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 08, 2010

How did I get here

ALTERNATIVE TITLE WAS: ALL OVER PLACE am I supposed to fulfill Gledwood Going Mad Entertainment Quotient?

Met mental health person last night.
Who I know. For various reasons wasn't sure. First impressions (not to be nasty, more as in it takes one to know one) proved correct. Sufferer.

Ended up having high old time in car. No drugs. Person said some helpful things.

Things I have been asked this week include Am I piping? No. Though feel as if am/have been full-on £1000s per week ~ v recently). Do not commit suicide. (Why does anyone think I will do that?) etc etc. Worker has been banging on about how much I drink, in nicest possible way. Turning up alcohol-reeking at emergency centre psych thing will lead to a Confused Picture, so I am told.

Also got advised to "watch television".

Got up around 9am. It took me till past one pm to get self, clothes, money, keys, shoes, bags, detergent, empty bottle for drink (not drunk, had only had half can by midday and that left over from last night) blah blah in correct place which is nearly 5 mins from own. Majorstretch of ... ability to do something. Whatever. Probably everybody in there thought I was on drugs as disgorging clothes from huge bags into a machine and attaining correct money in right change which laundrette assistant kindly sorted for me in piles.... Am I turning into grade A cabbage?

I only post so late because getting self, computer and dongle together, computer running, internet on and me posting took till 1940 hrs.

Clothes got both clean and dry. Had gone well past stressing by this time (probably would have run down road screaming/been arrested/sectioned through obviously going off head in public by this time. This is why I say I have to Avoid Stress and basically be Sick (frankly Boring person... akh.) No insult to anyone who might be sick. Because if I don't people think I'm high on something ~ badly ~ or I just go off/otherwise do not cope.

Where was I? No glasses. Relying on blur/touchtype occasional peer at screen. I hate wearing glasses, they get tangled in everything. Lost. Whatever, wherever. Also too vein though nothing to be vein about any longer. Look like old spectre of.... adjectivalness.

Anyway after this got home. Clothes intact. Still in bags. Dry but all over place, creased probably. Long as they're not going black any more, that's OK with me.

So exhausted I slept for so many hours had to entertain Chuck Self off Bridge type fantasies as knew methadone chemist actually open but it was really late, late enough for it to feel chemist should not be open. Was right to bring passport. How did I find this? Don't ask. Yeah I got me, ID, open methadone place. Person dishing out who doesn't know me (hence ID, methadone being full-on drug as far as govt concerned. Wont' get into fact that it is no true substitute for nearly any heroin addict here/now.

I think I know I am crazed because only a truly crazy or desperate person could ever 1. stop taking heroin (even with methadone) 2. not crave heroin at all. (only late into suicide-ideation thing did I realize actually could easily Hold Self by going to old drugs dealers for Heroin which by all accounts isn't as bad as it used to be. (Is this true? No idea.)

Heroin spoons/etc (everywhere) make me vaguely sick with ... what do you call it when you seriously go off something?

Is any of this actually real? Doesn't seem so/as if it ever could be so. Me Heroin Together + How Did I Get Here. Whatastupidquestion. Where is "here"? Quite pertinent question.

Must go. BTW still not really up to vast internet explorations. Am trying. Please no pressure. Can't do it.

Gotta go.

PS got a real entertainment comment yesterday calling me nutter, saying ought to be in mental unit. Quickly adding don't mean to hurt feelings. That's the same sense of humour that makes me make Valerie from Aus so off her rocker.

Nutnut dr tomorrow. Did I say that?

3 comments:

lizzydripping said...

hugs and still thinking off you- keep with it things will become calmer soon.x

Syd said...

Glad that the clothes got cleaned and sorted out. I am glad that you are alive and maybe doing a bit better. I hope so.

Gledwood said...

LD: I am in such confusion. Hoping for extra strong meds (not as drug abuse) as Proper Treatment. Hoping to get sent packing without. (Still think there's a good chance of that. Getting sent away with nothing. Due to over-confusing LifeStory basically.
Hope this/hope that. V split in hopefully non-schizophrenic way, fully understanding schizophrenia means a mad psychosis with voices and severe degeneration of personal habits and ability to cope rather than splitting up of personality (doesn't it?) thanks for the words, really appreciated, honestly

SYD well I'm still off the junk which is a miracle. Lovely blackened clothes are now pretty normal clothes.
Thanks too. I've a dreadful dreadful awful horrible (trying not to swear) DR APPOINTMENT tomorrow and it's doing my head right in like you would not believe

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