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, January 30, 2011

Drink Update Sunday

15:04 I'm kind of drinking but not liking it. I had no drink in the morning, longwalked to Iceland to get my £2 chunky Family Steak Pie and kept thinking "I don't need alcohol, I don't need heroin, I don't need anything, I'm OK" then I kept thinking about the drink and thought "OK well just get one then" which I did and it spent an uncannily long time unopened ~ over half an hour, which is not like me. Usually I crack it open on the street, then have to be real nice when police stop me. (They don't like people glugging alcohol in public, even from a Soft Drinks Bottle...) So if I can, I'm making this my one for the day. Knowing what I'm like I cannot be confident in this, as I'll tend to go to 2, as I said. But more than 2 I'm sure I will not do, not today. ("Just for today"). I got a phone call from my old heroin dealer yesterday. I didn't answer. Got a text from another saying will I taste some food for him (no). So I'm still off heroin. Still off drugs of an illegal nature. Still ON drugs of a legal nature: methadone; risperidone (both daily) and zopiclone 7.5mg as required. I had one last night after staying up well past 11pm. Dropped it. Sleeping like a baby by midnight. Yummmy stuff. I only ever daydreamed or loved or obsessed over sleeping pills TO SLEEP. Not to "light the tedium of the protracted evening" as Sylvia Plath said. She also said "their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good". Mine are white, so I'm OK on that score..!

Man I just checked that drink, nearly ALL there! Such a guzzler me, aren't I!!

THIS is why I wasn't too hot on going to AA instead of as well as NA. People hear that I drink, but my problem is OPIATE ADDICTION. That's the core problem. Drink only ever was a gear-intensifier and a bit of Dutch courage for begging.

As I told the dr., it makes me feel a bit better in depression. When ultra-hyper it barely does anything. Probably it takes the edge off. If say I slammed a glass into a wall in that state it would be my hyperosity NOT the drink doing that. I've drank enough over enough time to know how I behave on drink, and it's not like that! Also I was down to my bare minimum 2 on most days. Not drunk, by any means.

I know I'm walking a fine line that sounds like excuses here. I have to note down the facts for my own recollection. I WANT OFF DRINK ALL TOGETHER. I was told to cut down in stages, not just come off, which is why I can't just dump it. Though I'd sorely love to just do that, I also know I'm an addict. Which means I'm into associations. And the best association I can use to get OFF is to use a mixer and switch gradually to neat mixers with no booze. Does that make sense...? Somebody who knows please advise.

"An addict on their own is in bad company". (NA saying.)

"The heart is deceptive above all things". (Biblical quotation.)

I'll leave it there (another NA saying).



LEONA LEWIS: FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE
Nick inspired this choice with his Peter Paul and Mary video



LEONA LEWIS: see how pretty she sings? She's in the Streisand-Houston league though to listen to her singles you wouldn't believe it... Illustrated: not even I have this many empties (was this person a Diet Coke fan..?!?, Seconal 100mg (1960s sleeping pill); empty coctail glass (depressing)


Sylvia Plath: INSOMNIAC is here.
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/1402
Brings me up in goosebumps it's so fine.

About pills: ...
... A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.


And re nighttime brooding...
His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.


19:34: Note to self: GABA supplements and XXXXXXX Disorder
http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/nutritional-supplements-for-bipolar-disorder/
Not that I have XXXXXXX Disorder. I don't, I have no diagnosed mental disorders (apart from depression) and certainly not that one.






8 comments:

Akelamalu said...

You sound so much more positive Gleds and I think your idea of substituting more and more soft drink for alcohol seems like a good plan to wean yourself off the drink. Keep up the good work m'dear. x

Dad and Mom said...

Gleds,

Keep moving forward. I can even see a difference in your writing. I see a more positive tone slightly and that is good. Nothing good is easy. Just keep pointed in the same path. 5 steps forward and one back doesn't mean you turn around when you take a step back. It just means you didn't go forward. Stay focused on pointing the same direction. Sooner than you imagine the progress forward will become second nature and the steps back fewer and fewer.

