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!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

I wish I were a pingpong ball...

WOKE UP at 3:30pm today, wishing I was a robo-hammy*. Somehow, if I could curl up, like a furry pingpong ball and have another hamster gnaw my fur for me, it might be OK. In robos being groomed means you are bottom of the pecking-order. I don't care about hierarchy; hamsters don't use heroin. Mass-grooming-wise, robos are the opposite of Russian hamsters, where the youngest smallest one washes the oldest biggest one. The old one died and the young one was there, carefully taking care of his body. It was heartbreaking. When Bashful robo died, Spherical, the last one, kept dragging her body across the cage to put in the nest. I moved it out. She knew this, and dragged it back. Perhaps she was trying to bury it. I kept it in there overnight. Perhaps this gives hamster-closure..?

Well this is crazy. First, on methadone I do not really feel inclined to do anything bar the utmost necessities. This is not what is "supposed" to happen. I thought people on methadone got their lives back. No glimmer of that, so far.

It took me so long to get up I missed Iceland, source of £1.50 Chinese chicken fried rice. So I went to the takeaway for £3, £3.50 mixed vegetable fried rice. It was to go with Iceland £1.50 Satay Chicken Curry. I could have done with a vegetable or two. But: CLOSED! They didn't used to close on Sunday. Maybe somebody has died.
NO!!

Then I hung about on the street corner. No gear! No Chinese!! This is beyond the pale.

I didn't feel cold when I woke up. I am not clucking. The methadone is holding me, though the time was approaching to take a second dose. But I still rang a dealer. I knew he would answer but would have nothing. I know him well enough. Nothing's going on, is it? No mate ~ you know I'll let you know. I know, well, take care. You too mate. Things must be rough! At least he's not trying to sell rubbish.

Dose 2 on methadone is drunk. I'm OK now. I don't get why the urge to use is eating at me. It was doing the same thing on Friday. I didn't score then. I have not tried to score since Wednesday. If I can get today out of the way with I will have spent just £12.50 this week on "B". A record low!

I'm still broke. Food (£40 maybe!!) Socks (£6). Andy Warhol book £10 (and it was 2nd hand! I felt really "clean" devoting this much to an old book!!) Whatever else... O I know what it was!! Cyder at ... quite a lot per day, considering it is 79p a can. My drinking has slidden downwards since the beginning of the week. Very high Monday. (High enough to impair my memory, reading and writing ability considerably.) A bit lower Tuesday... and down down down to maybe four cans yesterday. Every single one was mixed with fruit juice. This lowers to alcoholic content to that of pub beer, about 4.5%. But cocktail is like a very nice alcopop. Highly addictive!

OK I'm not going to any Chinese takeaway now. Something called "chicken tikka lasagne" is in the oven. The Chinese takeaway expedition was partially a mission hoping I might bump into a drugdealer with heroin. (Fat chance of that!) Or "heroin" (higher chance).

I found an article by the way, exploding the myth which anyone who uses will know isn't true, about glass, brick dust, curry powder, bleach in street heroin. To those not involved (good on you!) let me explain: if you smoke it, glass and brick dust will be left behind at the top of the foil. Real heroin runs in lines. It melts and the vapour is inhaled. (Not set on fire, as in smoking a fag.) Curry powder would smell exceedingly strong. Bleach would also reek, and probably go black and smoulder. In a spoon, again glass and brick dust would be left at the bottom. Nothing except truly microscopic particles would get through a filter and into a syringe. The 1ml insulin syringe most addicts use has an integral needle only a THIRD of one millimetre wide on the outside. The passage inside that needle would be minuscule. Curry powder would reek very strongly when cooked up. Bleach would also smell strong, plus it is alkaline and would mess up the reaction with vitamin C or citric acid, which breaks down brown (or occasionally white) base heroin.

Drought-wise, the word here is it's WORSE THAN EVER. Though I just heard from Bristol there's good stuff there. (Will it last?) The news is here.

People using in the 70s always told me you just had to put up with shortages that lasted a couple of days or so. In the 80s after Middle-Eastern "brown" became the norm (imported in much higher quantities than the old "Chinese" gear) there were more users, especially in the north where heroin hit large housing estates for the first time (v early 80s). I was told, incidentally, that because you could chase it from foil, some people really did believe that "brown" was some new kind of hash! Well you believe what you want to believe... Anyway drought-wise, point being, shortages were still more common than they have been lately, though they corrected themselves quickly.

