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!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Drunk counselling session

COUNSELLING, COUNSELLING, PSYCH-IN... TOTAL PSYCH-OUT, I have appointments coming out of my ears. Yesterday I was in such a tizz. "Tizz" is a nice way of putting it. All I wanted was to take a fat hit of gear, jump out of a 50th floor window. Or stay by myself staring at the wall. Actually TALKING about anything was not on my agenda. But I HAD to go to a pure counselling appointment ~~ not a druggieservice appointment but a counselling centre one, where the format is 50 blank minutes, unstructured, with the counsellor staring across and I so much could not handle this. Did not want to go. Missed the last one because did not want to go. Thought "I'm just wasting your time here. We should call this off." Didn't want to let the counsellor down, who I knew was coming in just to see me. So I turned up "reeking of drink". Laughing, Crying. I wasn't that drunk (I mean, 2 hours later I was stone cold sober.) I was only laughing out of nerves and a penchant for self-mockery. Somehow whenever anything bad happens to me, part of me finds it hilarious, no matter how bad it is or was. I don't know why. The counsellor tells me that these years of drugs have made me remote from myself. I'm constantly switching my emotions off. Like other people on heroin (and methadone only perpetuates the state at a lesser intensity) "the lights are on but no-one's home". This is the state of heroin intoxication addicts crave. Many of us have probably witnessed this on the bus. Someone gets on obviously out of it. Sits down, barely conscious ("the lights are on ~ no-one's home"), jolting and swaying to the motion of the vehicle. But because the lights are on, and burning bright, a smackhead ~ as opposed to a drunk ~ is highly unlikely to fall off the seat, trip over or crash into something on the way home. Weird.
Anyway the counsellor said "I cannot work with someone who is pickled with alcohol" so sent me home early (I was so glad).
I don't want to give up on the counselling because it is a link with normality. And thought therapy-speak does annoy me, I am able to tolerate it. For example, the notion that emotional pain is somehow self-inflicted or wallowed in and thus easily escapable to one who sufficiently desires escape. So I said "what about someone swathed in bandages with horrific burns in a hospital bed, can that person convince themself to stop hurting?" "No, because that's not emotional that's physical." So I said "but emotional mechanisms are as real as physical ones..." blah blah blah, we went on from there.
I had two huge chunks of counselling in the past. 3-&-a-half years of it, at least... so how far down I can dig in just 12 more weeks, I'm not sure...
I had about 18 months or two years of "person centred" (ie crap) in my early 20s. Two-and-a-half years of "psychodynamic" (ie deep) in my mid 20s. The bookings were supposed to be limited to 24 months only at this place as it was staffed by qualified volunteers, working pro-bono. But I was such a mess I got this 6-month extension. The latter counsellor, who was spot-on and very bright kept saying "I think you need more help than I can give you" meaning seeing a sinister psychiatrist. I was totally against the idea.
Then I turned into a raving smackhead. Now I'm here. Nearly 40 and no hope left. What a wondrous journey life has been!!

8 comments:

Syd said...

But hasn't this life been your choice? I mean there are other options. Like showing up tipsy at the therapy session--that's sabotaging the whole thing, right? Anyway, I hope that there will be a good life for you.

Here is a blog that might give you some hope: http://thewarondrugs1.blogspot.com/

molson said...

Ah keep on journeying Gledwood. There's always plenty of time to drop dead so there's no rush. Don't get too down on yourself either. I pretty much f*ck up a free lunch everyday, and I don't have any excuses.

Gledwood said...

Syd: the point is, I really really did not want to go and only turned up so the counsellor hadn't wasted time getting there. That was all. I was not in any mood to talk to anyone, especially someone asking how I am... y'know

AS for choice, yes trying drugs at all was obviously a choice, as was continuing to "try" them... but full-tilt addiction is no choice, it is just automatic to score... use... etc... go on scoring, using... etc that is no choice, that is instinct. That's why I mean the only choice is NOT to do that and to stop

Molson: I quite often wish I'd fucking died years ago

Liz Hinds said...

I've had therapy and always feel guilty because I'm not really on their wavelength.

I think you could probably do a better job of analysing yourself.

Gledwood said...

SB thank you

Liz probably I could. I have DISTINCTLY mixed feelings about counselling... what's that old saying? Less said soonest mended? Aye!!

Akelamalu said...

There wasn't really any point in you going to the counselling session was there if you were so set against it? Will you get another chance, or don't you want one?

Baino said...

You do make me angry sometimes. You have this opportunity to help yourself then just wreck it. I don't qualify for free counselling, take advantage of the services that are offered to you. Then if there's no will, there's no way. You're clearly an intelligent man but you shoot yourself in the foot all the time!

Gledwood said...

Akelamalu: I will get another chance and on thinking of it thought I will give it a go properly. I just have VERY mixed feelings about counselling ~~ whether it is at all healthy ~~ e.g. research has shown that trauma victims e.g. post 9/11 actually heal FASTER without counselling... less said soonest mended. I am not at all convinced that talking talking talking about things you might NOT WANT TO DISCUSS is the best way and I really was NOT in the mood for being probed at that day. AT ALL. I only went so as not to let down the counsellor, who had come in just for me. Otherwise I would never have bothered turning up, y'know...

Baino: But I'm not sure counselling is even good. Sometimes I feel it is like taking an open wound and poking at it... or picking at a scab that is trying to heal, again and again, and wondering why years later you are still not healed, still in pain... Woody Allen, in my opinion, is the walking advertisement that shows too much therapy does not necessarily get you anywhere except deeper into self-obsession and self-justification!!

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