I was ready underneath with a broomhandle to poke it quiet.

This technique was successful for a while, but five minutes and a couple more pokes later so much smoke was pouring into the room that the alarm in the hall went off to earsplitting, lights flashing, bellringing psychotronic hullabaloo. Basically my "fire" had set the house's compulsory Health & Safety state-of-the-art alarm system into the biggest techno-tizz I've ever experienced.

I nearly fell down the stairs trying to get the control box to quell this unearthly commotion. Even then it took two minutes of random key-stabbing till I eventually hit on the right sequence of key-turning and button-pressing to restore peace and sanity.

Thankfully all my housemates seemed to be out ~ or hiding behind their doors.

I barely had time for ten seconds' leaning against the front door panting with exhaustion and to clamber up the stairs to try and air the intractable grey fumes via my tiny casement windows. The oven was off and extractor hood on full blast already. And a woman blaring in Japanese about her trip to London. I always try to combine cookery with education when possible.

But I'd barely a second to notice any of this when the main alarm was off again ~ like a sonic drill to both ears. I charged downstairs. Key-turn. Press press press. The red light signifying a blaze in "zone two" vanished. Peace again.

I had barely got upstairs when the alarm went off yet again. By this time I was panicking that the neighbours ~ or worse the alarm box itself ~ would send the emergency services piling round.

Back upstairs I wiped by glasses, convinced the fog I witnessed everywhere was down to burger-greasy lenses. But no amount of spectacle-buffing would clear it.

The terrible racket went off again and again and again. By the fifth time I knew the silencing procedure by heart. But the control box was mains-powered with battery backup. There was no way of just switching the whole thing off until the smoke cleared. And with my tiny windows (the big ones painted shut long ago ~ thanks landlord) this was going to take a long, long time. I was on the verge of despair.

The cause of all the trouble, so it transpired, was a red-glowing water-filter-shaped gizmo I hadn't even noticed before on the ceiling by my door ~ quite separate from and independent of the poke-outable smoke detector in the next room. No amount of determined broom action would silence this baby.

Eventually with a prayer to God our ridiculously over-zealous alarm system did chill out and shut up for good but not before my nerves were totally frazzled.

No smoke without fire?!?
Not on your nellie!


All that and my burgers were still only half cooked through ~ I had to finish them off in a frying pan!

AND HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND..??!!?!

10 comments:

Jeannie said...

I always just fry hamburgers indoors.

Puss-in-Boots said...

I have a very sensitive smoke alarm and in the winter when all the doors and windows are shut, it goes off with monotonous regularity. So then I turn the ceiling fans on, open doors and windows so that by the time the alarm has stopped its ruckus, I'm freezing cold and whatever I'm cooking may as well have been in the freezer!

I sympathise with you and your fire alarm exercise~!

molson said...

Who knew smoking meat could be so troublesome?

Gledwood said...

JEANNIE: + there's something wrong with my oven + it needs thorough cleaning; otherwise it wouldn't smoke so ridiculously much.

PUSS-IN-BOOTS: I wish I had a ceiling fan! And I wish professionally installed fire alarms had a "poke some sense into it" button!

MOLSON: more trouble than it's worth, that's certainly for sure. Now I'm sticking to my traditional method of carbonizing them in a frying pan.

Only there's never frying instructions on the packet. Something to do with a govt-controlled anticholesterol ban "thang" ...

molson said...

Throw a little water in the pan, not too much, and put a lid on it and steam cook your meat. No sticking or burning that way. Works for me.

Baino said...

Haha . . I used to occasionally set the alarm off at work and I know the ear piercing sound, used to get me quite frazzled! Very unnerving

Liz Hinds said...

I'm sorry, gledwood, but you made me laugh!

I could just picture you running up and down stairs!

Syd said...

It sounds like bedlam. I don't like those shrill alarm noises. Glad that you got it shut off eventually.

Gledwood said...

MOLSON: steamcook BEEFBURGERS??!? Surely not!!

BAINO: it was dreadful. And this was a metallic drilled to the wall high security thing I'd have got evicted for smashing up. Not just a £5.99 smoke alarm...

LIZ: har har.

SYD: not before I died 1000 deaths inside!!

Bose said...

I have enjoyed every bit of it.
Sample cv

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