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, July 02, 2010

Rip van Gledwood II

STILL UNWELL... yes, Rip van Gledwood II. Yesterday, I slept literally 20 hours with only piss-breaks.

I can't even talk about going to bed last night, because it wasn't last night, it was yesterday daytime and I wasn't in bed. I slumped in an armchair at 11am and slept all afternoon and evening through and stirred myself at some point in the early hours around 2am, when I peed like Niagara falls. Then immediately back to sleep. And sleep. And deeper sleep. My phone was full of missed calls so I know I slept very deeply indeed. Finally, around 5am I woke up. Urinated again. Slept two hours more.

Then, after 7am Friday morn, I considered myself "up", so I wandered to my bedroom and lay down in bed, where I slept "properly" (ie not hunched over) till after 8:30.

All in all that's past 20 hours' sleep. 22 hours perhaps.

This is what I hate about my sleep: it strikes me down like some manner of disease and I wake up not refreshed but sluggish and unwell and wishing I had not bothered getting up at all.

Well I'm awake now. And I survived. And a new day dawned 16 hours ago, meaning I missed Chogstable's dawn chirping, though a bird whose chirrups and trills bore striking resemblance to Chogstable's melodic twirly-whirling was trilling its head off earlier when I went off for methadone and sweet chili chicken pizza. Chogstable is my personal nightingale. He's not, of course, my pet, because he doesn't live with me. But he chirps his feathery little head off just for me every night, the tiny entertainer!

Now I'm weary once more and for lack of anything more inspiring to post thought I'd brocade you with this dullardly tale. I hope your last couple of days were a little more inspiring plus ~ of course ~ I wish THE CHEERIEST WEEKEND TO Y'ALL..!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Methadone makes me sleep like that too. Now that I have the Ritalin it dosen't do it so much, but before the Ritalin I could sleep two days through.

I miss you. What do you look like while you sleep?

Baino said...

Aww . . sometimes I wish I could sleep. five hours and I'm up like a shot.

Jim said...

Gledwood, thanks for your comments on my blog. I do visit quite a few German blogs but I need a translator to understand them. You're right. There aren't a lot of German speakers in Australia but we do have many people with German/Austrian/Swiss heritage here who may speak it.

Akelamalu said...

All that sleep does seem excessive Gleds. :(

Gattina said...

You make me think about my cat Arthur, only he sleeps 24 h every day, lol !

My Grandma used to say : Wer schläft sündigt nicht " !
Good night

Gledwood said...

ANNA G: I still don't understand how/why they're giving you methadone and ritalin, esp. when they know you're bipolar. Surely it risks sending you sky high?
You miss me? That's sweet.
What do I look like when I sleep?... Erm probably v gormless with my mouth wide open catching flies and snoring!!
Also I've been told I often sleeep with my eyes open!!!!

BAINO: I do know how you feel. In the past I have had very extreme insomnia. This hypersomnia is relatively new

J BAR: do you use the grey toolbar on internet explorer? I have to admit, sometimes I cheat and use that when I'm tired!
Also I've got a function thing, I think it's from internet explorer too, or possibly windows 7, where you pass the cursor over any word and it automatically translates to the language of your choice (German to English in my case)

AKELAMALU: it feels ridiculously excessive. I'm seriously not happy about it but don't know what to do. It's hardly life threatening and I can just imagine the patronizing advice a GP would give, assuming I'm not really unconscious all that time, just lazing in bed not wanting to get up, which is NOT what happened. I really WAS asleep ALL that time, barring pee breaks...

GATTINA: "he who sleeps sins not" ~ that's a pretty cool proverb. And I'm flattered to be compared to Arthur, the Furry Entertainer!

Syd said...

I hope that you have a good weekend too. It is our fourth of July holiday here. We are glad to have independence and look how we tuned out??

Merle said...

Hi Gleds ~~ You must have needed the sleep and it would do you some good perhaps. Your body decided to rest.
Don't knock it. Regards, Merle.

Gledwood said...

Syd: happy Independence Day!
It's strange, America seems to be suffering the same manner of national low self-esteem us Brits have been afflicted with for years.
It reveals itself partly in a dry, self-deprecatory sense of humour.
But in many other ways too. It's really depressing.


Merle: 20 hours with only a break to pee is a bit excessive though, Merle!

Sarcastic Bastard said...

I could sleep that long, no problem. If sleeping were an Olympic sport, I'd take the gold. Laugh.

I wish I were home sleeping right now, instead of here at work.

Love,

SB

Anonymous said...

You might want to have your thyroid levels checked. I slept for 3 days straight before being diagnosed with hypothyroidism. It can cause mood swings and weight problems too!

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