The three great waves of heroin addiction in this country were:
1. late 60s/v early 70s, mostly middle and upper-class bohemian types. Main centre of the trade was in Soho. Also South Kensington (which, if you're reading on distant shores is very posh). Heroin was very much a minority interest. Outside London you'd be very lucky to find it, except perhaps in Liverpool
2. early 80s. Brown didn't hit Britain in any amounts until the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979). Suddenly it was "all over the place" and people didn't know what to do with it. (Smoking heroin was unheard of, here.) If they couldn't get citric acid, or vit c for injecting, lemon juice was used instead, which really can cause to fungal infection leading to blindness (one rumour that is true)
3. Mid-late 1990s, the price of gear suddenly halved at street level. Bored or frazzled by uppers the rave generation turned to it as a comedown-soother or merely as a new drug. I am of that generation. With "ecstasy" pills appearing in all variations, some rumoured to contain heroin anyway (an almost certain lie). LSD made a resurgence in the early 90s. Cocaine, formerly the "rock star's drug" made its presence felt pretty much everywhere. Used to trying new things, to this generation, heroin seemed a logical next step, to those (like me) who were "just trying it once" for "the experience", then "just trying it again" ... and so on. Curiosity, as they say, killed the cat...

Now one last thing.
UNUSUAL HEROIN WARNING

If this drought doesn't sort itself out, there's a chance that heroin from other parts of the world than Afghanistan might make its presence felt here more than it has done recently.
The stuff I'm talking about particularly would be China White, Colombian White heroin and Mexican Tar.

If you encounter gear that smells of vinegar, it might be one of these.
Heroin comes in three basic forms, depending how far along the manufacturing process it is taken.

~In Britain our heroin is normally heroin base. It's normally brownish, as y'all know. Sometimes known (esp. online) as "Number 3". It smokes well from foil. Injecting this requires addition of a fruit acid, hence citric/vit c. White heroin base is also manufactured, and can be very pure.

~In New York City, and the Eastern United States, as well as Australia and other places the gear tends to vary from a very light blond/yellow/beige colour to pure white. This is heroin hydrochloride, aka "Number 4", designed for snorting or injection more than smoking. "China White" is usually from Burma. Most heroin in NYC is said to originate from Colombia. Cocaine, of course, is Colombia's most famous product = Coke is popular here = Heroin could make its way over in mixed shipments. This type of heroin is EXTREMELY STRONG with purities at manufacture in the high 90%s (good Brown is 70-80%). It can sometimes resemble crack. If it smells of anything, it tends to smell of vinegar. It is mixed cold in a spoon, or gently heated. If it needs vit C, it ain't China White!

~Mexican Tar appeared in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It's black and sticky and heavier than the gear we're used to. Has a strong vinegary smell. The hash-looking stuff we sometimes see is not "tar", which is stickier. Tar is banged up by cooking WITHOUT CITRIC. It's black (or brown) because the Mexicans cut corners in the manufacturing process, swapping chemicals, leaving steps out. UK dealers probably wouldn't know how to cut it, so if it hits the streets, it may do so at import-strength. BE CAREFUL. I have heard you can smoke tar from foil. It may spit and sputter more than ordinary Brown, because it's damper, but it's still supposed to smoke. Far safer than banging this into your veins.

~Lastly there is a gear called MEXICAN BROWN (powder). Smells of vinegar. Said to melt into a tarry substance when hot (e.g. kept all day in jeans pocket, as ordinary B wouldn't). Doesn't require citric for injection. Sometimes snorted. May not smoke anything like as well as our "B".
IF YOU FIND UNUSUAL GEAR, TAKE CARE. GO EASY.

Please don't be tempted to inject, just because something won't smoke. It might not be one of the types of heroin just mentioned. Snorting is safer, but has still killed people. Contrary to popular belief, you can die chasing. A batch of 80% B killed a girl in Bristol in the 90s and she chased the killer dose from foil.

Bear in mind all our tolerances have fallen. Whether using on top of methadone or using just "variable" street gear, if anything of knockout strength comes back, that's what it might do ~ KNOCK YOU DEAD. Please take care.

Hope this isn't too much of a mess. If I edit, I'll never post

Sorry this goes on and on. Emails I should have got to by 9pm. I feel like a dr's surgery. Appointments, appointments. Everything behind time! Thanks for all the comments, I will answer as many as I can ...

*robo-hamsters are the tiniest hamsters in the world and curl up pingpong-ball sized. I used to have them as pets (see below)

MARIANNE FAITHFULL INTERVIEW ~ 1994, her autobiography had just come out




14 comments:

Gledwood said...