Be strong my man. FORWARD!!!!!!!!!

lizzydripping said...

hey pretty thing how are you today, hope that's not a pic of your house as that's a lot of beer /cyder cans.
like the in and out of love track -video is a tad dodgy though!
here is a sunday afternoon blighter for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSSktaM7qQI&feature=related

i admire you for staying off the gear especially when you have phone calls offering it for free.
biglove :)

Gledwood said...

Trust me to post nearly the same title twice! Ha ha. I am LOLing right now.

Akelamalu: I have to decide shortly whether to switch brands to Smirnoff Lemonade which is 2.8 units ie 28mls neat alcohol per 700mls. It's £3 a bottle, but that would be not much more than 2 drinks + mixers today... so I might. Then switch on to cloudy lemonade mixed with that, then just cloudy lemonade...

Dad & Mom: thanks! For once I am trying, the way I wanted to try before but somehow couldn't manage. Sounds pathetic, it's just true. Yous son is lucky to have parents like you. (& while I say it, I'm lucky to have my own ~ they're a way away from me so we talk on the phone, I don't want them to see me going nuts in their house, it happened once, once is enough!).

Easy? No. I look back and can't believe how hard it was. But that puts me off going back. I dong't want to go through even a bit of it to get back to here, let alone further on, forwards!

Lizzy: See I spelt your name right this time!! Is in out of love the bottom one, with Van Buuren and Dutch Girl? It Wouldn't Play but I wanted to hear it so I posted it up.

No I don't want yucky gear, nice gear, horrible gear: it's all horrible anyway. It was NEVER GOOD ENOUGH which made people think I was getting ripped off, I tried their dealers and EVEN WORSE!!! I had high standards. Not even 100% pure would have done me. Though I'd have loved a diamorphine script (of course).

I think they either want to prescribe that or kill addicts. Do nothing in between. As for this shit about rehab. Well good luck paying for 6, 7, 8, 9 treatments per person, because that's what it's going to take!

Thanks for the tune; I have to look at it when the computer/broadband/thing allows me!

Gledwood said...

Dad & Mom: YOUR son, not yous son. That's bad typing at work...

Jeannie said...

You sound a lot better today. I have been reading but not having a clue what to say to it.

As for cutting back on the drink - I have no clue what you should do in your position. Whatever works I guess. It seems you were using it more as a crutch to get over the heroin but since it's not your first choice drug by far, cutting back gradually will likely work for you.
What you may find helps slow you up if that's what you want - try the health shop for GABA. It's just an amino acid (protein) that keeps the brain from racing.

Also, Mennonites speak low German in their communities but also whatever the language is where they are so here they speak English. In Mexico, Spanish and Belize, likely Spanish and English.

Gledwood said...

I don't blame you for not knowing what to say. I knew what I was trying to say so it makes sense to me. But I kept forgetting tone of voice doesn't come out and people won't follow logical leaps ... must have been further gone than I thought at the time... someone did say they couldn't make head nor tail of it... then again I couldn't make head nor tail of other people's writing, even quite recently. That varied a LOT through the day though. I told the dr all this. It had him tapping away so it must "mean" something..? I suppose! I told him I'm not exaggerating, I'm not minimizing either. Which can come across I suppose as Comedy Transparency but I don't know what else to do. I got to the furthest edge of desperation just looking on at my own behaviour. Not the "me" doing it, but the "me" in charge, the same "me" who tells you to get out of bed when "you" don't want to, y'know...?

I'm really not sure but I think I heard I have to be careful with anything glutamate-related as they SAY though I don't know this for sure, that there may be a correlation between high levels and doing OTT and low levels and going depressed. I really do not know, but I'm going to look into that one so thanks

Syd said...

I am glad that you are seeing that you don't need alcohol or drugs. Going to several meetings a day would be a good thing. Even open AA meetings would be good. I would go to those a lot when I first was in recovery. I wanted to understand alcoholism after having lived around it for most of my life--thought that I knew a lot but most of my feelings were angry. In AA, I learned about compassion. You are doing the right thing Gleds by going to meetings.

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