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, January 05, 2011

Medicinal Heroin Binge


TO ANYONE WHO PERUSED my last-but-one post, "in answer to some comments" I'd first like to point out my rantings were not a personal attack on any friends or commenters. Not a direct attack; not a sideways swipe. Passive aggression (where you express anger obliquely, then deny you're doing it) is not my style. If I have a problem with someone I tell that person ~ it's the only way of doing it. Some of your comments did touch a raw nerve and that is what I was responding to. The fact that I'm me... not me... who am I?

The crux problem I had with heroin was that, apart from killing my pain, it held me very much together as a person. On gear I felt whole. The way other people seemingly feel.

Without gear I am Consciousness Aware of Passing Impressions. I'm expected to behave like and vouch for being "Somebody" but I do not feel like somebody. I feel many things at many times. I don't add them up. Somebody else might try to. Sometimes I have to account for whoever that person supposedly was, what happened to them. That's when it gets confusing. You see that's outward pressure to account for myself, to explain the inexplicable. It causes untold stress.

People seem to read into my words what they perhaps might feel had the words been their own. You need to be careful of doing this. Oftentimes I am comfortably numb. I never needed heroin to induce this and that puzzles me.

What heroin did do was give a certain confidence and a togetherness I had never in my adult life. That's why gear was so addictive. Whenever I tried to give it up, I (unwittingly) gave up my whole life also.

Far from over-analysing or ponderously dwelling on the issue of my life and feelings and future (the way many have assumed I do, probably due to my question-answering style)~ I realized in rehab that I actually hadn't the faintest clue what on EARTH I was going to do afterwards.

I was jumping blindfold into icewater! No wonder I ran out the door within half a week both times ~ despite immense preparation in the form of regimented drug-reduction, especially the second time. Despite what I'd assumed was motivation enough, I simply was not ready. Not the way I needed to be. I just did not know what I was doing.

You might also bear in mind that when I write, I use a naturally analytical style. This doesn't mean that I spend hours pondering myself in this way too!

People sometimes assume that because I write a certain way I must inevitably spend hours picking over my life in this manner too. That simply is not true. If I say I feel lost, I'm expressing a feeling. I don't wander about telling myself "I'm lost I'm lost I'm lost". I only say "I'm lost" when I talk to you.

At the extremes of experience I've found myself thinking far too quickly to ponder anything much. (That "breakdown" not long ago was like a tornado. Some of you read my words and appeared to assume I was more grounded than I really was. I was whirling a good one hundred times faster than usual ~ literally! It felt fantastic! But is not too conducive to self-examination.)

At the other extreme I slowed down and barely thought at all. My writing style cannot not reflect my minute by minute thinking style, unless I was willing to post near-blank pages or ones full of badddadah-dah-DING! Which is what my mind started doing when I was a little over-"manic". Perhaps that's my problem: if anything I ought to engage my brain MORE, not less!

On Sunday afternoon when I was tripping (on nothing; I've not taken psychedelic drugs in about a decade) and the Scouse of the South came blaring out a broken intercom I finally got fed up of people thinking I had DTs or needed Lithium. I popped some Librium which didn't really do much. My so-called Friend put pressure on me to find heroin. This was impossible, I said: it would be tiny, weak, money down the drain. He didn't care. Eventually to great irritation, which spilled into a dur euphoria (because I'm me and I am dur) heroin arrived. I took heroin. It was rubbish. I scored more that night and that was OK. Then I scored again and again and so I've done a lovely heroin binge.

And do you know what? The voices that were chattering away at night have vanished. (So much for drug-induced psychosis. If you wanna use the dreaded psycho-word this is a drug-REMOVED phenomenon. So the psychiatric industry can shove that in their crack-pipes and smoke it! Suddenly I feel put together and sturdy and strong again. All the reasons I got into gear to start with are revalidated.

Mental health nurses at the clinic will limply coo "ooo you're self-medicating" ~ yet they NEVER offer any alternative course of treatment or action. When I got into telling something particularly involved they crossed legs, leaned forward with a look in their eyes as if something really good was playing out on television. That's all I ever was to those people. Free entertainment.

Though I am supremely annoyed at this "Friend" for pushing me in that direction and will lance hi with expressions like "No ******g respect for MY feelings or MY sobriety," next time we meet, I am not "going back on gear" for anybody's sake. I took what was left tonight. I made sure I used it all. When it's gone ~ that's it.

