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!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

5am Chocolate Recovery

CADBURY'S WHISPA (x2) and Yazoo chocolate milk (x1)... severe chocolate craving. Despite the pill I'm not sleeping, waking up for ages. Been surfing since sometime before 2am, intermittently sleeping, (absolutely impossible to fill out a sleep diary for tonight I haven't the faintest idea how many hours)...

The drinking is around 3 cans per day at 7.5% alcohol in 500ml cans. I'm not "out of it" because I'm "drunk"; "alcohol is a depressant" as they loved to tell me. So not being depressed at all, being the opposite of depressed, I should be able to guzzle as much as I like, shouldn't I??! Or they shouldn't patronize us with such an obvious semantic "terminological inexactitude". Yeah I know I shouldn't drink. If I didn't think that I'd drink a hell of a lot more.

It takes some edge off me. Me who I am supposed to be (at last). You see inside every white mouse is a tigress roaring to get out. That's what my thought pattern was doing yesterday. Not me speaking in my head. Me ROARING in my head. I felt pretty hyped up, pretty good. I'd rather be a tigress than a tiger. You can have cute baby... cubs! That's the word. And aren't tiger cubs the cutest! Also tigresses are fiercer than tigers. What's the metaphor for fierce? Tigress, not tiger.

I've no idea what NA made of yesterday's speech except some scattered titters of laughter at the funny bits. Better than the reaction I got last week when I started ROARING. A jolt went through that room. That's the point, I wasn't "roaring" at all. I use that word in exaggeration and retrospect. I was merely making my point in a restful, easy manner.

But the woman I was next to, a reformed heavy pothead, is one of the kindest, brightest spirits I have met in that association (if I'm any judge of character: we've never conversed; I've only heard her share). I don't want her wary of me.

Now I'm going to have to go round making mental notes of damage to repair. Slight damage. Another way of repairing damage is by having a nice attitude. That one might do more. I say having... attitude rather than "being nice" I don't want merely to be as in being for a moment; I want to BECOME the best person I can be. And being on gear was scuppering that one constantly.

It also totally messed up any attempt at self-help. I mean the type of help discussed in self-help books, which in my view, if taken with a reasonable dose of perspective and moderation can actually help one affect constructive changes in one's life. I saw my existence as a means of change. Never wanted to be the same person at the end of a year as at the beginning. Wanted to be better. Gear messed all that up.

It's hard to say what heroin did to me that was negative, bar the obvious cliches.
What did it do? It blanketed my feelings, which I'm beginning to see might have been more intense than I realized. No not all the time but I look back and see myself at various times and think hmmmmmmm what was going on there? So it was self-medication as the clinic told me (not my expression)
I got heavily addicted. I cannot imagine being more addicted to that drug than I was at the peak. I relied on it utterly, not for happiness so much as bearability through life. To sleep, to get up, to eat I most definitely needed gear. It would feel weird, if I let it, eating without having a hit first.
What else did it do? Well something eroded my self-esteem like nothing else. So badly, at one point I had barely any left
It made me homeless
It killed my friends
The whole situation made me feel hopeless and I had no life to go back to and I hated the world we live in. Not strong ingredients for a good recovery.

Which is one reason I am not giving up on NA. My interpretation of their Ways is given below, one thing I've heard said a few times goes along the lines "my friend hasn't got a programme, but my friend isn't an addict"... in other words the friend is worse off, poorer than the Recovering Addict. Because Recovery means everything else good apart from just not taking drugs. That's what Recovery is. Recovery. It's what I want...

KLF FEATURING TAMMY WYNETTE: JUSTIFIED AND ANCIENT (JAM BY THE JAMS)
...this lot tend to get left out of early 90s compilations, nostalgia etc. theirs was by far the best non-ravey dancey pop of the time.... as an "art experience" they also burned £1,000,000 cash they'd made

A 99 is vanilla ice cream with a stick of chocolate flake shoved in at a jaunty angle...



SCOTT GARCIA: A LONDON THING
the proper video this time, Melody



SCOTT GARCIA: A LONDON THING
this is faster, the much more like original pirate radio mix

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hello gledwood,just doing my morning check in,i'm addicted (nicely) to you!I loved the klf tune yummy.And reading your stuff is making me consider NA.Just got to sort out the child care.Get the cub looked after...she won't leave her mummy's side.Cheers,ani.

Gledwood said...

Hi Ani, you can take cubs into NA in most meetings. I suppose it would be worth seeing a few to see places you could get out to.

It's true, leaving them with someone else is more conducive to concentration.

(Only good reason I can see for taking one or more with is excuse to get out. I don't always stay the entire meeting, so I don't spose you need an excuse.... o well. I've seen NA working for people who work it as they say. Definitley it does. Not necessarily for everyone, but definitely works, no question of that. Probably better for the more severely addicted than milder cases (ironically)). Actually that's the reason I think it's so good.

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