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!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Chalk Figures ...

ENGLAND'S BIGGEST TOURIST ATTRACTIONS ...


The Uffington Horse, Oxfordshire


In Wiltshire there are several realistic White Horses ...


When I was tiny, I had an old maiden aunt, who lived in an ancient cottage with metre-thick walls deep in the Wiltshire countryside.
The house was near The Westbury White Horse


Trotting White Horse, Wiltshire Hills


Baby White Horse, Devizes, Wiltshire.
The newest chalk horse, produced in 1999
(To make these, you just excavate the grass and the chalk's right there; they only need filling in with fresh chalk when they get really old)


The leaping Folkestone White Horse in Kent


The Long Man of Wilmington is a 70 metre tall giant on a cliff south of the village of Wilmington in the South Downs, between Eastbourne and Brighton in the county of East Sussex


But the most famous figure stands "only" 55 metres high in Cern Abbas in Dorset. He is best known for being "excited" ...


The "excitement" stands 3-4 metres high ...
(Visitors to the site keep making it bigger~!)
The figure is generally believed to be an ancient fertility god
But the historian Aubrey Manning posited that he is in fact a caricature of the only president (1649-1658) England has ever had, Oliver Cromwell!
He kind of looks surprised to be stark naked ...


In 2007, Homer Simpson appeared next to the giant


Executed in white paint, the figure was a publicity stunt promoting the latest Simpsons movie


20 comments:

jams o donnell said...

Ah Gledwood you have given me an appetite tovisit these sites again. I love the idea that the Cerne Abbas giant was a caricature of Cromwell as Hercules. The land was owned by Denzil Holles, a parliamentarian (and one of the five Charles tried to arrest in Parliament in 1642) who beamce a vocal opponent of Cromwell

Gledwood said...

O! I didn't know that!

Akelamalu said...

Fascinating sites aren't they?

Sorry I've not been around this weekend, family crisis.

Gledwood said...

Ooer. I thought you were in America already!
Hope all's well again. All's well that ends well, as they say ...

As for the chalk figures: v much so.
Apparently they're v uncommon abroad. Though I saw one (online) in Mexico. (Never been to Mexico.)
I wasn't sure whether or not to explain that the chalk's under the soil and you just dig to reveal the white... but surely everyone knew or guessed that..? I don't know

Jeannie said...

I hadn't heard of all of these - just one or two and not your most famous one! haha. Pretty interesting. Britain has so much history and it's everywhere. I'm sure Canada does too it's just that our First Nations didn't seem to do a lot that held up over time.

Gledwood said...

Yeah but the first people over there were probably building log cabins and shack-type houses that kept them nice and warm but don't last. The Canadian landscape is spectacular. I have a real yearning to go somewhere with lakes and pine forests. Doesn't have to be Canada. Sweden, Norway, Finland would do... Switzerland , Austria and the German Alps also appeal to me bc I'd finally get the chance to gabble in German to someone!

Sarcastic Bastard said...

The excitement made me laugh.

Hope all is well with you.

Love,

SB

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Cool drawrings.

Nothing compares to Canada's landscape, then again, I am a bit partial ;)

The most popular cabins that were built in the days of yore were called 'long houses'...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_long_house

molson said...

Giants with big sticks. Now that's the stuff of hammy nightmares.

Gledwood said...

Elaine: nobody reading my German blog seemed to have heard of them, but it takes a rare type of chalk hillside to be able to do those giants and horses

I noticed Toronto looks really old, quite a lot like London; I was really surprised by that

Yeah I would really like to come live in Canada for a time. I'm fed up of the UK. It reminds me of being a drug addict

Molson: first the goblin, now this - yeah the poor Hammy is running in terror!

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

Alberta is fishing for disinfranchised Englishmen to become cops over here.....lol. It's true.

I would beg to differ with your opinion of Toronto, its more modern than not. There are old areas ie; Jamestown and Corktown etc but by and large we are pretty new.

I like this city, but then again I am from here so I am a bit partial.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Thanks for reminding me of the White Horses of Wiltshire, Gleds. Love Homer!

Gledwood said...

Elainereeny: where is Alberta?

Welshcakespat: aye!

Elaine: OK I have heard of Alberta, I just couldn't place it on a map. Most places I can place on a map, albeit vaguely. Alberta I cannot.
Would they really take someone like me to be a copper? I'd be very good at disposing of drugs seizures...

Toronto being old... I'm only talking about certain blog photos I've seen that really surprised me. Also that the housing looks so English. I never expected that. Not at all...

Ooer, must run - that naughty goblin's coming!

Gattina said...

Interesting that there are so many others, I have seen Long Man of Wilmington last year, it's a very nice place ! In fact the whole coast here and the little cities are so beautiful and cute. I have seen quiet a lot and will report once I am back. Tomorrow I go home. Only the weather could have been a little better ! But you had probably the same London is not so far from here.

Syd said...

And all we have is Mt. Rushmore and crop circles. These are really neat. The fertility God is unique.

Liz Hinds said...

He could play hoopla with that doughnut!

Gledwood said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gledwood said...

Gattina: I'm sincerely flattered and glad you like England; so many of us slag it off. I hope I don't slag it off too much, though I DO want to leave, for a time at least.

I heard the chalky soil of Southern England is actually better for champagne production (nowadays) than Northern France!

+ as you can see, it also makes for some pretty amazing artwork...

Syd: what's the significance of Mt Rushmore?

All I know about it is it features in films etc... never quite sure why. Is it mystical or something?

I saw Mt St Helens ~ trees knocked flat for miles around, a multi-H-bomb rated blast now there's a lady with a bad temper!

Liz: You mean 1970s-style hoolahooping? I never got the hang of wobbling one of those round my waist...

I wasn't sure whether or not you meant the giant might do something even ruder with that donut ~

No wonder poor Hammy is running away!

PS talking of wearing donuts around body parts, I once saw a pigeon with one round its neck! No word of a lie! The bagel shop had chucked out the rotten ones for the birds (ie most of their stock, haha!) and a pigeon somehow too greedily pecked and ended up like the Lady Mayoress of Camden, with a bagel round its neck. There is was, flying from rooftop to ground with this ridiculous bagel. None of the other pigeons were starving enough to approach it for a discreet peck...

RockieBoy said...

I so wanna go there now! Been since my childhood! :3 Still the Remember the chalk long man !

RockieBoy said...

I so wanna go there now! Went there in my childhood still remember The Chalk Long Man :). I'm from belgium btw.

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!































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