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!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Not too tired to tell you...

I SLEPT FOR NEARLY FOUR HOURS, from late morning into early afternoon slumped in a chair at the back of the public library today. What the staff thought of me, I've no idea. But I wasn't drugged or drunk, so who cares what they thought. I was exhausted.
I slept most of yesterday through. And the day before.
I had an appointment at the druggieservice which I dragged myself down for. My worker, who is a mental health nurse, noticed the change in me at once. All I could think was: how am I to fill half a gaping hour of blank blank time?
The Personality Disorders Specialist has offered me an appointment for assessment. Being as I do not consider myself personality-disordered, especially on "axis C" as Nursey was suggesting (the anxious-avoidant-dependent axis ~ full of snivelling, simpering shy types, burdened by terror of social situations and irrational worries. This is not me.) I thought I would go 1 for a laugh and 2 because I am desperate and it's an untrodden avenue.
If I did have some such disorder, I actually have more in common with type A, the schizotypal personality, with their off-the-wall view of things coupled with a linguistic jamboree of trotterdonkey self-coined phrases, pinging like the tiny tits on the trees when they spot tubby roborovski hamsters scurrying near their nests (ahem...)
Yeah so anyway... I've got schizophrenia, not.
The other personality disorder I could be shoved towards would be the borderline type. Two of my friends had this condition. I say had because one threw himself under a tube train and is now dead... I don't really think I'm borderline at all.
The nurse did admit there's "definitely a mood thing going on". I didn't tell her my "not sleeping" had basically involved not bothering to go to bed for days on end, feeling pretty wonderful ~ I had an amazing perspective on life. I was refreshed as a granny smith apple is refreshing to a desert explorer's palate. I didn't want Nursey to assume I might have been "hypomanic", which it is my position that I am not. I am just prone to mood swings that occasionally sweep up high only to plummet me down. And I felt so so down yesterday. People kept asking what was wrong. Today I am avoiding human company and have had excessive hours of sleep so I feel sour on my own. But as you can see I'm chatty enough with my important friends... ha-har!
Now, you English speakers, let me probe you with a question: is all this German getting too annoying and should I post it in another blog?
I haven't the energy to post exhaustively in German every single day. On the other hand, I do need to practise my language otherwise it'll become as rusty as it was during the 20-year "hiatus" from study. You wouldn't believe the amount of courage it took to rustle up, having said I would like to do a BA degree in translation into and out of German, with French and Dutch on top ~ then to show how flabby my German had actually become it's humiliating. And if it does look impressive, trust me that is the lure of the exotic. If you only can sees how many I much not good grammar make, trust I would you know excellently how much very I not good can do it. See?
Now I've got to go. One last PS on the birds: I've yet to mention the SPARROWS who have returned in chirrupsome profusion to my neighbour's bush. There seem to be about twenty of them cheeping endlessly away to some more sparrows across the road (perhaps they are deadly sparrow rivals, having a rapper-style showdown about whose porch roof is theirs~?!) Sparrows had been largely absent from our towns for nearly twenty years. Sparrows and pigeons it always used to be. Pecking about in vast numbers in our parks and squares. The BBC shot an excellent documentary: The Sparrows of St James's (the park behind Downing Street and Parliament). Then they disappeared!
O and one last PS regarding my leaving the country. I know Britain has looked after me very patiently for too many years, but Britain is tinged with bad memories now I expended such a lot of time and effort trying to learn German and French and yet I've spent not spent even a month in a pays francophone and I've yet even to set foot on German-speaking soil! (German-speaking soil, die kleine Wurmchen sagen "Guten Tag!" und "Auf wiedersehen!"!) So you see, having been trapped here with an addiction for far too long, the very first thing I wish to do, if I ever CAN break free ~ is to flee!


If you want to see some good birdie-videos have a look at my tiny tits, the cutest of all British birds, posted earlier today in German (English translation below)... and these:

BTW, the quotation, by the Swiss writer Alfred Polgar, across those other tiny tits says: "I command the German language, but she doesn't always obey..."

VIDEO 1
HERE'S some chirpybirds, rather than songbirs: SPARROWS!



VIDEO 2
ON WITH THE SONGBIRDS THEME ~ HUMAN SONGBIRDS...

... this Jewish girl, I think, has one of the best voices ever recorded.
I mean, can you think of anybody at all whose vocal timbre sounds "like Barbra Streisand"..?
This performance of Evergreen from the 1976 remake of A Star is Born (Chris Kristofferson adding minimal harmonies) was shot in one take and it's one of the best vocal performances of any Hollywood film from any time:



Her sister, Roslyn Kind, has a deeper (some might say richer) version of the same voice. I posted her up on Sunday, but I don't think anyone heard her ...

7 comments:

Syd said...

I'm glad that you got some sleep. I don't think that I have slept in a public place since being trapped in Brussels in a freak snow storm. It was a very boring time at the airport, except when some people from New Guinea were trying to get home and had a riot where guns were required. After that I crashed.

Gledwood said...

I feel like I've been trapped there, too ;-)...

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

Sleep. Escaping into sleep? I have done the latter. Do you feel better after the sleep or do you just feel you need more? Do avoid getting into a cycle where you escape more and more into sleep. I know that's not easy but the antidote is to do some fun and exciting activity and pump up the adrenaline.

Anywho, I am glad you still have time for your important friends! I do hope you feel better soon.

Akelamalu said...

Gleds you keep telling is what you're 'not' - if you know what you're 'not' you must know what you are and surely that is half the battle? Is it boredom that's making you sleep so much or do you actually feel ill? I hope you are able to get the help you need for whatever is wrong with you m'dear.

I don't read your German posts because I don't understand them but you go ahead and post in German if that's what you want to do. :)

Sarcastic Bastard said...

I love the tit posts. This is obviously because I am immature as hell and that word just cracks me up.

I was very sorry to hear about the death of Sebastian Horsley. I am currently reading his autobiography, and I'm not sure a more interesting, witty man ever existed.

Love you, Gledds. Have a great weekend. I hope your mum is doing okay. She and you are in my thoughts.

SB

Anonymous said...

You German rants should be posted on your Gledwood Vol 3 German Blog. You would get more of the intended audience. I think. Opinion remember it just an asshole.

I am fasinated with you fasination with birds. You find something to obsess on and you obsess so well. You learn so much about everything because you obsess abou everything.


Screw Germany and France you are comming to live with me in Hawaii. If its too hot there we will head off to Seattle. Even New York,New York if you want.

Baino said...

Well I guess at least turning up at your appointments is a start. I'd like to know why you sleep so much as well. It's a sign of depression in normally active people, I guess with addicts it helps you get through from one point to another. And I doubt another country would look after you as well as Britain frankly. Focus on what you can achieve, set goals by all means but they have to be realistic and achievable. Once you reach one, go for another.

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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