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, February 23, 2010

Takeaway

I SPLURGED OUT on Chinese takeaway last night. Chicken ~ satay sauce ~ mixed vegetable fried rice. I felt awfully indulgent spending the 80p extra ~ £3 on the paltry amount of demoralized veg they throw in against £2.20 on "egg fried" rice, but I was in a liberal mood so I splashed out anyway. And didn't even curse myself for missing half of EastEnders in the process..!

The whole thing cost me £7.

How times change! I used to buy chicken curry ~ egg fried rice for £3 back in 1992!

That was just about the only nutrition I ever ate in those days, when white bread and jam was what I considered a tasty meal and our sinister landlord never deigned to fix our unworkable oven the entire 12 months we were in there. 2 students and me, the depressed university drop-out who was so unemployable I got turned down for CLOAK ROOM ATTENDANT jobs~!!

1992 feels almost like yesterday in so many ways... that year was the heartland of hardcore "rave", a scene that I liked, but was never really part of. I didn't have the right friends, liked the euphoriant drugs, but was far too depressed ~ clinically so: dragging myself back and forth between psychiatrists' and counsellors' appointments, spending all day doing not very much, and never making seminars (we didn't have lectures ~ a passive form of education like that would have far appealed to me the miserable state I was in...)

What I remember most about that time is absolutely hating being alone. My head was about as comfortable a place to live as a roofless burned-out house with boarded windows, no electricity and only rats and mildew for company. So I paid these visits on poor, unfortunate other students who must have cursed the day they made my acquaintance. This was student residences, so visiting unannounced wasn't quite the social faux pas it becomes in later years. Certain rooms attracted a nightly crowd of TV watchers/music listeners/spliffsmokers anyhow. And I sat there. And most of the time had nothing at all to say. Nothing. No confidence. No shared interests. No attraction or attractiveness. Why on earth I didn't just jump in front of a train back then and put everyone out of their misery I do not know... O yes I do. Because I was in Norwich, which is at the end of the line. How very symbolic!

I had a semi-fixation with heroin even back then, though I didn't take it and certainly wasn't fool enough or desperate enough to hang around the roughest areas of town to get ripped off.

Heroin's main appeal to me was those government "Heroin Screws You Up" posters which portrayed alienated youthful angst and said: Do you feel like this? Then heroin's for you! This is widely dubbed the biggest backfiring ad campain in UK history. I mean, I'm not alone in my experience.

The second appeal of heroin was the taboo. I kind of semi fell in with a crowd who thought they were awfully hardcore and clever to be experimenting left, right and centre with every new dance pill that came out, various lines of powders ... even ~ ooh! cocaine ~ which was ever so glamorous and forbidden. But if you so much as even mentioned smack, all this open-mindedness closed off. Which made the drug appeal to me even more. So in a way it wasn't peer pressure, but peer antipressure that turned me in the opiate direction. Though I never found myself near any such "scene" for several years after this university student disaster experience of mine...

Thirdly I knew heroin could kill me ~ and that heroin is a painkiller that makes you "high". Nobody could explain this high in a satisfactory way (which piqued yet more curiosity)... but I did recognize that heroin overdose was a painless "easy" death. In fact the first time I ever tried to score I was intent on killing myself, so I gave someone I knew could get heroin (I had met a "connexion" by that time) £50 and said get me as much as you can, fully intending to snort the whole lot and hopefully never open my eyes again. When he gave my money back saying he couldn't get it I was gutted and instead tried zonking myself out on sleeping pills and drink and drowning myself in the bath, fully clothed and weighed down with bricks and as many layers of clothes as I could fit on. But I woke up freezing cold and floating many hours later. Yet another failure.

All in all, re those only days, when I so hated feeling as I did I was prepared to take acid and have a horrible trip than feel dull and depressed as I was, I am glad in a way I never did find heroin. Because if I had, I am sure without any doubt that I wouldn't be alive and posting this now.

