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!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Hot, exhausted day

IT WAS 28 DEGREES CENTIGRADE TODAY. For London this is hot. I'm sweating like a swine. It's ten minutes to ten at night and only just getting dark. High summertime!

I'M STILL EXHAUSTED.
I slept nearly all night; then what do I do but spend half the day asleep from sheer exhaustion too!

I wish I had something interesting to post. Not really. Flapper the wood pigeon appears to have upped and left. I think he is having an affair.

My friend's dog, who is so elderly he looks like a little silver-grey donkey, has had an operation. Every time I see him he's in his basket with the most forlorn expession on his face. I have never seen a doggie look so sad. I think he is in pain. I hope he's OK.

I heard a radio feature today called Home Thoughts from Abroad, where the BBC take London-based correspondents from the foreign press and give them open mike to hold forth on any aspect of life in the UK that interests them. Today's broadcast, by die Zeit journalist John F Jungclaussen basically outlines the reasons why I want out of Britain. That we are becoming ever increasingly authoritarian and less and less free.

If you want to hear it you can listen online (from anywhere worldwide), click here.

Deutsche-in-London.net review of programme.

Keywords/Schlüsselwörter: exhausted verbraucht; sheer exhaustion absolut Erschöpfung; wood pigeon Ringeltaube; to appear erscheinen; to up and leave abhauen; elderly ältlich; donkey der Esel; basket der Korb; forlorn öde; expression der Ausdruck; hold forth sich über etwas auslassen; broadcast Sendung; authoritarian autoritär

23 comments:

Jeannie said...

It's been about the same temp here - hot and muggy - but I love it! It's the weather I wait all year for.

Ella said...

hi gled,
it's a bit warmer here... and has been all may and june. i love it!!!
but beeing so much further south from you, we don't have this very long days in summer. that is great, means the days aren't so short in winter.
but even liking the hot, it takes a lot out of you. i can understand you sleep a lot.
xx to you too!

Sternenzaubers Geschichtenhimmel said...

Lieber Gledwood
Hier in der Schweiz scheint es nun auch definitiv Sommer zu werden.
Ich trage Flip-Flops!! :-)
Wünsche Dir einen wunderschönen Tag und schicke liebe Grüesssli
Franziska Sternenzauber

Anonymous said...

I know what you're going through. I hate when it's hot like that. Here in Austria, we already had an awfully hot phase. With up to 35° Celsius for days and no rain. The thing is, we have no air condition, so i can't escape the heat anywhere.

I wish it would be 15° - 20° Celsius with clouds and wind the whole year. That's my favorite weather :)

Bist du zweisprachig aufgewachsen?
Ich spreche auch deutsch und englisch, wobei deutsch meine Muttersprache ist.

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

It's been like walking around in soup here...I want to sleep alot too when it's hot.

This weekend Toronto is hosting the G20 summit and it's supposed to be scorching....makes for good riot weather i suppose. Wish us luck ;)

Gledwood said...

Jeannie: but it's too humid! Mediterranean I can abide. But this has me sweating like a swine here :-(

Ela: I didn't realize till I met other bloggers how warm Canada got in summer. I thought it was like the Scottish Highlands crossed with the arctic..!

Franziska: Flip-Flops?!? Regnet es dann nicht mehr? Ich dachte, du hattest Monsoon-Regen...

Mina: Du und Franziska sind gluecklich... frisches Alpenluft atmen zu koennen... Zweisprachig? Moi? Ach nein! In der Schule, in Wxles, mussten wir Walisisch bis 16 Jahren. Danach habe ich Deutsch und Französisch studiert. Letzte Jahr entschied ich wieder Deutsch zu lernen. Ich waehtle das Buch Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo aus. Das verbesste mein Grammatik. Aber das kann ich noch nie beherrschen! Your English is really good though? You seem English, not foreign...

Elaine: SOUP!!?... walking around in SOUP??! that sounds distinctly unpleasant. How come Toronto gets to host G7, G8, G20 summits? They seem to do it all the time

Akelamalu said...

I love this weather and I am making the most of it since I retired - fabulous!:)

e said...

Your weather is cooler than our 96 degrees...absolutely sweltering! I hope you're okay?

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Toronto is just lucky that way I s'pose ;)

Dies und Das vom Neckarstrand said...

