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!

Friday, December 03, 2010

I don't need heroin ever again

SOMETHING IS CHANGING. Changing in me. I have felt it all week, all last week, the week before as a strange mixture of increasing desperation. I am attracted to and yet bored by drugs of the opiate and sedative types (as far as I know, all the heroin I have used lately has contained strong sedatives to make up for the low purity. Even the "good gear" nowadays is far weaker than it was a few months ago. This is thanks to the Great British Heroin Drought we find outselves in the midst of.)

As I posted yesterday I have found myself drinking heavily enough to lose track of what I've been doing. My life feels more chaotic than ever before.

I met a dealer for a free sample of heroin and crack this evening. Now hear this for some poetic justice or whatever it's called. My feelings, right from the start were mixed. It was so cold and the dealer tried to just drop the drugs into my hand. This is a stupid thing to do with something weighing a fraction of a gram because of course I could not feel it. Dropped it. Spent about five minutes scrabbling on the street with people walking past wondering what on earth I was doing. The heroin I never found, but the crack I did. I walked home, turning over and over the idea of simply flushing it.

And guess what? What I'd brought back wasn't crack at all, but a pinky-white lump of quarz that just looked like crack. Broke in half like hard crack. Nobody was ripping me off, I paid nothing for these drugs I lost. But my point is it felt like an ending. Instead of going crazy, I didn't really care. I had enough heroin for 2 hits left over from the morning. Because the drug contains so much sedative, whenever I take it I fall straight to sleep. I still have some residues lying on the TV. In a sec I will cook them up, cool them down (because some idiot put a little bit of something that turns into tiny crystals as it cools, and if you don't let the solution cool fully before filtering it will block the syringe). There is incidentally another way of getting round this problem, but it's potentially dangerous. Some of the gear a couple of weeks ago had about a hundred times more of this weird stuff in it. Within two minutes what should have been a liquid shot had turned into murky clods.

I pick up my methadone usually within half an hour of the chemist opening and for once I'm looking forward to a day on the "green". The thought haunts me over and over, as the madness of my drinking and drugging comes back and back that I never have to do this ever again. I am so lucky having methadone. An instant escape route. Even if it's not the best escape. Even if I feel lousy on it. Even if other therapies were more widely available here (but they're not) ~ methadone is with me. And with methadone, I never have to return to the madness of heroin. Ever again.

Illustrated: British green "methadone mixture" 1mg/1ml; this type of brown powder I fully intend to go on using till I die ~ cocoa powder

18 comments:

Syd said...

I hope that is true. I really do.

Lady Anon said...

I too am on a day of methadone...am at work & on my own here but the thing is I really don't feel that crappy today...

...I even put some lipstick on this morning...

....!


If you weren't angry that you lost a free bag of B......

....that says a lot about your state of mind...

...I wrote you another email last night trying to explain what they mean when saying addiction is a choice...

XxXxXx

Jeannie said...

I hope you can be satisfied with it. It seems to me this drought might be weaning a few people off heroin. Could be doing all of you a favour.

jams o donnell said...

I really hope you can Gleds. My friend just celebrated 23 years clean, no heroin, no methadone. It can be done

Akelamalu said...

I have everything crossed for you. x

Gledwood said...

well it's nearly 4pm already i haven't used, i forgot i had a half dose of methadone still haven't been to chemist i want to try and clean mysself up i feel pretty vile but i'm ok
last night i was hallucinating
if i go on like this i will lose it completely i have had enough

Liz Hinds said...

Gledwood, I pray that cocoa powder will be your sustaining powder and that this resolve lasts and empowers you. (Cor blimey, I sound like a therapist!)

Vincent said...

I wish you lots of strength mate. I hope you've reached your turning point but I can't look inside your head.

Anonymous said...

What wonderful news dear.Im so proud of you just as if you were my own daughter.you make sure you get rested up and stay off your feet.being alone and pregnant with all that work you do around the house must be so hard.Im sure you will feel like your old self again soon.Drink lots of water dear to flush out your system.has your husband or boyfriend come to help you out yet?

Gledwood said...

Liz: I had my last shot of chocolate about an hour ago...

Vincent: I have scored no heroin. Only dregs left that I just salvaged, so from now on just for today I'm not using. I haven't used so far, but as I say I did find some dregs that I frankly don't have the strength to throw away. From then on it's "just for today"...


Anon: thank you so much dear. I am gradually becoming accustomed to being a pregnant woman. BTW I must add I don't really live in London at all but St Kilda in Melbourne. Oh our house is lovely. Though I do have to insist my husband does not use the drive-round lawnmower naked. He says some days it's so hot he just cannot be bothered with clothes. As well as the weather the best thing about Australia is all that lovely Burmese heroin. Don't tell anyone, but me and the old man actually own shares in a refinery out on the Lao border! That's why I put pictures of the packaging down the side. Bit of sneaky advertising on the international narcotics market. Clever, doncha see?!

Furtheron said...

One day at a time, one hour, one minute if you need to... can be done, I know many who've walked that path and continue to...

I drink too much coffee these days and too much chocolate

Gledwood said...

I found Mocca made the wrong way round (ie 4 tsps drinking chocolate, half a tsp coffee) makes a brilliant replacement for white cyder!

PS Anonymous ~ Also as a pregnant woman I shouldn't be drinking at all. And that British crap I like so much is so hard to come by in the suburbs of Melbourne. Thank God Bruce is a drug trafficker (I met him when I was working in a Brothel in Cambodia). I get the heroin sent over in cans of White Star. One day the batches got mixed up, I cracked open a can and half a kilo of white powder flew out. I've never been so bitterly disappointed by so much heroin! I needed a DRINK... Akh. What am I going to do? I have to give up everything for the sake of the baby. And my ankles are so swollen too. You're right it is all that housework making me exhausted, but what can you do? Brucie refuses to do a thing, and he will insist on repairing motorbikes on the coffee table. No wonder we have rats under the sink!

Nicole said...

I will keep my fingers crossed for you Gled :)

Gledwood said...

Thanks Nicole. I finally feel the WILL ... I was far too lost before

Gledwood said...

I fell asleep on my fone last nite and couldn't find it till someone tried to ring around 10pm

then i checked one text and it was from a drug dealer so i didnt bother and didn't get your message till after the fact. sorry. i am in complete chaos here it is really bad. i wouldn't be into giving up drugs otherwise but it's just not working and the only place i can think to go is na which i can get to on monday if i can't do it tomorrow as haven't got/made any money

Gledwood said...

im too scared of handling money bc of heroin

Gledwood said...

i would rather just have none and methadone and be ok. i have food

haven't paid service charge in weeks, council probably want to throw me out. haven't even checked mail for weeeks it only ever contains threats so i just don't bother

only xception was a letter from my Mum but she told me it was coming she was shocked what a state i was in, totally out of it

Anonymous said...

looks like the done has become the new gear now..well its cheaper if prescribed. Bring back the old diamorph ampules..oh how they made me chuck up!! it was heaven!!

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