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 23, 2011

Crack/Addiction/Doctor Rant


Diagnose diagnose shove it up your nose. Here's my suggestion to anyone working in mental health apart from Lizzie. Do some coke, read this, get a life http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/146/4/459
Yeah my thoughts are all mixed up. And I know it.
They say I have "good insight" "good reality testing"
those things. [Well I hope I do!] That's what keeps me out not in. Otherwise I would have been committed to psychocentral long ago. I don't want to be in Braodmoor that is a prison for the criminally insane. I used to think I was gonna get set up falsely accused. Happened to me enough when I was younger. Accuse anybody of anything and yeah they will "look guilty". do me a favour. i was going to come up with a string of links but really cant be bothered now i had osme point i have gone past the point Talking Past the Point. Remember that one from somewhere. Know something about something. PSYCHOLOGY did you know I once wanted to be a psychologist. Not Abnormal Psychology which is half-brained psychiatry (wanna be a psychiatrist BE a psychiatrist, not a psychologist it means you're too thick to do a medical degree, in essence) what I wanted to explore was "individual differences" which means Personality and what distinguishes one person from another person. Their ways. Their means. Their Power. Their powerlessness (learned helplessness is when you torture someone, torture a rat every time it tries to eat and it'll starve itself to death ~ big wow yeah a lot of SYMPATHY goes on in psychology so if you ever think DOCTORS ARE BASTARDS think of what went on to get them where they are today re what they know and where they go. Their attitude to addicts I will not get into. Read Sids blog re him as junkie speaking to medical students. They didn't know fuck all. One TRAINED DOCTOR didn't know what DIAMORPHINE was diamorph as used in actue and chronic pain management, diamorphine as in street heroin, diamorphine as in addictive drug diamorphine as in medicine, diamorphine how the hell can you be a doctor and not understand the difference betweeen [morphine and] acetylated morphine which is diacetylmorphine aka diamorphine (the deacetylation is said to be a lot of the heroin rush) how can you not know that that is utterly inconcievably stupid sorry to say it. Brainy as you get and utterly thick. Typical doctor. In America they're even worse. Anna Grace has been treated so shockingly I wouldn't want to meet the people who did it to her. I think I'm very self restrained but I don't .... what about Silk Taffeta in an American detox clinic detoxing off benzos watching fellow patients FITTING OUT that's utterly stupid. Let someone have one fit they're likely to have seizures again, to become epileptic. Different drug, parallel situation: CRACK COCAINE. In my day (when I started smoking it) the crack was most definitely better than now, stronger and better and I'm talking about how it vaporizes (should melt easily), how long it smokes (shorter the better) etc etc + fact that we weren't breaking rocks up we piped the whole £10 0.2g rock which gave me chest pains and earringing, echoing noises and one time at least a blinding white light into which i vanished into Crack Land zooming out down a Loony Tunes tunnel with My Big Issue (homeless magazine) selling friend at the end of it that was Proper Crack that's what I thought of as Piping. You can literally KILL YOURSELF smoking like this. That's why my heart flapped against my chest like a trapped pigeon. You can GO INTO SEIZURES which my ex had done. Then, years later, she was seeing a neurologist for fitting out. Petit mal in her case. I remember her just blanking, eyes rolling back. I was high but not too high to be bothered. I yelled look at me and held her head and made a drastic V right to her eyes yes I do have self control to Stop At The Right Point I didn't and had no intention of harming her. Point was she didn't flinch. Wasn't acting. Didn't look there. Wasn't there. BECAUSE OF CRACK. It is evil nasty stuff. The vibe surrounding it is nasty. The people surrounding it are patently nasty and if you don't see that take a step or two back. Part of the process of de-addicting yourself involves perspective. If you have no handle on normality or morality or whatever else you'll have no other seat to sit on bar the Addicts' Chair.
Crack is the absolute last thing I want or need that's why I was yelling aobut it down the phone to psycho stone-throwing friend. When he did actually throw a stone at my window even though he'd said he'd do it it was SO LOUD I YELLED AT THE VERY TOP OF MY VOICE YEAH I'M COMING I'M COMING OUT ONE SECOND!!! and i was TRYING to calm down for this magical mystery tour that involved four of us. I was merely passenger. I don't care whether they bought Brown or White (heroin or crack) I didn't ask, didn't even wonder [which is why i note this down: first time ever i've been in a car, someone's got out, i knew it was to score drugs once id got my head round the idea he wasn't running away, and didn't think about, wonder, want what/when/why/any part of it. and if you cannot believe that that's your problem not mine]. This is why NA piss me off, tell a story like that they'll assume it's a tale half told they DON'T GET IT. HIGHER POWER. That's what keeps you off drugs. a Higher Power. They say it themselves. There are 3 Higher Powers: the Power in the Room at an NA meeting, God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth and all of us (I think God is the original meaning of Higher Power but wasn't there so how do I know?) and lastly the POWER IN ME, THE POWER IN YOU. That's my Higher Power and that is more Powerful than Me and more Powerful than You and More Powerful than Heroin or Crack or any other Drug.
I find it hard to believe a reforming addict, "Recovering" as they say. How can they not get that. But they don't. And they don't get me. I'll keep coming back but I'm telling the truth next time. Have had enough of being misunderstood.

