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, March 13, 2011

My Special Tonkie Plan


I HAVE A SPECIAL PLAN. I'm in a good mood now and planning my future. My DRUG-FREE FUTURE. YES A FUTURE WITH NO MORPHIA, NO METHADONE NO NARCOTIC SUBSTANCES.

See I feel hypomanic enough without needing shitty drugs to bring me up here. Why am I hypomanic? Because I scored methadone on the street a while ago and indulge tonight in an extra dose. [A tiny dreg that I had extra, not a whopping huge dose.] That little bit extra plus lots of sleep, plus depression which cycles anyhow (high and low and I really do mean HIGH at the extreme ~ even higher than crack) so this has switched my mood. I was NOT taking illicit methadone during my most intense mania, I ought to add. If anything I was FORGETTING to take the shit, forgetting until I wasn't too far from having my head down the toilet puking from withdrawal [I felt physically sick and didn't know why]. I was so high I not only went into a literal spiral whirl where my words broke up into noise, a brain full of roaring NOISE without words I was turning into literal pure energy and felt invincible. My friends told me not to fuck off the methadone clinic but that was my plan. To tell them where to go and hike along the high speed rail track to Paris. Knowing that withdrawal perturbs my mood severely I would in this state have probably gone so manic I literally didn't know my own name. I was already out of it enough that I didn't grasp what people meant when they said my name in front of me. I wondered who they were talking about.

This was on NO drugs bar a couple of cyders per day as I'd been drinking for eyars on end without mania, and just enough methadone to survive. No speed, no crack, no E, no psychedelics to put me in this state. This is what I mean when I say my highs are higher than my lows are low. And thank God. I've heard tales of manic people believing they are Emperor of the World or at the very least multi-billionaires. And they very often take other people in and get first class air tickets New York to Paris, leaving chaos in their wake. Because I'm schizoaffective I can barely get it together to keep self, house keys and phone in the same place. In my most severe mania I had no glasses (I just lost them) and no money at all (I lost the card). I was pretty badly disabled and only able to post because I type by touch, have been blogging for years and know the procedure for posting back to front. Otherwise I'd no way be able to put up my experience online as I went. All that weird spelling mistake stuff with U U U A A A, that stuff was literal stream of consciousness. I didn't edit because just as I'd keep my private journal the way it was, so I wanted my blog to caputre the moment. This was like holiday photos from the Light Side of the Moon.

How did I get on to this? Oh yeah because I'm UP and Addressing My Drug Problem.

Here's what I'm doing. I KNOW SOMEONE WHO DEALS IN SUBUTEX OR SUBOXONE.

[They're the same stuff: buprenorphine one has a useless added ingredient so you can't inject but I wouldn't waste a vein on it anyhow. I don't know which he's on now but he sells his script and offered it to me several times.]

I'm willing to switch methadone to heroin for a week to sweep the Mean Green out of my system. If you don't sweep it out you have to be down to 30mg AND do 36 to 48 hours of NO METHADONE which is just not something Im going to do, not something Paddster ever did and he's the man as regards Drug Knowledge. He's now 100% opiate clean ie on NOTHING and he achieved this using the same manner of scheme I came up with. So Im going to clear out evil methadone which is MORE ADDICTIVE, WORSE WITHDRAWALS and ONLY superior to heroin in that it can be dosed orally under supervision once daily. Paradoxically methadone's advantage is key to all its disadvantages. The long half life means it's a slow drug, taking ages to take effect, ages to detox out of the system. Most people agree it is better to die than to detox off methadone. Sorry to be realistic. Life ain't too hot. Life without opiates when you're addicted to them is utterly bleak and meaningless and during detox you feel this in all its realism and intensity.

To any person reading this in a state of withdrawal I urge you to keep hold of how you feel and to make an adult decision. Is this really what you want to be doing with your life? You don't need to commit suicide. You need to come off these drugs that are making life not worth living.

There is no need to suffer unduly.

This is why I choose the Subutex option. You do the suffering BEFORE you come off. The worst suffering occurs during switchover. I'm going to switch over under NO medical supervision. I will wait a couple of hours and use heroin to cover the receptor sites Subutex has left wide open leaving me partially sick. I'll start off on 4mg day one, 8mg day 2, 8mg day 3. I'm not going over 8mg. Then I'll tell the clinic I'm on 8mg Subutex and don't need methadone and they can treat me or not treat me but this is what I'm doing. I MUST switch to heroin first as my methadone dose is way too high it would take months to switch down. I'm doing 18 hours clean before I pop a Subbie. Then I'm crushing up the 8mg pills and reducing by approx a single milligram every couple of days. I've BEEN ON SUBUTEX AND DONE THIS. I felt NOTHING. No withdrawal whatsoever after the 3 days of "suffering".