Gledwood,
hoffentlich geht es dem kleinen Hund wieder besser, der aussieht wie ein kleines Silberäffchen? Richtig?
Hier bei uns kommt der Sommer jetzt auch.
Du fragst nach dem 1. Baum in meinem Post. Es handelt sich um einen 1000-jährigen Olivenbaum auf Kreta. Hierunter soll Zeus die Europa geheiratet haben.
Ich wünsche dir noch einen schönen abend und freue mich immer wieder, wenn Du bei mir kommentierst.
Liebe Grüße
Irmi

Baino said...

Wow that's Aussie weather by anyone's standards. Problem is, England's not really geared for such hot weather. At least you know it won't last! Cheers :)

Gledwood said...

I thought I'd answered the 1st 3 before but my comment obviously got lost in cyberspace. Ho-humm!



Akelamalu: I used to love hot weather... not any more :-(

e: I think today's temp is around 84F, so we're 12F below you...
because it doesn't get that hot v often we have sweltering humidity. That's the killer, the humidity!

Elaine: it's all a conspiracy!!

Irmi: ah! Danke schoen! Der Hund sieht wie ein ermüdender Silberesel aus. Heute trägt er eine hübsche Hundjacke. Er muß zurück zum Tierarzt, weil er gar nicht okay ist.
Ich dachte, dass der Baum ein bisschen dürr für etwas deutsches aussah!
Liebe Grüße
Gledwood

Gledwood said...

Baino: ah! You commented while I was slowly tapping in my German, haha!!

Yeah I wish I had air-con.

I remember being in Malta in 1981 or some such year and my dad saying "30C ~ that's 86F" (we all thought in degrees F for summer temps and medicine in those days (but for some reason degrees C in winter. Possibly bc it was easier to understand that freezing was zero)....
... anyway point being 86 was REALLY HOT. Now it's normal summer temperatures here.

And global warming isn't real..?!!

DUTA said...

It's the humidity that "kills", not the dry heat.
Anyway I woudn't call it 'global warming' but 'global weirdness' as there are places that experience unusual cold weather too.

Gledwood said...

Hmmm. You are right about the weirdness. We're also said to be getting lots more hurricaines etc... Though they say it's the heat that sets them off, too

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

RE: Saga seeds: The top photo is the dried pods where the saga seeds come from. I specially had that photo to show the pods.

I am ethnic Chinese, my great grand father left China more than 100 years to Borneo. So my food is morphed with the local people.

I am not sure of the Chinese Curry you have in UK. When I first arrived in New Zealand, the Chinese restaurants catered to European style of Chinese Food eaters. As a student, I worked in tow of these.

Their curries were a laugh to me. All they did was add 1 teaspoon of curry powder to their normal chop suey or meat.

Mine too has be modifled, and I shall post some of my recipies for you. My blogs are more for entertaining than instructional. I will see what I can do.

The curries you buy, are they dry or do they come with gravy, what about coconut or tomato?

I am quite confident with my Malaysian curry. Because I had been cooking it for 16 years and selling them for our charity.
http://ann-mythoughtsandphotos.blogspot.com/2010/06/mellow-yellow-mondayruby-reddinner-for.html

Gledwood said...

Thank you very much, Ann. The curry they sell at Chinese takeaways is always yellowy colour, never brown ~ so online recipes saying use Garam Masala I know are wrong. I found Chinese curry powder from a Chinese supermarket, which is exactly right ~ the colour of turmeric and the right spicing ~ but no ingredients!
I have been told that star anise is one secret ingredient.
British Chinese takeaway contains MSG and I noticed when making my own curry the MSG made all the difference (I know this might make you feel faint and ill to hear this but it's true!)... I suspect the takeaway curry might well have coconut milk or something else.
So as far as I know it's basically

1. Chinese curry mix ~ yellowy orange colour spicing
2. MSG
3. Coconut milk?

It's practically the same as a curry I once had in a Japanese restaurant...

Many thanks for the message. I must dash it's 9:20 and I've a doctor's appointment

:-)

Bimbimbie said...

You've been having a taste of Australian weather only we don't have daylight till 10pm*!*

Gledwood said...

TESTING TESTING 1-2-3...
akh! shysse!
who put up comment moderation? YOU SWINE!

Gledwood said...

Pieps-pieps-piepsen!!

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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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