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!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

A stab at Dutch...

I'VE HAD A GO at writing bestselling fiction in Dutch... Here, for your entertainment is a story about my late hamsters Pandable and Itchy and the never-existed cairn terrier, Sparky:

Deze ochtend lopen de Syrische hamster Pandable en de roborovski dwerghamster Itchy langs de Vondelstraat. Daar voldoen zij aan de cairn terrier Sparky.
"Goede morgen, hoe gaat het met je?" zegt Pandable.
"Zeer goed, dank je," zegt Sparky. "En hoe gaat het met jou, Itchy. Ben je krank?"
"Och ja!" zegt Itchy. Ik heb mijten in de vacht. Ik ga naar de dierenarts. Ik heb een afspraak om tien uur. Ne hoor! Ik moet nu gaan. Het bont is well jeukende!"
"OK, tot ziens," zegt Sparky.
"Tot later," zeggen Itchy en Pandable.


This is what it actually means. It's all in the present tense to be arty. (Not that I'm unable to use the past tenses in Dutch or anything...!)

This morning, Pandable the Syrian hamster and Itchy the roborovski pygmy hamster are trotting down the Vondelstraat (in Amsterdam). There they meet Sparky, the cairn terrier.
"Good morning, how are you?" says Pandable.
"Very well, thank you," says Sparky. "And how are you, Itchy? Are you ill?"
"Oh yes," says Itchy. I have mites in my coat! I am going to the vet's. I have a ten o'clock appointment. Now I must go, my fur is well itchy!"
"OK, see you later," says Sparky.
"Later," say Itchy and Pandable.


I ran it through Google translate, which produced this masterpiece!

This morning walk Pledges Able Syrian hamsters and dwarf hamsters along the Itchy Vondelstraat. Then they meet the cairn terrier Sparky.
"Good morning, how are you?" Able says Gage.
"Very well, thank you," says Sparky. And how are you, Itchy. Are you sick? "
"Oh yes!" Itchy says. I have mites in the fur. I go to the vet. I have an appointment at ten o'clock. Ne hear! I must go now. The fur is well itchy! "
"OK, goodbye," says Sparky.
"Later," said Able Property and itchy.

11 comments:

Baino said...

Wow that's the best translation yet! Usually you run that stuff through and end up with total gobbledygook. Looks like you wrote near perfect Dutch! Well except for Able Property that is! Hahah!

Bimbimbie said...

Grinning at Able Property ... Pandable has a secret life in real estate*!*

Jeannie said...

Cute story. Translated pretty well I think.

Gledwood said...

I think "pand" must mean something in Dutch, though I've not looked up what it might be yet...

I had a look at the online version of the biggest-selling newspaper in Thailand to see what they had to say about the recent unrest and Google's translation came back TERRIBLE! They are far, far better with European languages, even if they do come up with the odd howler!

PS I did write that story myself. I only use Google as a dictionary. If you relied on it to translate entire sentences it would give it to you with words all the wrong way round!

Stacie said...

Hi Gledwood! This is why I don't try to learn another language via the internet. I would most assuredly insult someone with my translations! Thanks for stopping by my blog. I am looking forward to reading yours.

Gattina said...

Google is the best translator ! Each time I want to laugh I put an English test to have it translated into French or German and then I laugh my head off !
BTW C&A's origin was Dutch. The company was founded by brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer in 1841 as a Dutch textile company. Now I read that the headquarters are in Brussels and Düsseldorf !! and they closed down in the UK. (thanks Wikipedia !)

Gattina said...

Sorry, I mean TEXT !

Gledwood said...

Stacie: You might have to plough through mine a bit to get to something interesting, I do tend to go on about the obsession of the week, drop it, then next week I'm on to the next obsession...

Gattina: I've put stuff through German to English for my family and the translations don't seem TOO terrible... It's more Asian languages like Thai and especially Japanese it just cannot seem to deal with and comes out with the most bizarre nonsense ever...

I found it to be a good dictionary if you need a word in European you key in "the dog" "the table" etc and you get the word complete with gender.

I couldn't use it to cheat with the Dutch because it seems not to understand how Dutch sentences invert, the way German ones do. Though my word order was only a guess!

Ilse said...

Hello Gledwood:-)

Yes, i am the sister of Vincent. You've wrote a piece of good dutch on my blog. Well done!

Good luck with youre dutch, you are doing very well.

Greetings from Ilse-)

Syd said...

Good job on that. You are a natural with languages.

Gledwood said...

Ilse: dank je wel!

Syd: Do you know I didn't used to think I was any good at all... this is down to the British system of language acquisition and the accompanying attitude. I hope I'm OK now. I've got a sparkly silver notebook just for NEDERLANDS/Dutch and hopefully it will be full of the most advanced vocabulary lists : about thermonuclaer warhead design and higher Kaddai-Thai/Miao-Yao phonetics (!) before the year's out...
Ha-har!!

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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