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!

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Flapper is back!


FEATHERY FRIDAY ON SATURDAY...

It started with a faint coo at 05:18 hours, when I thought I was dreaming. But he's definitely back. Yes! Flapper's back up the cherry-tree and has been advertising his presence with loud coo-cooing all morning!

Whatever he's been up to (and he really did disappear yesterday) I have no idea of knowing. But he's cooing away so much I'm sure he's trying to tell me...

Forget German... French... Double-Dutch. Perhaps I should be learning to speak Pigeon!

21 comments:

Jeannie said...

There's a pigeon - probably more than one - but it loves to sit on my neighbor's roof and coo but it's just annoying. At the dollar store yesterday, I found these wonderful little puff pastry cups that would be perfect to hold a poultry stew.

sally in norfolk said...

Glad he is back safe :-)

Gledwood said...

It's 18:21 hrs and he's cooing as we speak!

Arjan said...

hehe..you'd might like to call it a 'pidgeon language' *sorry..the linguist in me couldn't leave this unused*

I've been away from your blog for too long, bookmarks disappeared..and it's hard to remember the entire damn list. I'll be popping in now and then again :)

WAT said...

He's a cute dorky looking bird indeed.

Stacy said...

this comment isn't pigeon related, but i wanted to tell you that i think spherical is one of the best pet names i have ever heard!

jmb said...

Hey there Gleds. Do you find this bird endearing or annoying or a bit of both?

I was reading some of your back posts since I haven't been here for a while and admiring your writing. You do have that gift and I hope someday you can get your life sorted out so you can really put it to good use.

Good luck with your challenges.

Gledwood said...

ARJAN: long time no hear, I no I dropped by your place again when I saw your comment at a friend of a friend's (can't remember where though)... haven't you done all those exams yet? This summer ~ surely??

WAT: yeah they do look a bit gawky. Maybe that has something to do with the white pigeon being used as the international symbol for peace. They wouldn't look too cool packing a AK47s!!

STACY: thank you. Spherical was very happy with her name (so I believe)

JMB: you're right, the constant cooing is starting to get at me a bit. They are NOT the same as ordinary pigeons. That coo-coo is a distinctive sound of high summer days... Flapper has taken up position on the TV aerial about 10 houses down, so I only hear him when I go down the shop now..*!*

Yeah I would love to get paid to write... if only!

Arjan said...

@Gledwood: probably at Nicole (mobile)'sm :)
I only have to finish my Bachelor thesis..and then finally holidays.

Gledwood said...

You're at Uni now?
What are you doing? An American-style Liberal Arts degree, where you choose the major after enrolling? Or a British-style BA or BSc Hons... in what? All those languages you're studying? Surely Hungarian is difficult enough?... What else was it? Spanish? Did you say you're doing German? Wir koennten uns schreiben auf Deutsch? Is that right? We could write to one another in German? My German is so furchtbar, I wouldn't know...

Arjan said...

yup (even worse..it's 8pm, and really still physically at Uni..). I think at the moment it's more like the American styled BA..you enroll and you can mix and match a Major and Minor.
But when I started they just started up the more simple Bachelor Masters system (3 years BA, 1 to 2 years MA, depending on which kind of MA you enrolled in).

I'm studying Communication Information Sciences in The Netherlands. Basically everything from pr & marketing to language and communication advice.

So no Hungarian, just Dutch and an optional foreign language. I know my way around English and German and I know some very basic French but that's about it.

If I remember correctly you knew some Dutch didn't you?

Arjan said...

And your German wasn't bad, I don't think there was any error if you avoided the umlaut.

Gledwood said...

Toch wel een beetje, ne hoor!
Ik heb nu een reactie bij uw blog geplaceerd!
Deze waar het reactie:

Hi Arjan, thanks for the comments you left at mine today... why did i think you were Hugarian and still at school when you bent NEDERLANDER ~ ik weet niet!!
Maar ik lerne een beetje Nederlands toe praaten. Dat sprek it maar niet lekker. Mijn Nederlands is pijnlijk!
So are you studying a BSc in computer engineering...? Is that it? Please let me know I am retarted and I'm sorry for thinking you're from Hungaria. I DO know someone of old from Hungaria, but his name is Ropi, not Arjan and Ropi never lived in a tent at some music festival seemingly for weeks on end about 3 summers ago...


You did live in a tent at some music festival, right? Was it in Denmark? Was it Dance Valley? It was somewhere Teutonic, I am sure of that...

O well I got the "sciences" bit right in the title... does this mean you can go out and become a high flying manager now (or v soon)?

I once met someone who was a "technical author", this meant he was a writer of instruction manuals.

I think a company like Hitachi left him with a brand new VCR for a week with the most elementary instructions. It was up to him to get the thing working, plus to write a booklet in plain English explaining how it worked!!

You got any idea what you wanna do once you get tipped into the big wide world, post degree~~??

Don't worry at the time it's only 7:15pm here...

Wij konnten onz op Duits schrijven, maar mijn Duits is echt tragiek!!

(Does that make any sense??)

Gledwood said...

Umlaute!
Umlaute sind nicht meine starke Seite!
Besonders u-umlaut!
Zum Englischsprechender macht das fast kein Unterschied; wir haben kein "ue" ... och! Doch! In Schische Aussprache, sagt man "ue" und nicht "u"... das ist mal wahr...

Syd said...

Glad he is back. Have a good weekend.

Gledwood said...

Cooo!!

Baino said...

put some seed out and he'll stay!

Bimbimbie said...

Glad he's back in his tree.
About those African starlings, I'm wondering if they are the same bird I saw in large flocks in Paris. I'll have to look back over my photos*!*

Gledwood said...

Yeah I think I might start feeding Flapper. I still find myself saving crumbe/etc for the roborovskis... now I know who to save up for... thank you!!

I wonder whether starlings are just feathery gypsies, or whether they actually fly between two points, north and south and live in the same places for months on end?

Whenever I notice them they appear to be in enormous flocks that only stay a few days before they're off...

Sweden said...

i wonder what pigeon taste like, is it like chicken and if so why don't we eat pigeons more? i mean they are all over the place, throw a few bread crumbs out on the side walk, wait, get a net to catch them, and dinner time.

Gledwood said...

I think the Queen eats pigeon. On TV I hear chefs talking about stuff being "gamey" ... grouse, pheasant... also cooing wood piegons are all game. There was a butcher by my old house selling "brace" of pheasants, which means a pair. They were always covered in feathers rather than nude, due to some obscure law...

No I've never had it either, but I'd prefer wood to street. Rather have pigeons scented with the delicate aromas of cherries, pine cones and fruits of the forest than ones that survive on KFC twizzler meals, chocolate bagels and McDonalds cast-offs!!

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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