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!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

A Flight of Blue Tits

IT'S 10 to midnight. I slept a few hours and woke up, finally, with a bit of calm! The following was written five hours earlier:

LET ME TRY and give a less winky-dink expression of today's goings-on than that bunch of crap you see one post below.

I went to my appointment today. Tomorrow I have one at the Psychiatrist rather than the Nutter Club. Unfortunately they crash but I had scheduling problems due to a computer error and I must take the time offered.

Naomi [the dual diagnosis lady] phoned me just now and pointed out he is a Consultant and so timewise finds himself practically meeting appointments pretty much when he is and isn't allowed to use the loo. It gets that bad!

If I were a doctor I'd be a Consultant Neurologist (never a psychiatrist: too headfucking that one. People with schizophrenia and bipolar ranting at me half the day and then the other 50% pf patients not wanting to speak. No thanks. Neurology patients usually can speak pretty fluently unless they're comatose in which case the checks and charts do the talking for them.

Now my own head is babbling away. I have Racing Thoughts or a Flight of Ideas. Like little tubbie birdies thrumming from one bird table to another. Now they're in the birdbath. Splish splash splosh. And they're blue tits. My favourite British Garden Birdies. Ask another British person if you don't believe about Blue Tits, They're beautiful..

OK back to midnight: my flight of ideas is safely in its nest boxes, has refrained from chirping and is looking forward to perching upside down tomorrow morning on the feeder.

I think what was wrong earlier was a long day and me just wanting to be home, crossed with the necessity to do endless little things that just got in the way when I was tired and wanted to unwind and the upshot was manic paranoia from which it takes hours to calm down. Naomi was very helpful. She just happened to phone right in the middle. I wasn't "going off on one" in a big way. No ranting. No talking nonsense. She knows how thin the line is between appearing to cope and not coping at all. That's why I like her.

She told me to focus on myself at tomorrow's doctor appointment and not my surrounding issues because other professionals are dealing with those.

All I would need say re today, if that came up, would be "I felt paranoid on the bus, like people were talking about me, so I got off earlier than I would have".

If I were a regular smoker of cannabis or crack I wouldn't be surprised to feel the way I do, but I gave up both. Cannabis went years ago, crack went two years ago (with a handful of lapses). My drugs workers at the time assured me my problems with paranoia and depression (that were only ever eluded to, nobody ever asked about them in any detail, so I never told in any detail) they assured me these problems would vanish in a puff of cocaine smoke. And yet they haven't. Shortly after giving up I realized a common cold had brought a strange return of paranoia and ibbly-bibbly weirdness. And that was a common cold! About 2 years ago.

Well crack has well and truly gone. The last time I used heroin it did nothing for me. Cannabis is a non-issue (never touch it). Uppers I don't go near. Hallucinogens or psychedelics I gave up entirely a decade ago. These had never been a big huge deal though they made a big huge impression on me whenever they were taken. So all these drugs have gone and I am doing all the Right Things I ought to be doing.

Surely I shall see some Fruits of my Labours soon..?

TITS IN THE BATH!
Bluetit playtime in Amsterdam!







Illustrated: blue tits and a Ancient Egyptian space alien ...


THIS is an A1 description of "racing thoughts"...


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really hope that you do get some reward from what you have achieved, which must have been incredibly hard.

I totally agree with you on not being a psychiatrist, I would hate to be mine having to listen to me and probably another hundred people like me!
xx

Gledwood said...

thanks!

i think psychiatrists must find it v hard to distinguish one patient from another until they really know them. depending on where you went you got either someone passing through on psych training or else someone else you were unlikely to see twice! now i've got a consultant. i had no idea he was the senior guy in the place but could see the minute i 1st set eyes on him that he was a good dr. so i'm really glad. today i'm asking for a diagnosis or a tentative one and i'm dreading what he might say.

Marty said...

Thanks for stopping by my place here in blog-world...Yes, being a "Gleek" means I'm practically a slave to Glee...

I read your latest post and immediately clicked the "follow" tab...While I won't pretend to know what you go through on a daily basis, not will I sit here and pretend that I can relate to some of your issues...I like your honestly and frankness. You're "raw" & real....and that I can relate to.

Hope to converse more with you in the future.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

The post title made my day. A Flight of Blue Tits! Yes, I am immature. Whatever.

I love you Gleds!

Reeny's Ramblin' said...

I think you just like saying blue tits. Kinda like purple nurple. I am just as mature as SB ;)

Syd said...

I like your analogy with blue tits. Go Gleds.

Gledwood said...

I love the tiny tits. They live everywhere from here to Japan (at least Great Tits do, which are like bigger slightly less colourful blue tits...)

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