OK Crack/other rant over.
Delightful comments please!

Link click Silk Taffeta above, you get the full Xanax Withdrawal story, click this one and it's to Anna and me re Trainspotting

ukk i only read over this enough to find highlight and do the links no i don't hate America I only hate certain aspects of their legal system and medical system and some aspects of their system re drug addiction, it's not like here and here isn't like other places
one reason i wanted to go abroad is because i'm Sick To Death of the British Govt and feel when you're in a foreign country that is Their Government and Their Way of Doing Things you focus on the positives not the negatives. Unless you ARE RANTING ABOUT DRUG ADDICTION where my small irritation becomes explosively relevant. Plus I'm really pissed off at how my friend was abused and mistreated. She is American. She is my friend. Anna. My Best Friend.

AUDIO BULLYS DRUMS (ON WITH THE STORY)
Thanks LIzzie

i love this tune, it's amazing, this is the best one so far. it doesn't start dancing till about 2 mins in



AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THIS I THINK COCAINE IS SUCH A WONDERFUL GOOD IDEA, TAKING A DRUG THAT FITS YOU OUT, GIVES YOU HEART ATTACKS, ADDICTS, MAKES HOMELESS, RUINS MARRIAGES, LIVES ETC. WHICH IS WHY I WAS SO OBVIOUSLY TOTALLY SERIOUS WHEN i SAID "DO SOME COKE"
KKKKKHHHHHHHHHH
i have to be so careful

i don't want some kid to read this and think "drugs are a good idea"

yeah right yeah so bang on yeah yeah look what they did to me

i'm so........... (fill in the blank ya self, lazy fucker!)

14:00 ha! i just linked up Broadmoor Hospital should i read not read cant be bothered reading something so boring. imagine that the absolute pits. got nuff of me own mate dont need yours. someone else read it

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey gledwood,i was reading a book about doris lessing ,who i like to read on occasion,it seems she used to hang out with r d laing who thought psychosis was like the return to sanity,a journey that some people survive to become guides into the land of the sane...so i thought of you x ani

lizzydripping said...

thanks gleds, i like to call diagnosis diag-nonsense (get it! :)) the problem with diagnosis in metal health, schizophrenia in particular is that its just a collection of symptoms and when people are diagnosed for example even if they don't have all the symptoms because they have been given that diagnosis then doctors and nurses assume that the person has all of the said symptoms, whether they have them or not, my philosophy when working is its not about symptoms or diagnoses its about need - for example if someone is hearing voices they find distressing we need to find ways to manage those distressing voices and not necessarily through the exclusive use of medication. giving the person a diagnosis does not manage the symptoms it just tells the docs which drug to prescribe.
plus the danger is that people begin to think they are their diagnosis which is why i HATE it when people call people who have a diagnosis of schizophrenia a schizophrenic grrrrr mental illness is just part of them its should not define them.
there rant over
p.s.glad you liked the tune
lizzy

Gledwood said...

Lizzie: yeah the tune was fantastic, i don't want a diagnosis as such i want 1. to sort my mess out which is to do with housing, debts, council tax, all teetering or unpaid/not dealt with (at all) and 2. because of feeling crap for years on end (not really crap all the time). When I said something about not having been completely OK for 20 years or whatever I did mean COMPLETELY i don't want a half-baked OK i want proper. Uuuur well I've got an appt. on the 26th and I have to find the card where the money comes. The fucking landlord and his mess man can do one. The next priority after the other stuff is clean clothes, then clean me, landlord comes last. I'm not fucking cleaning my house and leaving things really far more urgent in a complete mess.

The dr thing last wk was "a dr needs to see YOU (not me "you") like this. I agreed. They knew I agreed. I had been complaining with increasing bitterness for a long time and I think I had a right to be bitter. Don't like being that way but it does come to a point when if you cannot feel anything for yourself you just won't do anything at all (which is what I used to do). Despite posting, learning Chinese or kind of... I didn't do anything else.

Heroin! That masked how I was brilliantly.

I didn't really focus on that link... I think the gist was "people who are cuckoo have difficulty thinking straight and the specifics might indicate a diagnosis or label which as you said only indicates medication.

