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 22, 2010

IT WAS 5AM when I first thought of writing this... somehow an hour has flown by. I am dipping Turkish chockie biccies (Ülker Biskrem Duo ~ they have chocolate creme inside) in hot tea while the birds tweetle and chirp like crazy in the trees outside. On my road just now I saw a giant tubby pigeon. It flapped away the second it saw me. I don't know much about pigeons but there seem to be three types round here: gutter street pigeons (equivalent to me, a gutter street junkie); posh loft pigeons (equivalent to The Queen) these are kept by owners with whistles who race them or do whatever pigeon fanciers do... and finally, the type I just saw, which appears to be a different type, with white sash round the neck. These are wild birds of exquisite rareness. The supermodels of the pigeon world ~ Linda Evangelista or Naomi Campbell. And all I could think as I trotted down the street, chocolate biscuits in hand and spotted it was "that would make a nice pie!" (I must've been hungry.)

I have found the German equivalent to Coronation Street! (A lower-class soap opera. British soap is always working class. I wanted to make a new soap, a kind of modern Dallas-Dynasty combined set in London-Paris-New York (well you'd only need to shoot a few minutes of exteriors per season, most could be improvised in a studio garden anywhere). It would star an ageing Larry Hagman as evil patriarchal billionaire with Joan Collins as his bitchy matriarchal billionaire wife. Roger Moore would come in as Joan Collins's luurve interest. I would do all I could to get Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Sean Connery, Lauren Baccal and the Hollywood old guard to put in guest appearances. The younger generations are all classless so I'd get some dogsbody to cast them. I would ensure that an international cast of actors with followings across the most important television markets of the world got parts, to boost foreign sales and ratings.

The German soap is called Lindenstraße, "Lime Street". Launched in 1985, it was the first ever German soap opera and was modelled on Coronation Street. I would say it is more similar in spirit to the British daytime soaps about doctors surgeries, or Australian soap, than British prime time TV (and this goes out 18:50 hours Sunday on Das Erste ~ which would put it up pretty much against the dreadful Larkrise to Candleford ~ a truly awful piece of British costume drama. I also had an idea for a costume drama soap, but trust me, it would be nothing like Larkrise! More Anna Karenina ~ all aristocrats and ballgowns, laudanum parties and duels. Not chatteringly dullard middle classes. Anyway, the episode I chose to watch on Flashplayer was called Schnee ~ "Snow". I thought "how lovely, a German winter wonderland on TV"... little did I realize the "snow" in question comes in little white lines for application straight up the nose! Of course when I realized it was drugs I was riveted. A butch lesbian dealer had an argument with her femme girl who has a motorbike helmet haircut. If I were her I'd worry about my hairstyle first and sort out the druggie girlfriend later, but that's TV for you.

My Mum has cancer. It came back. I saw her Thursday. I could see she was ill. I went out and bought a gram of heroin after that. My counsellor says I have to talk to my mother. She also says I see heroin as my Saviour. (How did the counsellor know that?!) But now the heroin has less appeal. I can't say why, but it does, and I say that sober. Usually junkies only want to be clean when they are high. Bring them down to earth and all they want is more drugs to get back up to la-la land, where they can look down and convince themselves they want to clean up yet again (but not now: "tomorrow") and on and on the cycle rolls. Eventually they give up on giving up and accept "I am an addict. I am powerless over my addiction, so I will simply go on using". Then they realize addicts DO have a choice and the choice is to STOP. (Using isn't a choice, using drugs is automatic to a drug-addict) ... eventually they might come to a place like NA where they say "I am powerless over my addiction, so I surrendered to a power greater than myself"... This is the mysterious "higher power" these 12-step groups talk about which "restores us to sanity"... I believe only God can save me now. But God would not be interested in someone who loves heroin more than him. (What a Catch 22!) My higher power is God Almighty. For me, no other power is high enough or powerful enough!

As things are, I have left it with the clinic that I'm not interested in reducing my methadone dose any more. That I would rather go on as I am and use several times each week and let nothing change.

I didn't tell the druggieworker this, but I thought, having such a great track record at breaking every resolution and promise I've ever made since Heroin Addiction, perhaps if I promise mediocrity and inaction ~ I might break THAT one too, and all for the best!!

... And you wonder why a mere AVERAGE length of heroin addiction is 14 years..?!


View Lindenstraße

PS I THINK the pigeons I keep seeing are WOOD PIGEONS ... they make the famous coo-coo you hear on hot summer days that is not a cuckoo... (they are musical cuckoos)

ILLUSTRATED: "DOUBLE UOGLOBE" is heroin from Burma's Northern Shan State; other pictures refer to Heroin Assisted Treatment, a scheme which might well have got me off drugs long ago ~ and would certainly have severed my connexions with dealers... but as it is ~ miserable methadone or street heroin. Or go through hell trying to stop (probably to use again at the first opportunity ~ let's be frank). What fine choices!