I got a fantastic practical boost from heroin: it put me together enough to clean and tidy my living space back to the bounds of normality. Without it one disparate aspect of me nags "You've got to clear up" yet the other is not listening. I went on nagging myself this way for days, weeks, months with little-to-no avail. I could tell Mental Health Staff and this would provoke loads of engaged scribbling. With no benefit whatsoever to me. I don't care any more about my convoluted notes. I want RESULTS. Doesn't it come to something when only heroin will fix me?

Yes I could have not taken it. And I'd still be in a mess. I wouldn't have slept (I didn't sleep before). Less than a third as much would have been done (that's what happened last time). And my fractured less-than-self would watch caring-uncaring. Who cares anyhow? All I need do is get this task done. It's done enough now that I never need repeat that pharmaceutical relapse. I'm not offering an excuse for having used. I'm merely telling how using helped me. I only took heroin at all because it helped me a lot.

I was no longer crying. On heroin I was a whole person.

I'm willing to fracture up again, that's the inevitable result of pulling the plug on diamorphine. Please don't assume I'm telling you I suffer horribly. I feel nasty when I'm depressed, that much is true. But did you know, when I'm severely depressed it actually feels, in a paradoxical way, not as bad as moderate depression? Moderate depression, to me, involves constant impulses to suicide. In severe depression the suicidal idea is gone because there is no Life. Life is finished. I'm Finished. It's all over. "Rock Bottom" ~ if you want to use that phrase (personally I detest it). In this state I never even saw myself as depressed until afterwards. To me, I was in spiritual crisis. I'm no longer scared of going there because there are plus-points. While desire has gone, so has any sense of life. So I no longer desired to use. At long last I was free. The blackest stormclouds have a silvery lining. There's something to be gained from everything everything. Severe depression freed me from the constant craving to use ~ and for that I shall for ever be grateful.

Which is why I'm not scared. My life is a journey and I'm not even half done. This I am well aware of.

Just because my life is coloured in different hues to yours doesn't make me ill. I know that doctors could well see some of my experience as a mental sickness, but you need to throw out of your mind the idea that I suffer more than anyone else. I really don't think this is necessarily true. As mentioned earlier, I believe some of what's uniquely me is just a nonstandard coping mechanism. I don't walk about telling myself I'm ill. I only feel ill inasmuch as stuff has needed doing for a long long while, yet hasn't been done. No matter how hard I've tried to engage I've so far failed. The room-cleaning was a big one. If I can get this done, I'll be OK. A pigfull of meat shall slither off my shoulders. Then some other person can bring home the bacon.

You see it's not "feelings" that bother me, it's DOING. There's so very much I need to DO DO DO! Time is running out.

So that's my new question: how do I engage a disengaged person without using heroin in the process...? Surely there's some magical method? Some shortcut. Some effective way?

I very much appreciate the Answers I got back on Happiness. Thanks to Akelamalu and others, I made a decision to take a volunteer position at a Hospice. I have never in my life set foot in a hospice, but I believe passionately in what these organizations do. When people are terminally ill there comes a time when Doctors ought to just leave well alone. Stop their needlesticking, blood-letting, scanning, operating, endless interfering. Stop the painful tests, painful chemo, burning radiotherapy. Stop tormenting the dying and leave them in peace ~ dosed up on painkillers, tranquillized and happy as the chemicals can make them. I'd want this for myself. I'd want it for my friends. I'd want it for my loved ones.

I always donate to the hospice charity first when I'm giving away clothes etc (I find vast amounts of clothing on the street that doesn't fit me, so it's always trotting into that shop). I'd love to see how a hospice is actually run. Surely it's a privilege to spend the last days and hours with people who are dying. There's nothing maudlin or morbid in this. To be able to bring comfort ~ or even joy ~ to anybody's final moments would be a great honour.

So these are my feelings on feeling and not feeling, and on gear. As I said, yesterday's post was not a personal attack on anybody who commented, it was merely inspired by your remarks, so please, Syd and others don't be offended. No offence was ever intended.


