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!

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

2:48am Cleanup

UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS has just just finished on reapeat. The original was only on a few hours ago. This was a classic TV serial about servants and posh people in a London townhouse from my childhood. Now the BBC have brought it back with the same actress playing Rose. If you're across the Pond and get BBC America, watch this, it's A1 costume drama. I like a good costume drama but it does have to be good. Upstairs Downstairs is even better than Downton Abbey. Next week that dreadful Larkrise to Nowhere is back on I cannot stand that.

I've been watching night time television. Prince Charles showed us his bird-chirping garden. The feathery little entertainers were singing their tiny hearts out for the heir to the throne. I'd like a garden like that, but I'd go for 10,000 acres, not just 15.

Now enough about television I have just had pasta in Lloyd Grossman tomato sauce. My Mum bought me the pasta sauce. Normally I'd buy Ragu. A Ragu means you can have five times as many tomatoes as weight as they're evaporated down in an oven dish. Welshcakes Limoncello probably knows how to do this. Her Xmas dinner pictures at her friend's house are amazing.

Now I'm in a buzzy mood. Having woken up feeling vile and dire. Like death warmed up. I said I was cleaning and I did have a stab at it but I basically felt ill so I went back to bed in the afternoon and slept till 9pm. Now I'm up and racing nicely. No I have NOT been taking amphetamines or any other drugs. It's just a natural mood swing. I'm only drinking for medicinal reasons. Keeps the jangly edge off. Now I must go I have to scrub this ******* floor. ******* houses. ******* landlord. ******* life. **** **** **** ****! See I'm being awfully prim by depriving you of my obscenity tirade.

I have to go. Keeping moving keeps me UP. And UP gets the cleaning done. I am crystal clear and shining. Gotta move gotta move gotta MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE!!

Do you like my blue smiling face? Isn't it amazing. Blue is the best colour. There's nothing unhappy about blue. Blue is a high by itself. Cool blue ....

4:14am: a catalogue of freak accidents in the US. 8 homeless people burned to death in New Orleans, 5 teenagers asphyxiated in Florida motel, 8 injured in ski lift disaster in Maine ...

Oh yeah and a riot at a Moscow airport due to no de-icing spray (no: staff probably drank it!)


HOW TO WRAP A CAT FOR XMAS
This film, with 4,000,000 views so far, provoked "outrage" among humourless animal charities who seem to spend most of their existence flailing about for something to be upset and offended about. I hope they really got their money's worth from this because it's hilarious:




13 comments:

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Hi,
How about a cleaning party? You supply the alcohol & your friends do the cleaning with you.
Just a suggestion. You know the best time to do something is when you feel like it even if it is 2 something in the morning.
I love your blue smiley and agree blue is a happy, bright color, the best.
By the way, I did the tranny post you suggested.
j.
c u l8r,
j.

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Sorry,
Me again.
I remembered my Ma used to watch Upstairs Downstairs & Cell block H.
j.

Gledwood said...

Prisoner Cell Block H was my favourite programme for a while and one of the 3 best Aussie TV progs of all time. The other 2 are Funky Squad and Return to Eden.

A cleaning party... I need to find someone who isn't a heroin addict or a recovering heroin addict. Too many needles turning up in unexpected places. Most have been chucked out. I was pretty good at keeping them in one place. No I gotta do it on my own. Unfortunately. It's more chucking out than cleaning. The cleaning comes last when we have clear floors without piles of rubble in the corners. I have clear floors developing nicely but still piles of crap. Out out out with it all. I wish there was a good bookshop that paid for books. They all want them free which is taking the piss in my opinion (charity shops). I will go there as a last resort but really I want dosh for my books. I'm only keeping the Chinese Japanese and German ones.

Gattina said...

Good start !! Congratulations ! Continue cleaning than you will sleep well because you are physically tired. I tell you I hate cleaning and I am not at all the top of a housewife, but I don't like to live in dirt, so I have (in bold) to do it too ! Of course I hire Mr. G ! he lives here too (and makes a mess !)
The cat video is so cute I had seen it already. Wouldn't dare to do this with one of my cats !

Gattina said...

PS just saw that you wantg to get rid of books. Try it with second hand bookshops, that's what I am doing, there you get some money.

Gledwood said...

I cleaned my horrible sink that was blocked with swamp water in it. It actually went back to near-normal within 10 minutes, then I scraped the cooker which had burnt on food and did the surfaces next to it. They still need going over about 2 or 3 more times but they look WAY better than they did.

I used to know bookshops that paid money for books. I could get rid of 20 or 30 easily, maybe 40 or more (I really haven't counted)... I might have to take a bus into town where I probably can get rid... akh there's so many of them!

Jess Mistress of Mischief said...

Oh Gled, I've never heard anyone talk so much like me. Books kitchen sink (if you have an oven and have placed a plethora of dirty dishes in it (in a previous attempt to tidy up) or have boxes and bags with stuff in it (to go through at a later date) as you're organizing...

Baileys was one of my drinks of choice, I tried to come off addiction with anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds. To make myself feel better (and stop those terrible people from finding out how I really live and kicking me out) cause the neighbors were shitters really, I tried to organize and clean. Found one of those websites from a lady whose a professional cleaner, flylady.com or some such thing, I thought BRILLIANT! But I wasn't able to do it, I had manic phases where I was going through the motions but it was too too overwhelming and I'd crumble into a pile in front of late night tv (really loved those organization shows and reality tv)

Jess Mistress of Mischief said...

Oh, it's really weird that I ran across your blog today, I just wrote one about cleaning my house yesterday.

Syd said...

I am really glad that you are cleaning. Keep it up and use your energy to get through. The cat video is great. Only one of my cats would behave like that!

Sid said...

I did that interview with a friend of mine that provides underground ibogaine treatment in the U.S if your interested...

Baino said...

Hahaha I can't believe you liked Prisoner. Ugh. Glad you're feeling up to the task Gleds. Loved the wrap-a-cat.

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

Jess Mischief: Baileys I drink in the winter and on special occasions. It's quite nice on vanilla ice cream. I like fizzy wine, punch, cold beer on summer afternoons, white cyder, white cyder mixed with tropical juice (a kind of homemade alcopop) and o yeah liquers and spirits. Ie just about everything. Ahem. I'm going to your cleaning up blog in a sec

Syd: I suspect that cat is at least 60 in cat years, it must be. Young cats are too pingy ever to let someone do that

Sid: yeah I came over. It was fascinating. I saw a tv prog about ibogaine where the methadone addict detoxed under supervision some years ago but have never heard from a real life therapist.

Baino: Prisoner was my favourite TV prog for a while. And we got Funky Squad in the 90s, I loved that. And Return to Eden, which was far more gripping than Dallas

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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