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!

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Ecstasy and Heroin

IT'S 5PM AND I STILL HAVEN'T BEEN TO BED since last night. This was partially deliberate, to reset my sleep cycle. Though sleeping all day avoiding the world is attractive, I'm meant to see Dr Shrinko next week and I'm meant to go to the Nutter Club and I'm meant to go to the Methadone Clinic and I can't be dragging myself there in a state of depressed sleep deprivation. If I get depressed and especially if I sleep twice, when I wake up the second time I feel really lousy. I don't know why that is. Usually when I'm down I sleep for hours and hours, at least 12 hours a day, sometimes a lot longer. If I go a day without sleep I can do 19 hours or longer. The Patronizers at the clinic liked to blame opiates for this. How come it was happening when I worked, a good 6 years before I was addicted to heroin? They never listened. They're actually more obsessed with drugs than most junkies. In fact I have a theory that some of the staff who work in such places are mere junkies by proxy. They want to be around the stuff. The outrageousness and despair. But they're too scared to commit to the needle (or the foil, if you insist). I kind of understand this. But the only thing that kept me taking heroin was what heroin did for me. Nothing to do with being with any group of people. I noticed heroin addicts seemed a lot more open-minded than ordinary folk. Far more accepting of people for who they were with all their faults. The nightclub crowd coudln't tolerate negativity; it killed their buzz. Their negativity happened when the party was over and they were washed up alone in a meaningless world of comedown that magically restored itself by Thursday night. So by Friday or Saturday they were ready to blitz their brains yet again on MDMA. Though I've raved about MDMA, it was, in the end, just a very seductive lie. People who aren't nice except on E just aren't nice people. They might dearly desire to be nice and use that annoying word "fluffy" which to me always meant lacking in substance and many of them appeared to have a complete personality change on E. Suddenly becoming caring, outgoing, considerate and full of time for others. In real life they were sour, grouchy and very sad. The worst cases I met on the club scene were actually more messed up than the heroin addicts. Perhaps heroin was soothing those addicts' ills in a way that Ecstasy cannot. Ecstasy opens up; heroin closes down. Is there any meaning in chemical meaninglessnes? Or are they just two opposing lies?


EIGHTH WONDER: I'M NOT SCARED
Patsy Kensit apparently used to go to Shoom club in a gym in south London. Shoom was the first Acid House party in the UK. She wanted to be "the biggest star in the world". Then she married Liam Gallagher from Oasis and turned down a part in Friends. Now she's in Holby City...




Illustrated: modern-looking ecstasy pills. The "love dove" bird is totally different from the doves I remember in the early 90s, that sat more upright and were stamped deeper. And they were really beautiful ...

MADONNA TRACKS: The following are the best tracks from their respective albums. And neither one was ever released as a single!

MADONNA: THIEF OF HEARTS (Erotica album)



MADONNA: SKIN (Ray of Light album)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

OMGod Gled!! The absolute hell you are going through is truly criminal. Don't they have suboxone or vivitrol in the U.K.? you know, it could be as simple as you are having an allergic reaction to something innocuous in the methadone, what they mix it up into anyway.

You would think that there are enough opiate agonists out there that they could find you something other than methadone. have you taken an allergy screen for it? I would think that might be a good idea?

As far as the bi-polar and borderline personality etc, sometimes, well, I think that there are just some people in the world who don't fall into what society thinks are acceptable lines. So, they try to label them and categorise them and, well, it just doesn't make sense. Then, when the medication they prescribe doesn't do anything, do they admit they were wrong? NO...they just say well then, we will try THIS one and see what happens.

They have no clue what it is doing to the person.

The oldest, Pint, went through that, God love her. She is ADHD. But they thought she was bi-polar. AT the end of it, I could have gladly KILLED her prescriber. I didnt' let it go on too long, believe me!

She has manic periods too. very few depressive ones, mostly manic. It is simply because HER brain works in overdrive, and other people's don't. She thinks seven or eight things simultaneously. So do I actually. I thought everyone did that. I didn't know until I was in my 30's that it wasn't considered normal. Wow, was I surprised. But thank God that I had the same issue, or I can only imagine what they would have done to her! Oh, BTW, her mother is like that too. She said heroin made her feel normal. Only think of one or two things at a time.

The ADHD med controls it somewhat. Like I told her, you have the opportunity to be MUCH more productive than regular people. Embrace that! So what if you only sleep 4 hours a night, look how much more you can get accomplished.

Why is being different so socially unacceptable?

I'm glad you like your psychiatrist, but maybe it's time for him/her to think outside the box and find out what is really the issue?

Hope I didn't ramble on too much.

bugerlugs63 said...

morning
i can defo relate 2 the 'E' friends. yuk all those "happy" people. it did make me dance and take more (in case that last one dint wrk) and dance some more, but still managed to remain pretty cynical where people were concerned!
thanks 4 reply yesterday, it wasn't u that stirred up old shit, it was me (my guilt) one of the biggest reasons i still use.
that really is catch 22.
agree with fractalmom re; people who dont fit in, labelling them and prescribing until they do fit in. (dont think its an allergy 2 meth) but the rest sounds likely. whatever they want to call it, or pin it on. is it not more about how u can cope with it or whether u want to "treat" it.
gota tell u this "rajjy reggy" is most definitely a lunatic. since he killed Jack at the last full moon there has been no more than the odd squabble, until last night (full moon) when the squeals from Laddio were enough to wake me. He was seriously gonna throttle him.i had to empty a toy box and make him a refuge for the night, so now there r 4 houses! Poor old Reggie, wen he wakes up to find laddio gone, he'll be checking his hands for blood again, with that "O shit what have I done?" look on his face.Anyway gotta go hamper girl is on the want (whats new?)
Take it Easy ;-)
x

Unknown said...

@Dan.Eliot.

My son in law is a single dad. I NEVER NEVER NEVER forgot that LOL. He is a wonderful person, especially considering that he is the child's EX stepfather and moved 5,000 miles to be closer to her and to give her a stable home and be there for her. They go grocery shopping together, cook together, do homework together each night, he takes her to the shooting range, walks in the park, they clean house together, they are inseparable! He has to leave for work at the unGodly hour of 5 a.m. and so brings her to our house (grandparents) the night before and she sleeps here, gets up with her cousins and I get them all off to school. Then, he is here when she gets off the bus @2:30 and they go home.

Single dads? LOVE THEM

John said...

I hear you with the NA thing. It's full of idiots. They've exchanged gear for platitudes and they're still wastes of space, addicted to a load of crap to make them feel ok.

It ain't always the drugs, some people are just losers.

Good luck with your Nut appointment - I really hope something works for you, and soon.

Syd said...

I don't understand why NA is full of idiots as John wrote. It has people who have gotten out of living for drugs and who are living a life of their choice without drugs. Yes, it may have some nuts in it, but look at the successes instead of the negatives. I would think that any life would be better than that of an addict.

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