HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

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 11, 2010

The World's Most Beautiful Game



IF YOU ARE FEMALE OR AMERICAN OR YOU JUST HATE SPORT, this might have made little if any impact on your consciousness but ...

FOOTBALL'S WORLD CUP... (that is soccer-football to you Americans ~ but of course) kicked off about ten minutes ago with South Africa v Mexico.

Crowds of 94,000
are packed into Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium blaring away on plastic horns named vuvuzelas. Detractors claim the cheap "musical" instruments (a post-apartheid South African tradition) sound "like swarms of angry bees" or like "a herd of elephants breaking wind". European TV companies apparently went nuts when they realized the soundtrack to all games would be blighted by this noise and attempted to have the windy trumpets banned. They were not successful and instead label the strange sound the "authentic voice of Africa" ~ haha!

Traditionally soccer is a Big Deal on three out of six continents: Europe, South America and Africa. In recent years the sport has taken off bigtime across Southern and Eastern Asia ~ where the British team Manchester United is said to have fans numbering tens of millions.

More recently David Beckham has done a great deal to raise soccer's status as a professional sport in America.

If you do live in middle-America you might be surprised at the level of passion this Beautiful Game evokes. Imagine the Super Bowl crossed with the Olympic Games and you're starting to get some idea of the sport's ubiquity across most of the planet.

World audiences may exceed TWO BILLION.

According to Reuters, the 2006 World Cup in Germany pulled in 26.3 billion (were 20,000,000,000 of these on another planet? Because there's fewer than 7,000,000,000 people on earth).

Whatever. It's a lot of people.

So crack open a cold beer. Have a blast on a plastic pipe. Click on the telly and enjoy ...

(I'd love to join you, but I will be watching Lindenstraße and Marienhof instead ...)








(ANM. DEUTSCHER INHALT KOMMT NOCH SPÄTER)

11 comments:

Akelamalu said...

Yawn! ;)

Gledwood said...

ha-ha-ha!



aye...

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Yawn is right. Now hockey, that's where it's at ;)

In all seriousness, not being a footy fan, I can still appreciate the sport. It transcends it's self. It's about more than just sport. Very apparent on the streets of TO being the melting pot that we are.

With that said, I hope those that enjoy it have a great time! I'm already sick of the car horns going off and I haven't even heard one yet.

Take r easy Gledwood!

Gledwood said...

... you got it, it TRANSCENDS...

That's right!

It's fascinating last time, once England got kicked out (and how on earth is England allowed a team when Quebec and other provinces aren't?)... anyway once England were out the crowd at the local pub were reduced to supporting other nations vicariously... in the final France v Italy there were huge groans whenever France had success. When Italy won the place went berzerk!!

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Last WC I was living in Little Portugal in TO (little Italy is just up the street) so the Brazililans started cheering for the Italians. People flying French flags would pull drive by moonings, flashing all the old men outside the old men taverns at 9am. Lord, I have to get my Pirate Flag out. It always confuses people during WC!

Gledwood said...

Yeah I think a pirate is just about the only thing to be during the world cup, it drives me to distraction...

... not that it's not fantastic and all... but as I say, it's actually watching the crowds that is more interesting sometimes than the actual football!

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

fa sure fa sure. last time monsieur marmite saw dudes partying on their front lawn with a huge boa that was sporting a brazilian flag around it's neck. whatever floats yer boat....

Sternenzaubers Geschichtenhimmel said...

Dear Gledwood

Es sind wundervolle Fotos! Und der deutsche Text ist soweit ok. Bravo!
Gut zu verstehen.
BRAVO!
Liebe Grüsse
Franziska Sternenzauber

Gledwood said...

O! Danke schoen!


(Kein Umlaut kann ich finden ohne das Fenster zu schliessen)...

Syd said...

I will check it out occasionally. It has become a much bigger sport over here.

Gledwood said...

I haven't checked it out yet!
I know who's playing who at what time and what the results were... but that's about it.
Haven't a clue who's showing what match where channel-wise... maybe I'll watch the final ~ who knows?!

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

Copyright 2011 by Gledwood