There is other stuff, to do with sleeping. I'm sure that made it worse. That's why I didn't want to sleep. I associate it with being tired and depressed. But I couldn't sleep anyway, so unless I somehow decided not to which I've never been able to before, it just happened anyway. The amount of coffee I was drinking was no more than 4 or 5 cups a day. Now it's one weak one only to warm me up. And I've never ever felt like that on coffee. It only ever made me anxious. I don't feel anxious now!

Some nurse spent 4 hours with me over 3 occasions then deciding I had anxiety issues which i don't deny but this crap about turning stuff over in your head ~~ that was me 20 years ago! I get rid of stuff now! And as I said somewhere I feel IRRITATED not gripped round the heart. I can't believe she got me so wrong and then personality disorders came up.

Finally for the first time ever I feel I am actually properly being listened to. For one thing there's no fear on my part I really do not care telling someone I'm paranoid, I hear voices (sometimes) I can't sleep whatever even though it's contradictory there comes a point where i have to either go with "it" and do something really fucking stupid or tell myself i'm mad and seeing as the word "antipsychotic" comes out of THEIR mouth not mine, I don't think I'm on the wrong track

thanks for the message

sorry to go on

Ani: in a nutshell because I read it a while ago and ate chinese then forgot the computer was on, anyone who wants to be sane has to be fucking cuckoo anyway, know what i mean??

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Are you still in contact with the girl who had petite mal seizures?
A girl I dated was deeply into cocaine, she even rubbed it on her lips(I don't know why)When she had none, which wasn't often, she put some topical tooth ache anesthetic on her lips and insisted I do the same...what you do for love...She got into crack, I wouldn't. (Cocaine was no fun unless in a room full of people to talk to) on my own I felt hyper enough.

She now has panic disorder.She gets hot & flushed & dizzy, but she's in classes doing cbt exercises, cognitive behavior therapy, where she identifies the trigger, the reaction and practices correcting/adressing her reaction. I don't know much about it,but it seems she's getting better, humane care.
all the best to you,
j.

Vincent said...

Hey buddy, just checking in on you to see how things are going. I hope you are well. I'm doing OK myself.
Be good.
V.

Gledwood said...

Taffeta: I never felt the need for anybody there on crack/cocaine esp. crack. Never was into cocaine too shit, uncontrollable/weak. Never did it for me. Ecstasy way cheaper. Speed yuck. Meow better than speed. Only bothered with meow 4methcathinone once. Never need someone there except E for a RAVE RAVERS IN THE HOUSE. Taking E alone = sad. Only once did that detoxing off very mild heroin. Otherwise E alone... ukkk the worst most incomprehensible ... don't get it at all. Everything else yeah! I got loads of free crack from people who couldn't bear to be alone on it so I'm all for people not wanting to be alone on crack. One even had paranoid schizophrenia (something: where he thought road signs were messages to him, he wasnt manic, wasnt into drugs enough for it to be a substance crap thing disorder he was Like That I know a difference when I see it. Uuuuhhhh.... I hope I ddnt miss another point here

i know 2 people who have panic attacks bc of ecstasy. Both female.

Some nurse who totally missed the point with me gave me a sheet on anxiety. Full of thoughts I never would entertain, which makes me wonder whether anxiety is more cognitive than moods.

I couldn't help noticing, when I came off antidepressants that worked (ie made me not in the slightest bit depressed) the first thing to change wasn't "thought" but mood eg I think "I'm going up town"... THEN I feel depressed about it and it feels hopeless. No actual language "there's no point going there" that is a feeling. Cognitive therapy might work, but it does seem to be turning an impression into a linguistic unit, which my impressions aren't. I caught one, caught a few several times, and proved it...

am i making sense ...?

Vincent: hi I'm behaving. Not taking heroin or drugs and feeling fantastic. Why I wasted all those years paying money for SHIT I haven't the faintest idea..!

Gledwood said...

Am I still in touch with the girl with the petit mal seizures?

No.

Our mutual freind keeps running into Libra as I always called her here.

She was my Courtney Love there's something of that one in her, her attitude etc.

She asks how I am then ... "don't tell gledwood xxx..." suggesting she still does care

but she's the one who dumped me, she had someone else when i had just got hit on the head by a truck i barely knew what day it was she was off doing her own thing i did mine she vanished i barely gave her another thought once i realized

i treated her like i'd treat anybody i cared about who did that to me

disengage

easy

wasn't there

didin't wanna be there

not there in my head either

works wonders, that technique, if you can do it

Certified Doctor said...

Very difficult to come out of any addiction, it has to be rooted out but takes time to get rid of it.

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

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