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!

Friday, June 04, 2010

Heroin in the crack-bush

I HAD DRUGS ON THE BRAIN this morning. Specifically heroin (of course). For several hours my thoughts and actions centred on nothing else except using a teeny tiny residue I had left ~ and rushing out for more. This involved the biggest flap-about. I would gladly have changed places with Flapper the pigeon to have got down da area more quickly than I did. Because I got to what I thought was the right place, only for da man to inform me he had no wheels and could I come right down to him. Which, being already half way there I did. I took the bus fare out of the scoring money (too right!) Went on a massive excursion.
Half an hour later I was there. I had to wait in a park with suspicious mothers throwing sticks at dogs. And workmen (for some reason) poking at holes in the tarmac. Then a random black man floats past. I had to double-take as I've only ever seen him in the front seat of a car before. People look different in plain air. Through the railings £14 exchanged hands for a third of a gram of B. He says they're half grams, but I think they're 0.4s or thirds. With this in hand I went skipping merrily away. A tubby black woman gave me a queer look from her front step.
On the corner of the bus-stop I found a side entrance to a huge local park which I power-walked through to the scrub at the back. Here I could have done my hit, but it didn't feel private enough. About three or four years ago I found myself in the company of two mentally ill junkies ~ one was an American girl. Americans in London are not that common (apart from rich international financier types). American addicts are even rarer. On that day we ended up in a huge bush needlepoking all together. I was determined to find this bush.
Crossing over a bridge at the back I found myself in a leafy walkland. I'm sure I was in the right area. Families with grandchildren rambling far too slowly. Well I couldn't exactly say would you hurry up and go away I have a bag of heroin I wish to bang up in these bushes? could I? Lacking the patience to go any further I delved into the first huge bush I saw. It was like a tardis-bush. It went on and on with miniature paths, trodden, so it appeared, by tiny Norwich terriers on dandelion-sniffing rambles.
Eventually I stumbled upon (and nearly down) a sharp drop with piles and piles of piss-stained newspapers, used drug works, cooking spoons (not the sort you eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream with, these are for drugs), and old pipes and packets and sachets of citric acid everywhere. In a corner was a seething fly-ridden splat of dripping diarrhoea. The whole place stank and looking up I saw some industrial window glaring emptily down on me. I shifted a yard to the left and the window was obscured by blackberry bushes.
Preparing the hit was stressful. Voices from the nearby pathway rang out disconcertingly near. I cooked up one hit. Looked yellow and weak. I shoved half as much powder again in the spoon. Now it looked dark brown. This dealer sells strange gear that looks the colour of beach sand, yet goes very dark when prepared. I'm not sure why. Once I'd done the hit I carefully sealed up the gear with a cellophane bag purloined from a nearby greengrocer's just for this purpose. Then I bared my bloodstained, gnarled trackmarked leg, slotted the works straight in and remarkably had the vein at once. In the hazy poppy-juice disappeared.
I held my leg up in the air to let it flush down. If I don't do this, my circulation is so bad there's a good chance the hit will sink to my foot and go nowhere fast, so I have to use gravity rather than my own heartbeats to pour the juice to my heart.
Then I felt OK. And I could face the day.
It was nearly two o'clock. I had been up for seven hours.

12 comments:

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Jesus it sounds like an awful lot of work....

Thank god I am too lazy for heroin.

Sweden said...

wowza

Bimbimbie said...

I don't know what to say Gleds,

... stay out of the bushes, and please get some help*!*

Jeannie said...

That's so graphic. I'm with Reeny - way too lazy.

If this is what heroin makes you do - I can't help but think you need a lot of help and supervision to quit - going it alone would be overwhelming. I couldn't trust me.

And from the trash in the bush - it looks like there's a lot more people needing a lot of help too.

Akelamalu said...

I can't be nice about this Gleds - it makes me feel sick it's so sordid. :(

Vincent said...

I'm sorry to read that mate. Could you not have waited until you were home? I'm glad you were able to face your day though, I hope it was OK. Take care!

Gattina said...

If you want to go to paradise for a moment then please choose a better place ! A beautiful park (Kensington)with flowers around, nice banks, clean dogs, nannies with cute babies and clean bushes without dog shit where you can quietly send yourself to heaven. Then sit down and dream until it's over, take the bus and return to your daily life. If you call this a life. BTW I don't like neither Lindenstrasse nor the other soap, I think it's too kitsch !

Gledwood said...

ReenyElaine: hmmmm. Carry on being too lazy. That's my best advice!!!!

Swedes: aye-za

Bimbimbie: what help? I can't help myself. I can't. I've tried and I can't

Jeannie: there is no help. They always say you have got to help yourself, but I cannot help myself. I am too unreliable. I do not trust myself. If it is down to me I will carry on till the bitter end because there's no way out. The only way I've been able to live is in this stupid compromise with methadone basically plugging gaps between using. And I'm not costing the taxpayer undue pennies by robbing their cars/houses/shops so I'm not a high risk person. Unless they can stop shillyshallying around and prescribe something decent that takes cravings away ~ because methadone most certainly does NOT ~ I can't see any other way except going on as I am now, which is highly unsatistfactory. Or quitting altogether. I need something to quit TO... somehwere to go. There is nowhere to go. And I cannot rely on myself. If it is down to me, nothing will ever go right

Akelamalu: I know; I did feel a bit odd after posting it. But it's not a particularly unusual day. My blog got swayed by furry animals for far too long and I've realized I ought to be documenting life as I actually live it, while I'm here TO document and still doing it. Because I'm either going to die or clean up and if I've not written down these memories they will just go and I won't be able to tell anyone what it was really like..

Vince: I couldn't wait to go home as I had to go somewhere else after that... didn't get home till after five

Gattina: I didn't really go to paradise; just to tolerability... there is a beautiful gardens... I think they are the Royal Gardens, somewhere behind the Royal Palace in Rabat... nearest place to paradise on earth (seriously) that I have ever been. It was amazing... if you're still out there it's well worth a visit

you're right Kensington Gdns is v pretty.... also Regents Park...

I'm afraid I'm getting addicted to Lindenstrasse in particular ~~ all in the name of learning to speak German!!

Syd said...

I'm sorry Gleds. I hate to read stuff like this. You're a decent fellow. It just plain sucks to read what you are doing to yourself.

Gledwood said...

I know, it is all down to me isn't it? And I can't do it. I cannot rely on myself, can't trust myself can't do it.

I hate saying "can't do"s but at the moment that is the truth of the matter

I think I'm better taking my current stance and hoping I might somehow change in times future; then there might be some hope. But just left down to me as I am now ~ I cannot do it. I don't want it enough enough enough

sad, i know. too sad...

Smack Happy said...

Awesome post, Gleds :)

caeser said...

gledwood dont get down on yourself i have battled addiction and won small battles but never the war and that is why i was out today too scoring the trash that passes for H at the moment.I swore yesterday i wouldnt waste any more money. When today came i just could not face that awful creeping sickness or the terrible brightness that is sobriety.just have to tell myself i will be ready to fight again another day.good luck keep up the blog only good thing about drought.

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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