I was so sad the other night I googled some old "rave" anthems on my phone. This was one of the nights I was awake all night... and felt incredibly old (the music is now called "old skool") and saw how crap most of those parties actually were. (You had to be on drugs to survive one...!)

Anyway. How Chinese takeaway got me on to all this I do not know, but I have to go. It's pissing it down outside, the most gormless of days. Grey skies, drizzle and damp.

PS if you think a three-headed skull-tongue man is a "symbolic" not literal experience, you've never dropped acid!

BODYSNATCH: JUST 4U LONDON
This one sounded transcendently beautiful at 4am on lots of "E"...




"MDMA: a drug so strong makes white men think they can dance ~ no wonder it's illegal":

It's not just the "cool moves" that are so appauling here... its' the thought that these people are in or nearly in their 40s today..!



URBAN SHAKEDOWN: SOME JUSTICE
(why on earth it was called that I've no idea ~ those words are nowhere to be heard in this track...)
"We live as one family" ~ ie "we are all together on E, E, E!!" ...
MDMA/Ecstasy is famous for the transcendent feelings of "empathy and togetherness" it engenders (as well as flying euphoria and irresistible urge to dance) ~ This is what the rave scene was all about. Worst of all, some of us BELIEVED in them..!!! Not so much the druggie stuff but what seemed to be "behind" it all. What utter utter crap.

10 comments:

Liz Hinds said...

No, I'm definitely not giving up the internet for Lent - I'm being thankful instead. Was it the AB of C who suggested it?

We're just watching the dvds of The Tudors all about the dissolution of the monasteries etc. Well, mostly Henry bonking but aside from that. It made me wonder: if Henry VIIIth had had a son by Katherine of Aragon would he have married so many times - and more importantly, would we still be living in a Catholic country?

We have a lot to be thankful to him for. But he was rather unpleasant at times.

Syd said...

Chinese is good on occasion. I love it in fact but just don't eat it that often. Tai is also great.

Reading about why you got into heroin is interesting but certainly sad. I understand the feeling apart from and the loneliness. But I am thankful that I never did heroin.

molson said...

7 quid for some Chinese takeout seems pricey.

Rave music isn't very good at all. I guess one needs to be on E to enjoy it. I would have failed miserably at the whole rave scene.

Bimbimbie said...

Hi Gleds ... I've had the computer switched off for the past couple of weeks, February has had me feeling all flat and unmotivated to blog.

It's good to have a splurge every now and then and if it's for a meal so much the better ... sorry you are feeling down right now, hopefully the dr will get your medication sorted for you, the long winter season wouldn't be helping either.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

I am very glad you are still here, Gleddy.

Sending love,

SB

Laura said...

I remember back in the 80's a friend tried to compel me to take acid. During that period I had tried pot and hash - pot sucked (made me aggressive for some reason), hash on the other hand made me feel pretty good. Anyway, I couldn't be convinced to try acid. I had heard a story about someone who had taken a trip and never came out of it (not sure if that was true). That was enough to scare the shit out of me. Now I'm just a benzo junkie.

Gledwood said...

%-/...

Drug Treatment said...

Very well written and explained. I agree with you. There is no doubt that heroin is announced illegal. Nice pics also shared. Definitely a worth article to create awareness on heroin addiction.

J said...

I know exactly what you mean about the anti peer pressure... the phobia around needles just made it more tempting for me to shoot v. do anything else. I have actually considered intentional overdosing on h many times. Even when everything sucks, im grateful to be alive; im grateful you're alive too.

as for electronic music: long live dubstep!

and your bit about acid made me literally bust out laughing. It's all in the experience :)

Pin Monkey said...

Cool blog. I remember those raving days and your story sounds a lot like mine except I have managed to keep it together for a long time.

Getting of the psych meds was the best thing I ever did and I haven't suffered serious depression since stopping. Doctors hand those things out way too easily in my opinion.

Anyway check out my blog you might like it:

http://powderandpins.blogspot.com

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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