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, April 06, 2011

Bedlam Nutters Unearthed in London Rail Link


KENNY THE CACTUS is sitting happily on the TV in Donkey Ward at St Spiny's Cactus Hospital. He is looking forward to being transferred to Horse Ward next week... All is cool here; we had excellent weather. I say cool ~ I actually think I was a bit drug sick this morning. I felt freezing cold then boiling hot, then drank some methadone then felt OK. Then I realized I was a bit tired. Then I cleaned up a tiny bit. Then I realized I was exhausted. Then realized I was a bit depressed still. I can't snap out of the scrag-end of this depression. My sleep is still far too long for my liking. A good twelve hours per day still, which is too long, considering spring is popping like a champagne cork all around us, Kenny cactus is recovering from his cruel toothpick-inflicted wounds and everyone else seems to be happy. They're all raving about this amazing weather only I can't feel it. Except I feel sweaty, that's about it. And I want to feel normal. I'm tempted to stop taking my antipsychotic to see if I get more energy back, but know I shouldn't really do it. I don't know... I met Paddy Daddy Daddster today he was talking about being prescribed diamorphine, as our mutual friend was for many years (I saw the dry-amps). And he was talking about how the youngsters today don't inject, they smoke it. And I said it's a North-South thing. The Londoners always tended to be more prone to injecting because Britain's heroin habit started in earnest in the early 80s when it hit the housing estates across the North, and it was smokeable middle-eastern "brown". Before that heroin was Chinese "white" that was carefully prepared to injection quality. But brown was cheaper, less adulterated and imported in huge quantities and that's when Britain's first heroin epidemic kicked off. The next wave of addiction crashed across Britain in the mid-late 90s as the rave generation, used to dabbling in new drugs, had a collective comedown from all the uppers they'd experimented with in the late 80s/early 90s. I got caught up in this second wave. The price of street heroin had just halved when I started to take it. You could now get 0.4g for £20, instead of 0.2. By the early 2000s it wasn't unusual to get 0.6g or more for £20 and a weighed gram was £30. This was the cheapest heroin has ever been and the street purity passed an average 50% at one point. This was my heroin heyday. It was like Christmas every day, and though I had my down days, most of the time I loved being addicted to heroin, because it meant I "had" to take heroin, which I loved. Perfect excuse to carry on using. After the first couple of years of daily use, I gave up on the idea of giving up. And then I came to an acceptance with myself. Since I've been blogging y'all have seen my desire to stop using grow. I took some today, and it was good. But it never hits the spot it used to hit, so I'm wasting my time. Please remind me that what I take it for I never get now. Heroin has only ever been a waste of time, now it actually feels like a waste of time.. And I don't know what else to say about it now.

I think one reason I was so addicted to it was that heroin had a lithium-like effect on me, noticably flattening my mood swings. Every single time I've tried to swap (or even switched meds, eg going on Subutex) I've had a noticable mood swing either up or down. I think now at last the doctors will take me seriously when I say this. But before I think they just thought I was digging up excuses. I used to get mental health treatment totally separately from methadone, so nothing ever threaded together or added up.

I'm just dreading this Madness Assessment I have tomorrow. Last time I was in a mental health waiting room this man sauntered up to me with a birthday cake on his head, asking for a light for his candles! OK slight exaggeration but I'm scared of leaving the building in a straitjacket...

Speaking of which some dead mad people were dug up in the street today in London when they excavated the former graveyard to Bethlem Hospital, better known as Bedlam, in the City of London. They're digging a new rail route named Crossrail and these corpses were dug up in what's shortly to be a ticket hall. I wondered what lives these people had met. People who had schizophrenia and manic depression in the 17th century. People whom the chattering classes used to pay a penny to go see as an amusement and chuck sticky buns at. What lives they must have lead...

... Oh well I have to go. Wish me luck tomorrow. I hope I don't get diagnosed clinically insane. Then I'll be able to go home again :-)

BBC link: archaeologists unearth Bedlam skeletons

8 comments:

Jeannie said...

Good luck with that! I'm sure you are lucky to be mentally ill today compared with not so long ago. I'm sure these days will be looked on with pity as well if they ever get things sorted out.

bugerlugs63 said...

Beautiful woods , we have one exactly the same near us, guess what its called? yes.
hoping your appt goes well today.
had exremely vivid dream last night. of a big place indoor/outdoor with very weird goings on all over the place. I was trying to leave but could not find my "things" You were sat at a table outside with drink and a wee sample bottle with your initials on. (thats how I knew it was you)though I've no idea if they are your initials.
I sat down. We were talking and Philip Schofield joined us!we told him he should not be there.
U came inside to help me look for "things" and there were strange monks and acrobats and beings that I cannot even name.Its kinda fading now but it was disturbingly exciting.
Maybe Bedlam?
ok. hamper noses r ok now. seem to have faded. Good that Kenny ok, sure he will love the sun. I gonna have to subscribe to broadband and open bank account for dd. bit of a pain. but so is sitting on the stairs to sneak next door signal ;-)thinking of you today and look forward to news of how goes it,
with love
x

Akelamalu said...

Hope the assessment goes well today Gleds. I'm thinking of you.

lizzydripping said...

good luck - but dont get too hung upon the diagnosis : labels are for jam jars !

:)

xx

Baino said...

Yeh good luck tomorrow. Don't stress it I'm sure all will be well. Just thank your lucky stars you're not depressed in the 1900's half the people in asylums weren't crazy at all, some had speech impediments, some were just deaf and some . . well like you . . depressed, schizoaffective, bipolar. Have a good one.

Gledwood said...

Buggerlugz: that dream means you've got schizophrenia. Just kidding.

The appointment was horrible but thanks everyone for the good wishes. I didn't expect it to be horrible but the nurse/doctor/person was very accusatory and demanding to know how much heroin I had etc etc very offputting

Syd said...

Terrible about the Bedlam corpses. I know that the mentally ill are still stigmatized here. Very sad.

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Hi Gled,
You seem to be doing well.
That is a weird story about the graves. A lady I know had her brother exhumed cause she didn't like the cowboy clothes he was buried in...all kinds of people make a world.
j.

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