It's doing my head in, this drought. 2 people who had the best there was (not saying much) have nothing now. It's giving me a chance to stick to methadone at least.
In the drought 2 yrs ago I got something I opened and thought I'd been done~crack!! It was not it was rock hard China/Thai. I did 1 point which blew me away, found myself gouched over the sink not knowing what day it was. The whole £10 bag might have ODd me easily. I would hate someone to die just because they didn't know what something was.

Ant farm!! How do you do that?? Can you use a glass box?

I want hamsters back they were endless fun :-)

Alice said...

you can buy them really cheap from the internet then you order your ants which come though the post!! lol but you must have a queen to start a colony. theyre very odd indeed. I had a hampster a long time ago, he chewed through my mains wire on the back of the fridge but somehow still lived! what a champ, h was called Mishca.
I know the type of hampster you mean, theyre just furry balls with eyes and feet yeh? lol i was watching them in the pet shpop once and one toppled over into another, just tipped over, expressionless. The one it fell into wasn't very happy and they ended up having an arguement.
i had a chinchilla last year that i rescued from some idiot wifey who was keeping it in the hosue with a cat who terrozied it. I had to swap a nintendo wii for it to rescue it. I used to hoot like an owl in night when it got scared or lonely bless it. I gave to my friend who had more time for it and now they're inseparable.

Ive heard the H is getting slowly better but god knows when we're gonna be back to normal. Im nearly out of methadone and im switching to dfs tomorrow to try to stave off the green rattle. Ive hear different stories of everyone why this is happening, it makes me angry that the authorities think theyve won lol. buggar them all, i just want to dull my pain, i cant do anything i need to do without my medicine, my life as you say is anything but normal again on methadone...

Gledwood said...

The green rattle. NO!

I would be terrified of the ants escaping!!

Hang on why would they?... Tropical fish come in a "glass box", they don't "escape". My robos did. Itchy Roborovski loads of times. She walked on my hands. I was a bit... inebriated sometimes. Conked out and then... WHERE IS THE HAMSTER??!? I really thought I had lost her, at least twice.

Yes, balls of fur with eyes. And the legs are really long, but I never properly saw that till one died. On a 2" body, maybe 1" legs. No wonder they're fast! They sometimes squabble, but I've never seen proper fighting. I could only tell them apart bc 3 slightly different sizes. The 2 that died first were the smallest and probably "runts". I know from comparing pictures online they were too small and not round enough, like babies. V cute though.

I would really like/have liked a chinchilla but don't they need a whacking great cage? I'm not supposed to have pets here, I used to hide the hamsters in a cupboard by day when they slept anyhow, then take them out at night, when no chance of landlord/maintenance calling. I had a red light, they think that is darkness, so pringing all over the place.

They hated being cleaned out, even though I did bed one week/rest of stuff the next. All 3 on a wheel running like crazy to get away from the horrible cleanness. I suppose that never happens in nature. Fairy liquid scrub out of the burrow, haha!

Take it easy. I went down the rd just now right by a place I could have (tried to) get from. But walked away!!! Went Chinese takeaway instead, no China white, ;-)...

The drought is the only thing in 10 yrs that has stopped me using. Before it would have sent me crazy. I'm not so bothered now, too old and tired!!!

Lady Anon said...

Hey, didn't get up til 4pm today...no work til Tues, so no point! The world was dark and I stumbled around like dawn of the dead (or Shaun!).

Without gear/work, life has no structure....what do normal people do with all this time?

I have been trying, I went to the pub TWICE in the last 2 days, but you can't smoke and I can't really drink at the mo as the smell makes me all delicate...

...can you do a post about ideas to fill an ordinary day??

The prob is I think green takes away all my imagination & curiosity..

XxXxX

Gledwood said...

I will try. Do you think I will take my own advice though!!

Is it the green taking it away or lack of the other stuff? I always wondered... I felt much livlier on subutex. MUCH better.

I used to have this stupid thing about Heroin Eastenders. Pauline Fowler hitting up at the sink. Dot chasing a line in the laundrette. Phil Mitchell going in his groin while Ricky goes out to score more... Peggy Mitchell would probably have dealt a bit.

Pauline Fowler! You can tell I haven't watched it properly for ages.

Did you see Phil Mitchell on crack!! That was a disappointingly short story. Nobody gets into it that quickly, not usually. If they did they wouldn't get out so fast!!

Have a good one tomorrow...
I'm orf now, as Dot says

Lady Anon said...

I think it's not just that we are lacking the other stuff, but that methadone is a completely different drug to gear. (If it was a better drug they wouldn't give it to us.)