A lot of people say buprenorphine makes them feel terrible for 3 days but I felt fantastic. I now realize I was hypomanic! Music on TV sounded luscious. My mood was soaring, particularly in the mid-morning. I was sleeping approximately midnight to 4am. On the zopiclone the dr prescribed the next week I got another 2 hours; midnight till 6. The pattern of my moods (the precise swing in intensity; my sleep pattern; the way music sounded so amazing) all this matches the mania I get now which is why I can confidently say I was mildly hypomanic in my first few days on Subutex. I was high enough to feel about 95% physically OK on day 2 but not be AT ALL bothered by these slight withdrawals. On day 3 I was about 98% OK and again simply not bothered by the sweats and shivers I had I was so hyped up. I had all the upsides of hypomania, which is mild mania and all the positive feelings people use cocaine for. Unlike cocaine which makes me feel ragged, brittle, paranoid, anxious, and often extremely jagged this was a wonderful smooth secure feeling. It's more like being a kid excited over Father Xmas than being an adult on drugs.

So I'm switching MYSELF to the substance I wish to use. I'm withdrawing myself far more quickly than the clinic would allow (which is why I'm not telling the clinic till it's done). I know my family will worry but they needn't do. I'm NOT doing this next week I'm keeping myself on the most even keel I can manage for several weeks before I even consider putting myself through this. Eg I had NO DRINK YESTERDAY. Not one single alcoholic unit. I need to get used to being FREE, being EVEN, being SURE OF MYSELF OFF DRUGS. Because for the rest of my days, be they many or few I'M OFF DRUGS FOR GOOD. Once I get off the shit that somebody chose to name after a female hero Heroin, once I get off this, that's us DIVORCED.

TILL DEATH DO US PART?

No darling. You cheated on me, you abused me, you nearly ruined my life. WE ARE THROUGH.



Illustrations: with the obvious exception of the perky-eared tonkie house mouse, I found these by looking through schizoaffective and schizophrenia and they sum up how I feel. The most accurate two are the top two, the red one is me when blurry and the woman is how I feel when I'm crystal clear but "ill" I'm all there, just not there as I was when I was "weller" ....

Rethink (mental health charity) schizoaffective disorder fact sheet.


Lizzy, thanks for this
Radiohead - Street Spirit Funkagenda's Spandex+Ketamine Mix
"ketamine mix"




A little tonkie poem.
Byron: Childe Harold Canto 1; XIX

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned;
the cork-trees hoar, that cloathe the shaggy steep,
the mountain moss by scorching skies imbrowned,
the sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep,
the tender azure of the unruffled deep,
the orange tints that gild the greenest bough,
the torrents that from cliff to valley leap,
the vine on high, the willow branch below,
mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi gleds,i too have been wondering how to switch to subbies from meth without the two day withdrawal;i am single mum and can't afford to be that ill for 2 days,just one question,how long after you've done the week on heroin do you need to take nothing before you start subutex?mucho obligato xx

Gledwood said...

I can only say what my friend did, he said he switched for 3 days to a week to heroin (different occasions) and that he did 18 hours heroin free before taking the subutex.

I went on Subutex but fucked it up royally by taking it too soon and making myself sick.

What I did notice once I was on and started eventually cheating and using was that taking a TINY bit of gear 2 hours after the subutex took away any tiny withdrawals on days 1 and 2.

Probably the best solution would be to go on DFs for a few days if only the clinics would prescribe this it would be so much better. Far as I know most people just switch to gear. I mean I just cannot see myself switching methadone to subutex I wouldn't have the willpower to go that long with nothing to make me better.

If I can get the clinic to prescribe it I'll go that route it was just the bright idea of the moment I posted up and I have ALWAYS wanted to detox of subbies rather than methadone.

I've been on Subutex before and can confirm its way better than methadone for reducing and coming off I literally felt nothing when I reduced from 8mg down I thought I was "doing really well" and wanted to surprise my family by saying "I'm clean!" then I went and used and messed it all up bigtime.

Like I say I could never advise anyone to take nonprescribed drugs and you REALLY have to be careful with subutex if you have mental health problems it might throw you badly (remember I AM on antipsychotics) and it's my look out.

Beware Subutex makes you feel really wide awake, your sleep goes down, your sense of smell comes back you really feel clean and a lot of people just arent ready for it.

Talk to your clinic if you possibly can and arrange for it to be done properly like I say subutex is a jolt to the system. Best thing is speak to people who are on it. I know people who have used on top for years on subutex but that's a recipe for misery. You really really need to feel ready for it, or know you can go back to methadone if that's going to be easier for you.

Get as much good advice as you can and like I say try and do it the official way at least then you have drs you can go to if you have any problems

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the advice,i have been on subutex before (which is why i have a stash)but fucked up by using too much on top and losing the rythm of getting back on the subbies,i was just too sick so i requested to go back on methadone..i too did a detox off subbies at one stage and it was pretty easy,but like you say wasn't ready for the "real world"...
good luck with your plan it sounds like a good one!xx

Akelamalu said...

You sound as though you know what you're doing Gleds. I hope it works. x

Syd said...

