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, October 18, 2010

Off to the Doctor's...

I'M OFF to the doctor's in a moment (and dreading it). But I have to go...

The abscess on my other leg (did I mention that one?) exploded
with the help of a pair of sterilized nail scissors. Strawberry milkshake pus blobbering out. In the middle was a snotty green "eye". Now it's just running with a bit of fluid and closed over. It doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it did when it was full to bursting...

... ukh. I know I might sometimes give the impression that I love pus and abscesses, but I don't. What I love about them is squeezing them dry and cleaning them out. I don't like pus at all. Especially blocked-drain-stenching dribbles ~ as were running out of my left leg.

My left leg has healed very well after I "accidentally" picked the old scab #2 off, which had repeatedly been stuck back down (by me). Then I'd have a good peer into the pustulating catacombs of near-death that lay beneath... I noticed it always had a drop of something that looked like snot on the reverse side, which I was assuming was necessary in order to get the thing to re-stick to my leg. The scab really reeked of rotten chicken fillets that have been a week too long in the fridge...

Then I realized the focus of the infection might actually BE on this scab, so I got rid of it and ... TADAAA! Thank you God. It has eventually sealed and dried over and no longer stinks bad and is getting smaller. So I'm on the road to recovery.

My back is also better. I can walk more than 10 paces without having to rest on a garden wall or street railings. When I found myself in places with nothing to lean upon I was utterly helpless and stuck. I wasn't so much in terrible pain as the utter exhaustion of my muscles pulled all out of shape...

I'm gonna have to run, else I get terminated again, but thanks for all your good wishes. I would have gone hospital if it had got really bad, but I started feeling better and am clearly over the worst.

(Found the picture online, my wounds are a bit like those ...)

8 comments:

Liz Hinds said...

That is a really gross photo, gledwood! And the words aren't much better: my stomach is turning just reading them!!

I hope the doctor has given you some strong antibiotics or whatever it will take to get this cleared up.

we miss you in neverland.

Syd said...

Gleds, get those wounds taken care of. You could develop cellulitis which is really dangerous. Such wounds really need professional care.

Janice Seagraves said...

Yuck! You need a doctor and meds now.

Please post that you went. This isn't something to mess with.

Janice~

Baino said...

YOu really are disgusting sometimes. You should have gone long ago you twit before this muck gets into your bloodstream. One word for you 'antiseptic'! GAH you drive me crazy.

Arjan said...

good thing my mum is a nurse and therefore I'm used to these kind of things during dinner..or else I wouldn't have been able to finish my lunch.

Good luck. How's the staying off the needle going?

Sarcastic Bastard said...

Wow, Gledds. I was having brekkie, and that picture made me ill.

Glad you are on the mend.

Love,

SB

Akelamalu said...

You really shouldn't have left it so long Gleds. I hope you've actually been to the doctor and got some antibiotics. I wouldn't be surprised to hear if he sent you to the hospital!

Anonymous said...

God, hope everything is ok!? As everyone else already said: i hope you really went to the doc as well. Because i know people that lost an arm or leg over that kind of thing...

Buy an antiseptic to disinfect your injection site every time. Let the antiseptic dry a bit and then shoot up (It takes a few seconds for the antiseptic to kill the germs). I did it like that all the time, and never had a problem. Just telling you that because you wrote that you don't have an antiseptic. But you probably know all that anyway :)

Really hope you're ok!

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