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, May 04, 2010

Fairytale: The Fisherman And His Wife...

I WAS LEAFING through my German Grimms' Fairytales when I suddenly came across this one: The Fisherman And His Wife, in an odd Low German dialect.
So I looked it up, and here's the start of the tale in English...
You can clickonit to get the full text...

BROTHERS GRIMM
The Fisherman and his Wife


There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away deep into the water: and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish. But the fish said, 'Pray let me live! I am not a real fish; I am an enchanted prince: put me in the water again, and let me go!' 'Oh, ho!' said the man, 'you need not make so many words about the matter; I will have nothing to do with a fish that can talk: so swim away, sir, as soon as you please!' Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him on the wave.

When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. 'Did not you ask it for anything?' said the wife, 'we live very wretchedly here, in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug little cottage.'


And it goes on and on... You can read the rest of this text here.

Here's a kiddies' TV version starring Rick Mayall:



Now for some comparative linguistics: here are the opening words in English, Dutch, the Low German original and standard High German which is the official language of Germany today... Apart from English of course, these languages form a dialect-continuum from town-to-town across Northern Europe. At no point does the spoken language suddenly change just because a national frontier has been passed...
Low German is sometimes referred to as Low Saxon and if you look closely you will see how familiar the vocabulary is: Fischer (fisherman) angeld (fished) blanke Water (clear water) deep (deep)... and so on.
Incidentally, the original does not appear to say they lived in a pigsty or a hovel but a PISSPOT!!

The Fisherman and His Wife
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Kidoons quaint online turnypage storybook version...

Once upon a time there were a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a filthy shack near the sea. Every day the fisherman went out fishing, and he fished, and he fished.
Once he was sitting there fishing and looking into the clear water, and he sat, and he sat.
Then his hook went to the bottom, deep down, and when he pulled it out, he had caught a large flounder.


DUTCH:
Van de visser en zijn vrouw
Grimm 019 - Van de visser en zijn vrouw, Piggelmee

Er was eens een visser en z’n vrouw, die zo arm waren, dat ze alleen maar in een pot konden wonen, vlak aan zee. De visser ging elke dag hengelen; en dan hengelde hij en hengelde hij maar.
Zo zat hij ook eens bij zijn hengel en keek steeds in ‘t blanke water, en hij keek en keek.
Daar dook de dobber diep onder, en toen hij ‘m ophaalde, had hij een grote bot.


LOW GERMAN (ORIGINAL TEXT)
Gebrüder Grimm
Von dem Fischer un syner Fru

Dar wöör maal eens en Fischer un syne Fru, de waanden tosamen in'n Pißputt, dicht an der See, un de Fischer güng alle Dage hen un angeld: un he angeld un angeld.
So seet he ook eens by de Angel und seeg jümmer in das blanke Water henin: un he seet un seet.
Do güng de Angel to Grund, deep ünner, un as he se heruphaald, so haald he enen grooten Butt heruut.

STANDARD (HIGH) GERMAN
Gebrüder Grimm
Von dem Fischer und seiner Frau

Es war einmal ein Fischer und seine Frau, die wohnten zusammen in einem alten Pott dicht an der See, und der Fischer ging alle Tage hin und angelte, und er angelte und angelte.
So saß er auch einmal mit seiner Angel und schaute immer in das klare Wasser hinein, und er saß und saß.
Da ging die Angel auf den Grund, tief, tief hinab, und wie er sie heraufholte, da zog er einen großen Butt heraus.

VOM FISCHER UND SEINER FRAU
Radio performance in German



Last part:



PS I've finally found a university course where you can study BA German and translation for the entire length of a 3-year course in Germany, at Gutenberg University, Mainz (which is a beautiful town on the Rhine)...

PPS: news from Germany ~ OAP plunges 15ft down lift shaft in wheelchair x

HERE is Plattdeutsch/Low German being spoken...
Notice how similar it sounds to Dutch and Afrikaans...
I did German for years and years and I can't understand a bloody word of this.




Learn Plattdeutsch online at plattmaster.de ~ lessons in English


HERE's something really hilarious I found ~ and yes it is for real ~ it's the Scottish Parliament's website in the "Scots language" (which looks like dreadfully spelt English to me)... Scots would be the nearest thing we have to Plattdeutsch here in the UK

Scottish Parliament's website in PROPER Scottish ~ ie Gaelic

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

My first time stopping by and am finding your blog very intriguing... I am going to have to back track a bit - bear with me!!

Gledwood said...

;->...

Jeannie said...

interesting- know where the term "angling" for fishing, came from. For that matter - where piss pot came from too.

Gledwood said...

It does seem rather blunt to call a house a "piss-pot" ~ but that's what the text appears to be saying..(!!!)

Gattina said...

Dutch and Plattdütsch are so similar ! when my girlfriend's father came to Brussels he spoke plattdütsch and the flemish speaking people understood him without any problem. That's why I always think that Dutch is a German dialect !

Gledwood said...

I always thought it was a German dialect, but don't tell any Dutch or Phlegmish people that!

Syd said...

I also studied German every year in college and can read it well but the spoken language is still very difficult. I catch a word now and then.

Gledwood said...

Try French: the central dialect sounds like outer Mongolian!

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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