I couldn't hack going on subutex, going through 3 days of withdrawal, just to get hooked on a different opiate? I know that a lot of people find it INFINITELY better than juice, but I had to top it up with everything and just didn't trust it to hold me on its own. Didn't last a day without scoring!

Haha, Phil Mitchell, the most unconvincing crack-head ever!I LOVE addicts on TV!

this is why....

Addicts on TV always get addicted in one episode and clean four episodes later. Then they never take drugs again.

Addicts on TV also look elegantly wasted & hollow-eyed within two episodes and return like a shampoo advert when clean in episode five...

Addicts on TV ALWAYS get caught using right-away. friends and family ALWAYS intervene.

Addicts on TV will usually steal and sell some sentimental family heirloom or failing that, will ALMOST overdose (but be fine afterwards).

Maybe I could spend my free time compiling the definitive list of every TV addict complete with % success rates etc. That could use up some minutes!

XXxXxx

Gledwood said...

On Subbies I went through one afternoon of appallingly bad withdrawal, did sleep at night. Woke early the next morning feeling far better. I was probably about 95% OK. By the next day I was probably 98% by day 3, 99%, then pretty much 100%.

You should start a blog, you wrote the first post right there!!

When EastEnders' press office gave out stuff to the Sun, Mirror etc saying how intricately they had researched the issue, I assumed they knew crack tends to be an episodic, relapsing problem. Not constant, the way gear is, not in the beginning. But no. Phil goes slap bang on it and as you say, clean as a whistle in ... how short a time??

Don't think he'll be doing many shampoo ads tho, ha-har :-)

Lady Anon said...

When I tried I spent day 1 in bed & scored in the eve...

day 2 in bed and scored in the afternoon...

day 3...scored in the morning.

Not my finest hours.

XxxXX

Gledwood said...

Ukkh!
I was in a terrible state that first afternoon. Puked up all I had eaten. Ran down to phonebox to score. Got talked out of it. It was a busride away and wasn't well enough to ride there anyhow. + it would have been on tick. No, no. I have never except once told a dealer I was sick. I always thought that was giving them a satisfaction they didn't deserve.
So were those 3 days it?
Was it street-bought? Or scripted? Subutex is supposed to be selling like hotcakes on the street.
You know in America they're all into Dilaudid/hydromorphone and Oxy(codone). I don't know of anyone here who takes stuff like that, it's all geargeargear as far as opiates are concerned.
I wish I'd known you put that there I was probably awake. I just took methadone I of the new day. A bottle of 50% water 50% gack!!
Nighty night :-)

Alice said...

i cant believe yourve got the deline bass song on your profile...i love that fucking song, the coke badger is awesome,take me back to the ibiza days, i listened to that song for about six days straight..although it could have been six weeks im still unsusre how long i actually spent in ibiza lol.. thats all ... sweet dreams guys

Akelamalu said...

I'm praying the drought continues because you are coping with just Methadone. The longer it goes on the more chance you have of getting clean. x

Lady Anon said...

Yup, 3 days was my lot. My drugs worker said I should probably bow out gracefully after that...

...I agreed.

It was scripted. I was supposed to take small amounts tapering up to a normal dose like 8, 12, 14 etc. I think the first day I took 8, then on day two 16, but that wasn't exactly right because I took all of what they gave me instead of spacing it out (for all the good it did me.)

(and it tastes VILE when you are withdrawing...Hold it under my tongue...WHAT?! Who decided that was the way to take it!)

Anyway, Yeah, I know, I don't think many ppl can get the semi-synthetics over here. Or not reliably enough to nurture a habit on them.

Maybe thats why methadone is so crappy...it's completely synthetic & I think it feels harsh & plastic while gear is soft & flowing...(sigh).

Thanks Akelamalu for little nugget of positivity, but I don't think many of us will 'just say no', when she comes round again.....

Syd said...

I don't like to read about the love affair with heroin. It is really killing you. I would rather read about the hamsters or even the Chinese or German discussions. Something that is living. Sorry for you and this rotten habit.

MAR MAR said...

Hi all,

Here im again at work looking to the blog, could not get anthing and did not want to get anything last night, only crpa around,
No the good gear i got last WE is getting out of my bosy and this mornign was madd to get up i could not move, SYD WE ARE SICK PEOPLE DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS? YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN ADDICTED TO B SO I WOULD NOT JUDGE OTHERS.
P.S SHORTY LET ME KNOW ABOUT THE EMAIL I SENT YOU.

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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