HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

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

Clearer

CLEARNESS IS SLOWLY STARTING TO APPEAR! My cluttered home is steadily decluttering. It's taking a LOT longer than I would like. I think it will take another 10 days to get things totally clear but the rate I'm going it's going very well.

I can't sleep and I'm exhausted. As I said I'm not doing anywhere like as much clearing as I'd like... but it IS being done. I'm so glad.

Everyone have a look at my cat video below; it's fantastic. I like the way he keeps patting the cat and that seems to palcate the poor purrer as it's wrapped in paper with a bow put on its head ...

Illustration: a 1940s housewife would go nuts in my house

11 comments:

Jess Mistress of Mischief said...

Oh my goodness do I understand.

I've cleared out a few houses in my lifetime.

I used to covet this website called flylady.com shes this organizer who tells you how to clean a house in zones. I thought, THAT'S BRILLIANT, as I read it! I couldn't seem to perfect the actual doing it.

My idea of cleaning the kitchen many times was more of a (you'll see from a blog I wrote yesterday) pile all the dirty dishes into the oven and get to it later, than actually doing them, drying them and putting them away neatly. That and pushing all the laundry under the bed. And when I cleaned it started with the general tidying up and organizing and turned into this manic going through boxes of crap or piles of crap and realizing I needed so much more than just a tidying up, I needed an overhaul.

I was once so insane in my alcoholic mania that I used 3 kinds of cleaner in my (TINY) bathroom. Ammonia and bleach DO NOT mix. I was so sick.

And all the while my head was filled with that stuff, the news, tragedies, oh and the too too terrible relationship and family messes ... you know the kind where I was lamenting the lost husband, stupid, uncaring, not real friends... those parents... those neighbors, so many of those jackasses in the world, all the while i wanted desperately to find some kind of hope, some kind of normalcy... hence, the decision to clean my house. If I could just get through that, maybe...

Well maybe this isn't familiar for you. I dunno.

I drank port, wine, sometimes shots of rum .... then I decided that of an evening Grand Marnier and/or some brandy was the ticket to "stop the jangle enough"

I couldn't slow down without it. I had even tried a plethora of anti-depressants and anti anxiety medicines (from the doctor) to help me.

Well you may not really relate to all this.

I'm sure glad I ran across another house cleaner today though. :)

Akelamalu said...

Keep going Gleds, you'll get there eventually. :)

Loved the cat video.

Syd said...

Glad that you are getting out the clutter. Maybe that is the good start that you need to move forward in a positive direction.

Ms. Moon said...

Have you read Dry by Augusten Burroughs?

Bimbimbie said...

Just do a little each day and you'll soon have your home the way you want it to be - it can be a bit overwhelming if you try to get it all done in a day or two. Sorry to read you've had a couple of bad days - I hope you are telling your medical people how you are having these thoughts about being messed up/lost. You need their professional help Gleds, it's too hard for a person to try to do it on their own.

Gledwood said...

Jess: Oprah did a feature on clutterclearance and clearance once saying Set yourself a time limit: half an hour, an hour, two hours and do all you can as a family in that time then stop. That would be especially good for familie where it's torturous for the kids. It works for me and I just do not have energy or direction enough to clean up all day. If I did I'd do it, but I honestly cannot anymore, which annoys me but it's true.

My poison was heroin; alcohol came in initially as Dutch courage for begging (panhandling as they call it in America) but also to intensify the waning heroin buzz. Which right from the start was waning!

But yep I know exactly how you feel. Alcohol does induce a kind of mania, I used to see it in my friends. They'd get a sudden idea and obsessively plan around it and I v quickly learned it was never going to happen!

Overhauling is what I have to do. Chucking out the way you do when you have to move and haven't room for superfluosity, y'know...

Thanks for the comment how did you find my blog?...

Akelamalu: Resolute. It took a while. It wasn't until I could actually see a difference (like the floor) that I got any momentum and it's STILL going far too slow but it is going. Also I cleaned as well as cleared. That horrible sink, the cooker, the surfaces. Lovely and clear.

Syd: slowly slowly too slowly but I am moving (slowly)

Ms Moon: no, is it good? I take it it's by a reformed drinker..? I'll google it in a sec

Bimbimbie: You know what part of it is? Knowing I'm not doing stuff that I "have to do" and yet just NOT being able to engage properly. Even now. I feel like a blue in the face parent yelling at a brik wall child. The child just will not listen, but that child is also me!

For a long time I've found it very difficult to do anything outside a very small daily routine. I cannot explain why. The government doctor understood and just scribbled something on the form. But I hate being like this I really hate it. That's why I think there's something wrong with me. It's not so much to do with feeling something bad or not feeling something, it's my life being an utter mess and me just not being able to sort it even when I want to. Fair dos I'm doing something now but I know another person could do it five or ten times quicker. When downstairs complained at me I said "I was ill" well I was. I HATE using that excuse but I had to because it's true. It's not just drugs. I know lots of people on heroin and/or crack and most were never in the mess I got into.

Being able to describe it reallly does not equal doing something about it. I told the dr this last time, just because I can string more than 6 words together fairly nicely doesn't mean everything's OK. That one fools people so much. but I'd rather pretend to be well than do an I'm sick act. I think it's unhealthy to play sick, even when you are, y'know it puts you in a role you might not want to give up. I want to actually earn a living. don'tknow how the hell I will but I want to!

I'm not so distrustful of telling the shrink. He seems to actually listen. (Wow!) :-)

Ms. Moon said...

I think you would like the book very, very much. Also one of his others- Running With Scissors. But Dry is the one I think you could most relate to.

Gledwood said...

I knew there was something I'd said I'd do but failed to do: it was looking up Austen Burroughs. OK I just found him on Wikipedia. His teeth are really white. I wish I had proper teeth. I think most of my teeth are hollow. Rotten from the inside out. Now this Austen guy has written a lot of memoirs. They're comedy memoirs I take it? Can alcoholism ever be comedy?... well I just gotta read it. Do you know we don't even have a proper bookshop here anywhere so I think I'm going to go into town and just stump money down for it, just get it. Thanks for that recommendation :-)

Akelamalu said...

Well done m'deario!

Gledwood said...

Still clearning... on Thursday night!

Gledwood said...

... is that meant to say "cleaning", "clearing" ... or "dreaming"... I'm not too sure... and does it matter..??!?

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