Gleds, I don't know enough about any of this, but it seems as if a talk with your doctor would be in order before executing this plan. I don't understand the not being on drugs but then taking heroin and subutex. I simply haven't a clue.

Gattina said...

my friends son (37) is bi-polar, but when he takes his medication he is a normal guy, works and is like Mr. Everybody, but when he doesn't, he really takes himself for the King of the world, thought his best friend's mother was his mother and wanted her to make up a testament for him ! Thanks god now he is back to his normal self again. So why not you !

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Gleds. Good luck with the plan. Thinking of you. Thanks for ther comments. I think you missed Simi's Women's Day post, though.

bugerlugs63 said...

hi,
hope u good today, if we still in sync u probably r ok, as i am and can feel things getting better as day progresses. had hectic mad weekend with the birthday, etc etc.
I have (in the past) done meth 2 subbie and gear to subbie. and the best advice i can give is be rattling as hard as u can tolerate, before u take first one. I went 27 hrs then did 2 x 2mg. then next day 3 x 2, then 4 x 2. No point doing more on first day as they only work to a degree how ever many u do. I, like u, did a few lines about 3 hrs later to fll the gap. till day 4, as i felt lousy until then, stomach cramps, head aches, proper yuk. but on day 5 i felt up and speedy and chatty, but still, out of habit, used in the evening. I was prescribed 3 x 8mg a day in the end, to stop me using, but i still used. Obviously i felt no effect from gear, dint taste the same, total waste of gear, but it was habit i could not stop. so stopped subbies in the end which was a peice of piss cus was using! lol. Yes a lot easier gear to subbie. if u only on a bag as day and can go at least 24 hr u will feel the subby just fine. from meth u need to reduce to 30ml a day then do 48hr clear. which physically wont make u any more ill than the 24 hr off gear, just psycologically harder as longer to wait. but the simple rule is the more u rattle the better they will work, u know the biological reasons for this (receptors etc) kinda depends on your pain threshold. I dont mind a good few hours rattle if i know the end is within reach (ie subby and a bag next to the bed) i kept pushing another hour, another one, just another one. its nothing compared to child birth! Anyway u not doing it yet so u got time to plan it. there no need 4 supervision as u have used them before, so not gonna have bad reaction. But, as u say, u gotta be ready for the raw, cold, hard realty version of life. i be back later with a hamper up date and a few bits but just thought i would post a comment rellevant to the post (for once) ;-)
with love
x

Gledwood said...

:

OK I'm answering backwards:~~~~~~~

Buggerlugz: thank you! I have persuaded myself Subbies are not for now. They may be for the future but not for now. I'm not coming off methadone to Subutex NO WAY why can't they just prescribe DF118s to switch over from that is SO OBVIOUS it's sceaming but they are shit, they hadn't even heard of people NEEDING VALIUM for being so het up on Subies they need a downer... fucking need to take their head outta their arse those people. Thanks again for the share

Baino: thank you I came to your conclusion before I read that but you're bang on right. I wouldn't in 1000000 years hit up a Subutex you put them under the tongue some people snort them I wouldn't do that either like I say I only want them to COME OFF HEROIN that is all. It was my own advice that persuaded me to be careful y'know...

Welshcakes: I did miss Simi's women's day post lemme have a look @ what the barky swine wrote!

Gledwood said...

The answers continue backwards:~~~~~~~

Gattina: technically I'm schizoaffective which is "more severe than bipolar i" (bipolar i is the most extreme type of bipolarity) I have all the symptoms that make bipolar "more severe" that is very short mood swings that "switch" that is there's hardly any normal mood just ups and downs when I'm normal I'm usually slightly up or down and I know you'd think "well aren't we all" but I can feel the mania or depression I can also feel when I DO get normality and that feels different. But even in normality I get psychotic symptoms like little people in my pocket. I know it's silly but that's what happens and I'd cry for the ridiculousness of it all but I'm fighting against most of this. But I don't know how to do sane and not on drugs Gattina that's why I have such troubles... maybe one day one day I shall be OK ;-)

Syd: if they would only prescribe dihydrocodeine a very weak opiate they DO sometimes use in addiction therapy here as an oral pill... I'd be OK. Most people pretend to switch methadone to Subutex but actually go on heroin just before the switch so there's less time in withdrawal. It's the LENGTH of withdrawals rather than their intensity that breaks addicts' resolve. Thanks for the advice though...

Akelmalau: I'm just not ready to do it now. I know all the milligrams and timings etc from before but it's not advisable to do it not under medical supervision I would be really worried if I knew someone who was bipolar and doing this, having it make me mildly manic even back then I don't know what it would do now which is a shame I so badly want to come off gear :-(

Anon: it was your query that made me realize I needed to think a bit more carefully it's ALWAYS been my official plan that I told the drug clinic that I wanted to switch approx 30mg methadone or even 5mg methadone to Subbies and then reduce Subutex to nothing. Im determined now if I possibly can to do it under medical supervision just doing it with no support would be very difficult of all things I need security. I hope things go OK for you :-)

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

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Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

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