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!

Monday, June 07, 2010

A flock of pigeons, Evil Mr Fox



Just a feathery fantasy. They aren't actually doing this. Just perching on opposite terraced roofs and aerials coo-coo-cooooooing unendingly!

YES, my pair of pigeons appears gradually to be forming a flock. I'm pretty sure we now have three if not four of the portly pigeons gathered on my road. No hot pigeon pash though. No paired-off coo-banter. It's like one of those 1950s dances: boys one side, girls the other. Nobody daring to be the first to hit the floor ...


Other points: here is a really good feel-good blog post.
Statistically X people love you in the world... x people rely on you... you are unique and valuable...



HORROR IN HACKNEY THIS SATURDAY!!

A not-so-fantastic Mr Fox
~ sneaked from a back garden, through French windows, into the dining room of a "posh £1,000,000 house" in innercity Hackney, North-East London, padded silently upstairs and savaged twin toddling little girls so badly they are still in hospital today covered in bites and lacerations to face and arms.

A "humane" fox-trapping cage, baited with food, placed by the fateful patio doors has already "retained" one furry suspect...

Police say the bushy-tailed reprobate is in custody of the RSPCA, waiting to be punished and killed.

Foxes are perhaps our British equivalent to North America's raccoons, though I would say they are considerably more wily and a little standoffish compared to those catfood-guzzling 'coons.

It is not at all unusual to see a slim red dog trotting down the middle of the road at 4am. Look twice and you realize this is no doggie, it's a fox!

Foxes are notorious for raiding farmers' chicken sheds, where instead of selecting one choice, tasty bird they slay every single one just to be sure ~ and make trips back and forth over and over to stash the dead hens where they hope other foxes won't gobble them down first.

The vulgar vixens also attack pet rabbits, cats, even small dogs. They rip open rubbish sacks, strewing the street with tin-cans which the rats then clamber into. Soon there is a wildlife jamboree with blackbirds, starlings (in season) blue tits, great tits, nut-hatches, greenfinches and even Flapper the wood pigeon and his kind fluttering down from neighbouring cherry trees for a peck-about.

Residents of Hackney say the usually reserved-but-bold critters are becoming increasingly daring. Sneaking into living rooms. Raiding kitchens. Nudging open refrigerators with pointy noses to emerge coleslaw-footprinted and yoghurty-nosed, garlanded with strings of chipolatas chomping on piri-piri roast chicken legs à la Attila the Hun.

OK slight word-painterly exaggeration but the gist is true. The neighbours said they're sneaking into houses all the time.

I hope those poor little girls are going to be OK. The red-furred robber apparently left the two girls' younger brother sleeping peacefully in his cot in the next room... Thank Heaven for small mercies..!

STOP PRESS: 7PM MONDAY one twin transferred to Great Ormond Street, specialist paediatric hospital this evening "for further treatment". Both girl's condition is said to be serious, but they're out of immediate danger.


Here's a good read:
There is no Hero in Heroin blog.
I've been reading about addiction "from the other side" quite a lot of late... An Addict in my Son's Bedroom, Mom vs Heroin, Hurting Parents: Addicted Son, Mom Trying to Detach with Love... and so on... searing stuff...


Re my promised Druggie Post, you'll have to wait till tomorrow, you'll surely be glad to learn :-)

PS the Cute Overload blog is good today ....

PPS: blog of the day ~ here's a good one. Tina B makes her own beads fired in funky glass... but how does she do it... and how does she sprechen such gutes Deutsch? I've no idea.... handmade-by-b-tina.blogspot.com

17 comments:

Sweden said...

i love foxes i dont care if they eat small babies, babies smell like poop and scream too much anyway, im on the fox side

Gledwood said...

!!!!!!!

Foxes are seriously out of favour today (probably till the day after tomorrow) following this verminous attack...

Vanessa Feltz did a 3-hour phone in the other day about tame wildlife... people handfeeding magpies etc etc. No actually it was a pied wagtail, which is like a mini-magpie, a very flighty bird (like a feathery roborovski more than anything else) they run rapidly along concrete flats, have a strange flight where they drop up and down, like a pile of feathers tossed by the wind... and this guy managed to feed one by HAND!

In this phone-in, foxes came out about 50:50 popular/unpopular; adored or hated

I like foxes though it does annoy me when they rifle my luggage ~~ durrgh! Luggage! Baggage?! I mean bags of RUBBISH ~ GARBAGE. TRASH. The wily swines!!

Wandering Coyote said...

Hey Gledwood,

Thanks for the visit & comment on ReTorte! Always nice to hear from new people.

I also have an "every day" blog on WordPress, http://coyotewandering.wordpress.com.

You have one of the most comprehensive side bars I've ever seen!

Gledwood said...

"Comprehensive" is one way of putting it..! Thanks I'll go have a look at that other address ;-)

stinkypaw said...

Thanks for the visit today, much appreciated, as well as the link to my other blog.

You were right about "Cute Overload".

Gledwood said...

You're welcome!

Your picture reminds me of my old black cat Constable Growler!!

Unknown said...

We have coyotes venturing into backyards here in the Lower Mainland of BC.

I'm glad you're a bird watcher (like me) gleds. I have "pet" crows at work that come for lunch. I have two at home as well - Pablo & Tony. They perch outside my living room window and stare at me while I'm on the computer. It's like the bird take out window, as I throw them bits of rice and noodles out.

I plan on checking in more...don't want to lose touch with you!

Eagle said...

I read the story about that fox too... I hope the girls get well soon... The fox should've been kill at sight, it's a shame that it is still alive uptil now.

Eagle

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Gledds,
I read about the fox attack. Wild. I have never heard of such a thing. It's a shame they are trapping and putting them down.

Love,

SB

Akelamalu said...

The fox attack was horrific - I so feel for the little twins and their parents. :(

Mizpeh said...

There's a photo of the family's dog on Nick Koupparis' facebook page Anyone know where the dog was when all this was going on?

Baino said...

They're very urbane that's for sure but haven't heard of them actually going into houses before, very bold! Of course they're feral here so $2 a tail . . if you can catch em

Gledwood said...

DEBBIE: coyotes! That's what I should have said. Yeah that is our equivalent, a fox and a coyote. Difference being that Mr Coyote probably never popped up as a popular character in children's books like Mr Fox did, that's quite probably one big reason why people like them so!!

O yeah I love the birds. Hardly know anything about them though (not really). Wish I knew more. Also wish I could see them more. Need to get a proper feeder :-)

EAGLE: I'm not 100% sure but I think they might have killed the fox. Far as I know those girls are STILL in hospital on Tuesday

SB: I know. Probably a 1-off situation as well :-(

MIZPEH: Where the dog was? no idea. Probaby fast asleep, the dopey swine!

AKELAMALU: horrible ;-(

BAINO: do they actually give $2? Or anything at all? Or is that a figure of speech?... I never can be sure of anytying these days...

Syd said...

I once saw a pair of foxes carrying a cane brake rattlesnake. What a potent totem that was!

Gledwood said...

Don't you get a different type of fox in America? Because I once posted about how they go through our bins and got replies back saying usually only raccoons do that... Well whatever type they were they were sure brave!

Liz Hinds said...

That was dreadful, wasn't it? Do you know the story of Gelert, after whom Beddgelert is named?

Gledwood said...

Yes!
I was thinking of doing a post on that, when my Faithful Doggies theme was running....

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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