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!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A New Project...



... or an old one revisited.

IT CAME TO THE POINT WHERE I JUST WANTED TO CURL UP AND DIE before I reached inside and grabbed a handful of the inner strength. I knew I had it somewhere but it hurt too much to use. (And why bother?)


I know I have been shillyshallying back and forth. I would do this. I would like to do that. I should do something else. And I could do yet another thing. I was looking for a project and finally fixed upon writing the second draft of the book that has been lying in the bottom of a cupboard for months on end. The first draft, let me explain, is so howlingly terrible no self-respecting publisher would light their stove with it, let alone print it.

This is my novel, not the drug-memoirs I also threatened to inflict on the world. The memoirs ground to a halt some time ago when I came up against twin dead weights. 1: I didn't like or enjoy remembering my own life; 2: there's the second quandary of whether/what/how much I say about real people who came into my life. At least fiction gives the freedom of talking in as much detail about anyone you please because the characters are all made up. Anyway the problem with the first version of this book was a major plot flaw. Basically I made something happen to my main character without researching thoroughly enough what this would entail. This time I'm sticking to that maxim "write what you know". I'm not feeling up to doing the job of researcher on top. Writing 100,000 pristine words shall be enough. So wish me luck, I've started already.

Also I cleaned my oven today. I have never used oven cleaner in my life. The chemicals always looked too scary. And why bother cleaning something you barely glimpse inside at the best of times. It's only because it's got so dirty it let off the main fire alarm that I got spurred into £2.50 Mr Muscle action.

Cheery-bye all. It's a miserable, crisp autumn day. What's it like your end?

Heroin in Brunei Darussalam in Asian English

Top: what famous novel do you think this manuscript belongs to?


NEW LINK: Erowid "how to purify street heroin" (I can't vouch for this!)

18 comments:

Gledwood said...

Where is the lake with reeds and trees?

http://sixtyfivewhatnow.blogspot.com/

Shadow said...

cleaned your oven, cleaning up your book. now that's what i consider a good day!

Gledwood said...

The oven needs going over again. I only had plastic bags to protect my hands and was too paranoid to spend too long wiping. So the residue has surely made it ultra-clean by now. Hopefully I won't die of noxious fumes when I turn the eejut thing ON again ...

;->...

DUTA said...

Good Luck with your book!

Gledwood said...

Thank you. Hopefully I won't need it ~!! It'll be so talentedly good and well written and pageturningly gripping and all that shyte international publishers will snap it up for £££multimillions~ hahhar!

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Gleddy,
It's miserable here in Ohio, too. No sun for several days--just gray and windy. It's making me really depressed. I left work early yesterday and went home and took a 3-hour nap. I guess I needed it. I'm much less depressed when the sun is out.

Would you mind cleaning my oven, too? It's overdue.

Love you,

SB

RNSANE said...

Oh, heavens, it is so much nicer to have a self cleaning oven. Don't know whether that is environmentally better, but it comes out spotlessly clean and there are none of those disgusting fumes!

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Not sure how you got there.

Bravo for you on starting over with the book. You're young enough, you should be able to get it finished one of these days.

Today, here at my mother's in GA, rivals monsoon India. I will be happy to touch down in San Francisco early Thursday A.M. I've been away from home almost 17 days, trying to get my 85-year-old mother situated.

Syd said...

It's about 70 F here today with overcast skies. The rain bands from a hurricane in the Gulf are coming this way.

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Bright, sunny and cool in Toronto. Hope you enjoy your writing, you are good at it :)

Akelamalu said...

I clean my ovens every week without fail - it makes it easy work. :)

Nice to hear you have returned to the novel.

Baino said...

You really do vasillate from one project to another Gleds. But I'm glad you've revived the book and yes, write about what you know. As for ovens, cleaned mine for the first time in 4 years a month ago, self-cleaning is an oxymoron in my book. Now I daren't use it for fear of getting it dirty!

molson said...

It's mostly cloudy and 12 C here in the village, but at least it is not raining. Not much to do this time of year except wait for the Holidays to arrive.

NH said...

It looks like the pic of the manuscript says Madame Bovary or something in really tiny letters at the top, maybe. What is it really? It looks interesting.

I hate oven cleaner. I've started using only vinegar, lemon juice and baking soda to clean my house because I'm afraid regular cleaners are going to give me cancer or something. Plus, vinegar is so acidic it practically kills everything.

Gledwood said...

SarcBast: one day I might surprise you turning up on the doorstep Mr Muscle in hand (so to speak)... ps not to be rude, but I can't even picture where Ohio is!

Insane: how on earth does a selfcleaning oven operate? My tin of jollop specifically said don't use on these types... I found your blog by hopping out of someone's I know (can't even remember whose now) and on and on and on through their friends and followers till I came to yours ...

Syd: Sounds much nicer your end than mine though.

Elaine-Reeny: I should be better at fiction than blogging. I actually read back what I've written and try & improve it!

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: every week!??! That's commitment!!

Baino: I know I do. Bear in mind though I'm doing this book on top of the languages stuff with German and Japanese. I figured I cannot afford university. Writing a successful book just MIGHT get me some finances I desperately need and would certainly open doors for me... you never know what's round the next corner. If I think I'm talented I gotta put myself out there and prove it and stop feeling bitter. Because that is how I was starting to feel and it is not my style at all.

I had another project (fictional) "that Jeffrey Archer would kill for" but though I want to do it I feel no spark at all. I'm not up for ploughing through acres of research on TOP of writing a book. That's 2 jobs in 1. I just want to write the bloody thing that's burning inside me. And it is burning. I know the feeling ~ the last draft I finished in 6 weeks and I don't wanna spend v much longer on this one!

Molson: you mean Xmas? That's 6 weeks away!

Nellie: yes it is an original Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Whether he actually wrote in bound books I don't know. I suspect someone bound the MS up after his death. Also how pernicketty, scrawling on 1 side of the paper only and not so much as a smudge on the back!

Talking of vinegar and lemon. Things we're told NOT to use to break down our Afghan heroin for injection. I have about a berzillion sachets of citric acid in a drawer I was going thinking of dissolving 20 or so into half a teacup of boiling water and going over the oven in that. If it can break down nasty brown heroin ~ and I know it can unblock sinks because I've tried! Esp. with bicarb ~ it's like a fizzy dream. It can surely clean my cooker. Next year. As I'm not really that into cleaning at all. I only do it when the situation gets desperate haha!!

;->...

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Gleddy,
You are welcome anytime. Ohio is in Buttfuck, USA. Just kidding. It's in the mid-West. Think corn fields, Gledds. Think corn fields.

Love,

SB

molson said...

In the States we added that extra holiday in November just to kick things off... Thanksgiving. It's only two weeks away.

Gledwood said...

SB: you mean corn on the cob fields? Wow, I've only been ONCE in one of them. Our corn is standing grain. It's a different thing and I never know quite what anyone means now when they say "corn" it's one of those tomato tomayto things

Molson: I have done thanksgiving once!... In Kings Cross, London!

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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