Results of Dutch supervised trial
of injectable heroin hydrochloride or smokeable heroin base (for "chasing the dragon" though I have never heard ANYBODY except a journalist use that expression ~ most people either say chasing, or when they get old and can't be bothered to sound cool just call it smoking. Smoking or injecting.

www.opioids.com/heroin/holland.html

11 comments:

Jeannie said...

I don't follow any soaps. Although House is getting kind of soapish. I think Coronation Street airs over here but probably ancient episodes. As for the other shows - no.

I know nothing about drugs. My kids buy my weed for me. They think at my age I should be a weed snob so they take care of it. What do I know? In any event, I don't use much anyway as being high is somewhat of a nuisance when you have things to do, nice as it is to feel less pain. So it goes a long long way.

It's strange that there are always new people getting addicted - not just to heroin and other drugs but smoking, drinking - whatever - when the dangers are well known. What a strange species people are. I wonder if other species are just as messed up. Certainly there are dogs and such that get screwed up because of people but I wonder about wild animals.

You seem quite fed up with your addiction. I wonder, if circumstances were right for you, if that attitude could one day result in going clean. Are there rehabs available? I just wonder if you were helped over that hump if you could beat it and not bother going back.

Gledwood said...

The reason people get addicted is they're stupid enough to even try drugs or ciggies. Somehow the human brain tells them they can experience the highs, yet pull away before the lows kick in, that addicts have somehow been weak. The reason they are addicted is because they have brains with receptor sites and they are human. That's how addiction works, it ain't weakness (I finally realize). I got addicted to nicotine through hash-smoking. Here, everyone rolls joints with tobacco, I heard in America this is not necessarily the case, I don't know if that's true...

I don't have much track record with rehab, having run out the door TWICE, within 3 days of getting there (ie as soon as the detox started to bite).

Having said that I appeared to be a unique case in both places, having voluntarily put myself in there, not as a jail-swerve, or because I was threatened with losing kids or family... everyone else had ulterior motives or "extrinsic motivation"... I really thought I was ready but I wasn't at all.

I still think if they could sort out the ridiculous 1-size-fits-all prescribing policy in this country I might have got injectable something that would have at least kept me away from dealers and put me in a controlled framework. I know what I'm like. If I had a script I actually wanted/liked I would stick to it like glue. As it is, this nasty drinking methadone is just a very very distant second to proper heroin and something I put up with. If I had money I'd be in private treatment like a shot

Gattina said...

Before learning to love god and the world, learn first to love yourself, that's the first step and honnestly it's so easy to take drugs because your mother is so sick, at least you had an excuse ! One can help you, but you have to cooperate ! I used to drink when something went wrong, first a little then more and more now I don't drink anymore at all since 6 years ! and I am very happy about it.
BTW I don't like these soap operas and I have never watched that Lindenstrasse !

Baino said...

I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry about your mum. She seems to be the one constant in your life so it's tough to deal with. I'm trying to give up smoking and it's so bloody hard I can't imagine what you're going through.

Puss-in-Boots said...

Oh Gleds, I'm so sorry to hear about your mum. Is there anything that can be done...chemo, radiotherapy, surgery? Although those are pretty awful, too... Please keep us updated, if it's not too hard.

I just hope that you do manage to kick the heroin one day...it could quite possibly happen and I really look forward to seeing that post.

You and your mum will be in my thoughts.

Hugs

e said...

Dear Gledwood,

I lost my mum to cancer almost twelve years ago and it was a very hard time that I survived with the help of friends and a sponsor. I hope you have a support system. You and your mother will be in my thoughts as well.

Syd said...

I'm sorry to hear about your mother. I hope that you will take care of yourself. I am sure that your mother will want you to be with her.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

I'm sorry to hear this news about your mother. I will continue to keep a good thought for her.

You are loved.

Bimbimbie said...

Gleds, I'm really sorry about your mum's news.

Gledwood said...

note to self, my half-done comments from 240610
ELA: Hello darling; I DID answer the name question the answer's there; if you want it again don't worry I'll dig out the link/just tell you

Hallo liebe FRAZISKA: wie geht's? Ich freu mich, das du meine Kommentare so viel magst. Ich habe gehoert, dass "in Europa" (aussen was die Franzoesischen nennen "le monde anglo-saxon") gibts kein Unterkultur, wo man ueber die Abhaengigkiet redest...

Hi GATTINA, yeah the ordinary expression in English would be that you're sweating like a pig; I say swine bc it alliterates and is thus more entertaining
The poor dog is a bit better today I'll post an update later.
Poor little trotterdonkey

ANGELINA: Danke schoen! Ich bin okay, der Hund ist okay...

INGE:

MINA: hi! How come you are so comfortable writing in English? . I don't think I could ever write German quickly and get it right (or even half right). I wold constantly get nouns the wrong sex and fail to get things to agree with each other...

IRMI: wie ich sagte, ich werde bald ein Deutschen Blog oeffnen, dann wird es ganz verstaendlich.
Ich fand es interresant, dass man in Englisch nicht so bequem ist. Hier hoert man so oft den Ausspruch "sie sprechen alle Englisch" ~ offensichtlich ist das nicht wahr!

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Ich bein ein wassermelon.

It's the only German I know. Sorry.

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