PEACE, LOVE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

LINKS: HEROIN AND METHADONE AS ANTIPSYCHOTICS AND MOOD STABILIZERS

1: Methadone reduces the need for antipsychotic and antimanic agents in heroin addicts hospitalized for manic and/or acute psychotic episodes

2: Use of methadone in the treatment of psychotic patients with heroin dependence (abstract)

3: Heroin and psychosis (antipsychotic effects)

4: Heroin improves negative symptoms of schizophrenia

5: Methadone as a mood stabilizer in bipolar disorder

6: High dose methadone as antidepressant and anti-anxiety agent

7: Heroin reduces auditory hallucinations/80mg methadone prescribed as sole antipsychotic


GOOD NEWS: MELODY LEE IS BACK!
If you don't know Melody, she's one of the best junkie-bloggers out there. So read her stuff!

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COLDPLAY: FIX YOU
This video and the Madonna Hung Up Video both seem to have been filmed in the same place the Warp Club happened ~ inside the most enormous railway arch club, just round from the London Dungeon and London Bridge Station ...

This is for Anna Grace especially ...




17 comments:

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

You make a whole lotta sense.
You know about a patient's analysis of psych docs?
It's "If the psyche doc wasn't nuts to begin with, he'll be nuts after dealing with so many psychos.
The logic is that usually psych docs go into the profession cause they want to figure out what is wrong with themselves.
I gotta blog why I think it's all a racket, all a business..the psyche field.
Anyway, good night & sweet dreams Gleds.

Gledwood said...

You know the saying...? It goes something like this:~

What do you call it when you talk to God?

Praying.

What do you call it when God talks to you?

Psychosis.

What do you call someone who thinks they ARE God?

A PSYCHIATRIST!!

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Right on target there, you couldn't get any closer to the truth.
I love that statement and I will remember it & pass it on!

Gledwood said...

Do pass it on. I think it's a conflation of 2 different jokes, but it's way better as one!!!!

Who knows one day it may come back all over the internet because of your telling it <;-}

Syd said...

I wasn't offended by what you wrote Gleds. I have no idea what you go through, other than what you write here. How others manage their lives is their business. I am busy managing mine the best that I know how with the help of a lot of friends in program.

Gledwood said...

You know we all have problems with words. Most marital/relationship rows are triggered by words "don't say that to me" ~ it means one thing to one person, quite something else to somebody else. What I meant was, the way I had been feeling was a very fractured way of being, I may have "sounded" quite together, and I functioned as one person... what didn't seem to happen was that this one person ever moved forward, achieved things, did things, linked up with myself... I can't describe it, but I felt this failure to engage with myself, with my life. It didn't hut. It didn't cause suffeing. It merely caused terrible trouble trying to negotiate through life because I wasn't negotiating properly... yet I cannot explain why!

Am I making sense?

In a way I mean in my head, the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. Which is pathetic, as I'm supposed to be a unified person and I'm not. I told a psychiatrist once and got undivided attention... but what does any of this mean????!!!

Does it mean anything? Should I be worried? I'm worried about myself. I don't care what fancy shmancy psychojargon someone puts on it bc I'm sure that would be 99% bullshit anyhow!!

Akh: and I bet I STILL haven't explained myself properly... still!!

Baino said...

Gleds I think we all know that your existence is different, you're going through a heap of stuff that can't all be reflected on the blog. Who are we to judge. Relax.

Gledwood said...

I didn't feel judged. Just that people seem to assume I feel more together than I do. I really don't feel together. I didn't expect to (which sounds like negative thinking, I know) but really that's just pragmatism. I found some links that confirm what I heard on the "street" a long time ago, that opiates are what I would call "psychic blockers". Without these psychic blockers I'm open to every influence coming in. I can still do it, it's just hard. And I want to see the srhink again as the symptoms I had went away then started coming back again, not as bad but they did. I took heroin every day for 3 days (up till yesterday) so it's still blockading me. I don't feel "bad" without the blockade, just a bit odd. And I find it really hard to get anything done it's as if one half of my mind won't run in sync with the other and I can't motivate myself. This is what I want to ask Dr NutNut about maybe there's something he or I can do. I just don't know what that would be...

Akelamalu said...

I feel disappointed, for you, that you took heroin. Even though you say it made you feel better it is a step backwards isn't it? I'm so thrilled that you have volunteered for work at the hospice! I hope working there, helping others, will give you the purpose you need in your life to get clean m'dear. xx

Gledwood said...

I haven't volunteered yet. You know how complicated it is these days. I need to get a reference (I'm sure) ... I have an appt next week at the methadone clinic and I'm asking them whether they can vouch for me. SURELY they will because they want people to get off their arses and do something!

