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 01, 2010

Small Town Boy

THIS is one of the best tunes of the 80s, and I'm grizzled enough to remember it first time round... but I never knew what it was called until Gary Crowley played it on the radio just now and namechecked it...

... nobody seems to watch my videos any more. But please, someone, clickonthis and tell me if you remember it and if you like it too...


BRONSKI BEAT: SMALL TOWN BOY

11 comments:

Bimbimbie said...

Jimmy Somerville is a fav of mine not only do I remember it and love it but it's a constant on my playlist
... as is him singing with the Communards.

Gledwood said...

Jimmy Summerville must have been a real leftie: BronSKI Beat, COMMUNards...

I love that kind of synth pop. I just really wish I'd collected more of it in the day

Bimbimbie said...

he has a great voice ...

Jeannie said...

Course I remember that one! Sure brings back memories...wow - a lifetime ago

Gledwood said...

I'm not so keen on the voice... I like the backing a great deal...

Was it a hit in America?... O yeah I remember I looked it up and they said something about that...

Also Bronski-beat has nothing to do with him being a Russian communist ~ the keyboard player was called Steve Bronski or something

but that still doesn't explain why his next band was called the COMMUNARDS

Geoff said...

I've still got the original 12" extended vinyl of the track :-)

Gledwood said...

This is the message I want to drop in Nick's comments but the computer won't let me:

I love that before/after cat thermometer pic... I mean how degrading not to be able to shove it under the tongue/under an armpit like ordinary people... or in the ear like nowadays (what a spoilsport system ~ all those old British films where the patients used to drop the mercury into a cup of tea to get an extra day away from the nagging wife...)

Gledwood said...

(note to self)

Here's a message about guns I'm not sure whether to drop in:
Interestingly there are some scriptures telling the Mosaic law ~ I think that's the phrase ~ somewhere between Exodus and Deuteronomy of what you can and can't do re intruders. I think the law went if someone's in your house uninvited after dark (and in those days of course people completely shut and shuttered their home with all people and even perhaps even animals inside, maybe the dogs were outside, so there was no question of receiving a casual visitor without all sorts of to-do: lighting lamps, unshuttering, unbolting etc)... anyway, if I remember correctly you had every right to bludgeon a midnight intruder; however if it was daylight and if the person was running away not so... So I think the British cases would probably have been OK under that system, but the Texas one would have had to answer in court

I still do a mental "hurrah!" when I think about that one ~ serves the dirty tea-leaf right

do you know for years the police here went unarmed? I remember being on holiday in Malta, marvelling at the armed guard in the bank ~ something you still wouldn't see here...

We have a special fire-arms squad that comes out VERY quickly, even if someone's waving a water-pistol threateningly (& that's been in the news, too)

in a way I'm glad to live in a relatively gun-free society; on the other hand I do think it's ridiculous that someone on their own, male or female, in a remote house should NOT have the right to see off an intruder in no uncertain terms ~ shooting the b*****d if necessary ~ and that's the situation now. Until they clarify the situation nobody really knows how our lettuce-leaf-limp law actually stands!

Gledwood said...

Finally, someone else learning Dutch & lovin' it!!

http://www.newelty.com/2010/04/27/next-stop-dutch-fluency/

Gledwood said...

Note to self:

poesies francaises

http://grismoire.blogspot.com/

Gledwood said...

aBortive comment to anna g
didn't know whether to send it
prattling too much anyway

sorry i 4got to say: yes Gled is my name!

the idea i had involved us meeting in nyc but there is more to it than that

i don't know how that can possibly happen, but it's an idea for some time future

i long to see new york, i have had a thing about the place for years

somehow i don't think i will get to travel until clean

when on earth that will happen, God only knows

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