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

A handful of nothing

I ONCE SAW A NEWBORN BABY IN ACUTE HEROIN WITHDRAWAL. The poor little mite was reaching out with one hand then the other, grasping for something that just wasn't there, never would be there ever again. Until this poor kid grew up and wondered why it liked heroin so much.

In Britain, newborn opiate-addicted babies are titrated with IV morphine and the dose is dropped over a week or two to nothing. Because babies don't act or lie the signs they give out are more easily read by a doctor than those of a full-grown addict who has learned in the process of growing up not to show suffering, yet is suffering intensely and undermedicated. That's what they do to addicts. Undermedicate. Or as my friend Rebs said "they leave you right on the edge".

I won't go into this story more I only brought it up because like that baby, I'm grasping at nothing. Every straw I grasp at gives way.

I have food in the oven. I don't want to eat. A film is playing. I don't want to watch it. I took a Nytol pill (which I loathe) but I don't want to sleep. I have methadone which I also don't want.

I remember the day the doctor said, not entirely seriously (I hope) that he'd up my dose to 300mg a day if it helped me. That's like telling a starving man "I'll give you a tanker load of pigswill". Barking up the wrong tree entirely. I took heroin because I liked heroin and heroin made me OK. Methadone never made me any better than physically OK and when I had a habit going not even 150mg would do that on day one. I never found a dose I could get onto from constant heroin (no methadone) to just methadone where I didn't have periodic hot and cold sweats and no appetite.

In the end I gave up trying to do anything important on methadone. It was just undoable. I went to Windsor to see my Mum. Arrived 2 hours late. Felt intermittently ill despite a "huge" methadone dose. Had to take God knows how many trains to get there. Every time one whooshed past at the station I had this urge to jump... And that's what methadone does to me.

A life on methadone is no life at all. I need to get off it as quick as I can. Even if that involves going back to heroin I'd rather do that and pop filters every eight hours. A filter of good B is stronger than 50mg methadone. So three filters: one £10 bag, 0.2g heroin. That holds me way better than 150mg methadone. Which tells me that their equivalence tables are nonsense. 0.2g of good heroin could be 100mg diamorphine. And it's stronger than methadone. It works. Methadone doesn't work. Methadone drove me so crazy I could no longer think, let alone speak coherent English.

I'm taking the clinic to court. I'm fed up of this bullshit. I don't think I have any right to happiness or any right to morphine or diamorphine but surely I have a right to die, so why won't they kill me? You know what they're doing. They want me to kill myself. I will never kill myself for the sake of another person, so that one won't happen.

All our days are numbered. That's the best thing about life. Life ends.


SONYA: END OF THE WORLD

6 comments:

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Gleds,
feel better. I know those sound like empty words but my intentions are good.
Isn't there anything the doc can give you with a euphoria effect? I don't know.
I take amytriptyline, not for depression so much as sleep.
I read that yrs ago, they'd keep a patient asleep for 3 weeks & when patient awoke the depression was gone. I wish they still practiced that.
Take good care, life is short as it is.
j.

Gledwood said...

i wouldn't dare take an antidepressant except under medical supervision i got so high last time then so low it just isn't worth it but thanks for the thought

i heard quetiapine interreacts with methadone to make it more heroiny in fact i've heard of prisoners "abusing" quetiapine (says more about prison than quetiapine to me) but that's the one i wanted anyhow i don't want appetite gain or weight gain i cannot come off drugs and go on an eating binge that's just sick

sonia makes me happy that's why i put that song there

Baino said...

Hi Hon. Do you have Skype? Find me if you do.
When it comes to rehabilitation and heroin detox, counseling and building a solid and strong support system are the first two and most vital steps a heroin addict needs to take. Many addicts have attempted to quit without professional help and most of them fail and end up back where they were or worse. You have family (mum) and you have access to support so I really urge you to use them. Stop this silly talk about suing clinics and people wanting to kill you. You're making excuses not giving 'reasons'. You're a bright lad under a shitload of stress but no man is an island and I don't think you can do this alone. Can you check into rehab? Just for a few days. Get the initial twitches over and done with and some medicated balance?l Gleds there's no conspiracy, your medical support want you to get better and chuck the habit. Keep the faith friend. You can do it, just stop thinking so much. Better fat than dead!

Gledwood said...

All I want from the "government" is a treatment that works. That's all. It does make me wonder whether they want me to lose my mind on that stuff because that's what happens when I take it, see what I mean?

Despite what I said I don't actually want any drugs. The only drugs I really "need" are ones my drs would give anyway: sleeping pills. And probably mood stabilizers. I don't want mood stabilizers but my mood has been unstable for so many years now ... then people tell me stuff I don't have the faintest recollection of about being "manic". I knew something was wrong a LONG time ago but deliberately hid it from drs as I was terrified of the word "manic depression" and thought if I had it I barely had it and was mostly depressive. Now all this shit happens and I just cannot do it on my own any more. The problem I got with my moods is about x10 stronger than heroin ever had a hold over me, which is saying something. On drugs I was able to hold back and not misbehave. On "nothing" I get totally swept away with it and act like a weirdo. I never even realized till I came out of it how much yelling and screaming I probably did alone in my room with very thin walls.

I know it's not a conspiracy, it just really feels like one and I feel too paranoid to tell the dr about this shit. I seriously thought he wanted to kill me one time and if I tell this it all becomes such a headfucker I can't deal with it.

So I'm keeping to arms length stuff. I mean my own life story is so worn out I can tell it backwards in my sleep and feel nothing. Like most psychiatric/drugs patients you get used to going over nonsense so much it just becomes someone else's story.

I suppose I have to grow up but that involves taking meds and I just don't want them. I want off off and away from this methadone shit I loathe polluting my body with it I absolutely hate the stuff yet they worry I might try and do myself in with it! The glass bottle's more dangerous than the drug, to an old junkie like me. Methadone is just a nasty toxin I want away from me. I know this sounds over vehement but I couldn't bear to turn into one of those methadone junkies who won't stop taking it I want that rubbish and me separated as QUICK as possible!

Re food it feels too indulgent to eat. The exact opposite of what I should be doing. Cutting back and Controlling everything when eating is going out of control. I need control. At least when you're underweight you know you did that to yourself so you have some modicum of self control. I'd rather look thin and shit than fat and shit. Shit will be in the equation somewhere I just know it will! So it might as well go with underweight. I'm currently at my ideal weight btw, definitely not thin, but not fat either

Gattina said...

I totally agree with what Baino said ! Read carefully what she writes ! I don't agree at all with your answer. Medications are necessary. My friend had polio when she was 3 years old, now with the age her back hurts terribly. She never complaints she just takes pain killers. I am sure methadone helps even if you don't realize !

Jude said...

I just wanted to let you know that you have inspired me to start my own blog. I am tired of finding myself continuously wishing I had even a soul to talk to. Now I can calm my anxiety by putting my whole self into something, while simultaneously feeding my urge for someone to listen. I think it will be good.. Thank you.
-Jude

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