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!

Monday, February 01, 2010

Baby Croc

THIS IS JUST ABOUT how I felt when I woke up this morning! Crocky and vicious and horrible. I woke at around 4:30 am feeling like death, thinking of nothing but death and wishing I was dead, or at least dead to the world. What a miserable time to awaken, and it was deathly cold as well.

Well instead of committing suicide (if I was going to do that I'd have accomplished it years ago) I had a black coffee (early Monday a.m. ~ absolute dog end of the week ~ didn't even have pennies for a pint of milk until 9:05 when the post office finally coughed up)... so meanwhile I went back to my book and scribbled another couple of pages. The further I diverge from my original first draft, the more cheerily I can write it. I hate writing with an old draft in mind, especially if here and there choice phrases pop up ~ that might not even be relevant to the new edition ~ but because they're witty, incisive, well-put or moving I feel I have to somehow include them. And that's stressful. I like to write off the top of my head. Fluently and "effortlessly". Thankfully, because I'm writing PROPER (that is "pop") fiction and not "literary" crap I can just talk as I talk and hopefully make my points flowingly and naturally. As I'm sure I said before: I'd far rather write a novel people hide away from houseguests and read alone at night than sells by the cartload than one that wins prizes and gets left on coffee tables to impress friends but is never read and enjoyed. You'd be surprised how many books are bought for just that reason!

When I lived (and begged) in a bourgeois area of London, I had a snazzy collection of proof copies of some of the best popular fiction (Harlan coben/etc). These are books distributed to those oh-so-clever folks who fart into beanbags and dream of writing novels of their own. Because they're literarily-minded and have the right connexions they write instead for the books columns in Sunday newspapers etc and dump the unwanted tomes by the score at charity shop doors... which is how I got my hands on them.

Re my computer search I've been trawling reviews till I've notebooks, laptops, tablets, monitors and wireless interfaces spewing out of my ears. I got Computer Active magazine and PC Piddlypop (ie I can't remember what it's called and I would say very informative but actually I've picked up most of the tips they espouse already... so I hope I'm doing well... Finally, I think I've learned the basics ~ how many gigs RAM I need (at least 3), minimum hard drive capacity (at least 250 "gigs" as they say, though a gig to me would be a theatre saying "you're so fascinating we will pay you to sit onstage in a blue velvet armchair under a spotlight reading the London telephone directory" ~ THAT is a gig. But it's also, of course, a gigabyte... Right, anyhow... Yeah.. dual core is good because it means your machine does 2 things at once. It can't be too tiny ~ as I say, I spent ages learning to touch type so the keyboard must be standard size and the screen readable, which means 11.6" absolute minimum... people don't use "floppy" disk drives any more... which was news to me a year ago ~ yes, that is how out of touch I really was. I need a flashdrive memory stick, because obviously you can't keep just one copy, you need backup. And blah and blah and blah... I go to the pc megastore this afternoon, so please wish me luck...

Have a great day everyone!

6 comments:

Laura said...

Nothing sucks more than being awake at 4:30 am. Well, except for not having cream or milk for your coffee. Or not having Nicorette Gum when you're a nicotine addict, or losing copious amounts of hair and no doctor seems to give a crap, or being on so many meds you almost have to carry them in a suitcase with wheels, or ... hmmm, I guess a lot of things suck haha

Sarcastic Bastard said...

You have a great day, too, Gledds. I hope you can get a nap or something. Boy, could I use one!

Love you.

SB

Akelamalu said...

Good luck at the PC store Gleds. :)

Syd said...

I hope that you get a good one Gleds. Good luck with it.

J said...

Gleds! I may be in london this month.

Good luck with your PC hunt! My computer isnt dual core, but QUAD core- look for something with an Atom, i5, or i7 processor if you can!! And good luck!!!

Gledwood said...

Quad core, J?!? Never heard of that. PC world, Currys and Argos (the big 3 for electronics in the UK ~ are you American? Most people are American. You come from Chicago, right?

And to everybody else ~ well I gotta go back. Too much info!

Losing HAIR Laura?? I lost hair twice in my life. 1st time I was a child and it was falling out. Second time I literally ripped it out. It never regrew and haircutters to this day say "did you ever have a ponytail? You must have pulled it too tight." No. I tore my own hair out. And talking of hair a friend of mine is in a mental unit as we speak, having torn out practically every hair on her head. She has to wear a hat. Poor cow. I hope she gets well soon. I want to write her a card/letter but don't know what to say...

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