Actually you just reminded me of what I can do: find the phone number now!

Jeannie said...

What you need is a doctor who will listen - really listen. Who knows, maybe heroin - or a form of it - IS what you require to be "normal". Or perhaps they have other, safer? medications. The problem is, being an addict, you have little credibility. Have you considered telling them about your blog? You have a considerable record here of what you've gone through. You might be lying through your teeth here but I somehow find that to be a stretch - a lot of effort for what?
I hope you can get legitimate help so you can succeed to be clean even if that means being medicated - understanding that it might take time to get the right mix of meds.

Gledwood said...

Interesting you say that: I did consider telling them about my blog. I could at least say: look read through this THEN you'll see what goes on.

I think I know how their minds work. They'd rather give methadone + something else than just heroin/morphine that might fix things better.

The other issue is my not wanting to stay on opiates/opioids of any kind.

I have long been considering saying "methadone does not work the way you want it to, please give me something more suitable"...

i wonder
i wonder
i wonder whether they'd actually listen and take any meaningful action!

Gattina said...

You didn't take care of yourself by taking the easiest way, a little heroin shot and little boy feels better. that's just like having toothache and take sweets. It comforts but makes your teeth rotten.
I never judge anybody, my grandma always said the German proverb :
Wie man sein Bett macht so liegt man.
and that is true ! Tidy up your bed and you will feel better.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes i feel like you gledwood and i accept that i may be on some form of opiate for ever as it holds me together,lets me function as a whole being .without it i am anxiety ridden,fearful panic struck and unable to even cook a meal without it feeling like an insurmountable thing,the point is,i accept myself. As i am now.it s ok to be me and to need a drug.Noone else is you and knows what you need.To feel disappointed in you that you used is actually heaping guilt on you that you don't need?maybe you are beyond this.I read somewhere the best way to fight your demons is to make friends with them....then they lose their power..

BMelonsLemonade said...

Good for you on the Hospice thing...I could not do it personally, but I think it is a wonderful organization. Recovery is a path of ups and downs and ins and outs, Gled. You have to find your niche, and discover your limits and rediscover things about yourself you lost in the fire. Recovery does not always mean 100% sobriety...it is different for everyone. Don't beat yourself up, "Such is life, "(to quote Ned Kelly.) And I love that Coldplay song. It was actually on the Red Cross Hurricane Relief album put out after Katrina and its sales helped the victims. The song always makes me cry because I associate it with those first few months after the storm. I am going to leave you with another quote, buddy...(a Tupac quote) "Keep ya head up."
Much Love...T

Anonymous said...

It's disappointing that you lapsed, Gleds. But don't stop trying, you will get there eventually. And just for the record, no one ever feels 'together' really. I've never done drugs and yet still never feel in control and I sometimes have days when I'm utterly unable to cope, but just knowing that I'm not the only one helps me through it. I hope one day the massive network of support that you've built up will be enough for you not to go back to H.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I know exactly how you feel.
I used heroin for the same reason. It made me feel "together". Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I knew exactly who I was, why I was here, and I was able to take action, to get A LOT done...and feel happy doing it. My life improved incredibly at first.

But this medication is illegal, and so it is so expensive and dirty, that in my part of the world, it's just impossible to live with it, without spending an inordinate amount of money and energy and risking health and life all the time. So I had to stop. It's funny, but it was always exactly when I was having my best moments on heroin, that I knew this was no solution and I HAD to stop doing it. The state itself was telling me this.

So I stopped. It's been several years.

And I found a way to get together without heroin. It works just the same, only better, legally and for free. It's called meditation. I use a very simple method, you find all about it at www.aypsite.org. You can "learn" it in 5 minutes, you see results in days or weeks. It heals all the symptoms you describe. Really heals, unlike heroin or psychiatric medication - drugs only suppress our problems, they don't heal. Knowing this, and being much better, I now don't desire heroin anymore.
Yoga also helps. Changing diet helps. Changing jobs, finding the right people, going after your dreams...

Heroin showed you a "demo" of what it would be like to be free and healthy. Bud you do not need to use the demo over and over. You need to go and become free for real.

Why take methadone? A stupid trap that does not give you anything. Psychiatry also cannot offer you much, their "understanding" of mental problems cannot really heal you, just suppress the problem. You need to look for real methods to change and heal yourself. That usually involves doing things yourself every day. The good news is it is possible and it works.

Good luck !

Marketa

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