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, May 26, 2011

Rhubarb and custard pie..!




I WENT TO NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS YESTERDAY... at long last! I arrived there late
(as per usual). I found myself having to sit right at the front with people behind me (as per usual). People in the meeting were making me paranoid (as usual). And I missed the chair (as usual) ~ that is my favourite bit, when somebody tells their life story about getting on drugs, getting off them, what happened and why. I love the chairs. I didn't say anything but the guy next to me piped up in newcomers time to say he'd just come outof the lunatic asylum with depression and was being treated by the Nutters At Home psyche team. I was really glad to hear that.

Then a woman spoke up about taking her friend's mother into hospital. Her friend's mother was seriously ill with... schizophrenia. I'm keeping my mouth shut about being schizo. It was quite a revelation to realize it's not a crime to be mentally ill at NA. That's certainly how it felt when I had prominent "issues" of my own. They all thought I was on drugs and more than one told me so. They never listened to anything I had to say, eg if I told somebody afterwards, "I can't take any drugs now" they'd interrupt "of course you can't" probably meaning "because you're like me, and taking drugs will set you off back on the road of addiction". But that isn't why I can't take most drugs. They make such an obvious mess of my head I'm averse to touching them again. Addiction doesn't come into it. Nauseated loathing and aversion very much does.

It's day 2 of my pill-popping escapade. Even though I posted about going back on them last week, I held off, hoping for a hypomanic miracle that might lift me on my own.

I still have distracting thoughts around the exterior of my mind ~ mostly on the right hand side. They're not as loud as the voices even yesterday, so maybe the pills are working. I bought some Valium to wash them down. Why Valium? Well you try taking heavy antispychotics without it. Having to stay awake while your brains are chemically coshed really isn't pleasant and 4mg risperidone from nothing really does feel like concussion ~ minus the headache, but all the brain-whirling dizziness, confusion et cetera all the same. It's not the pleasant wooziness some smackheads seem to enjoy, it's an overpowering feeling of being bashed on the brainbox. I wish the Nutter Club was still going so I had a forum to complain about this to people who understand. I only took 3mg risperidone yesterday, thinking it might make me a little less wuzzy. Tonight I'm thinking of taking all 4 again, but I'm scared of being out of action tomorrow. On Monday I felt done in for the first half of the day. Almost too unsteady to want to risk walking up the street. With time all these side effects diminish, except for the effect risperidone has on sleep. It doesn't make you go to sleep, so it's no good for initial insomnia. But it does keep you under once you get TO sleep.

My friend Buggerlugz has EIGHTEEN tiny roborovski hamsters pinging in all directions in tiny hammy lairs. They keep breeding and having trotterdonkey babies. One is named Reggie, another is named Anchovy. I think Anchovy was meant to be a boy but she's a girl. I thought my "Baby" Itchy Roborovski was a boy at first and persuaded her to walk around on a CD case so I could check this. She was most offended at being examined in this manner and bunnyhopped on the floor and would have pinged away if I hadn't chucked a towel upon her.

And did you know baby hamsters are called Pups. They look like baked beans with paws?...?





Here's Bashful, Itchy and Spherical in one of their old nests before they died. They had about five or six nests on the go at once. Itchy is the drowsy one who looks like she's been nibbling at the risperidone... She used to hear voices saying "Have you been trotting on your wheel?" and "come here you furry swine!" but they weren't schizophrenia; they were me!

I've been scoffing Mr Kipling's rhubarb and custard pies with Cornish Dairy ice cream. They're really nice. Yes I decided to break my diet a bit. There's something really miserable about depriving yourself of food. I lost about 11 pounds but Valium Marilyn's scales aren't very good. You have to bang them twice then clamber upon them. Marilyn has lost a lot of weight, having been in hospital; she looks like a little old lady now. She's depressed because her Mum and Dad both died a few years ago and their house was her refuge from Nasty Old Life... and it's not there any more. Her son stole 3 or 4 strips of temazepam 20s off her. We had to go right through everything looking for them. He's in his late 20s and still smokes cannabis ~ hashish would you believe. Why on earth anybody would voluntarily smoke that psychosis-causing gunk is anybody's guess. Marilyn rants about how harmless it is, yet she never smokes it. There's even a "Cannabis is Food of the Gods" type movement that believes spliffs should be used in mental healthcare instead of stuff like Valium. The sort of people who believe this have never tried Valium and never had a mental health problem. If they had, they'd know cannabis is the LAST thing any psychotic person with half a brain would want to smoke... though having said that I do recall clearly how the 2 favourite drugs in the mental hospital were 1: cannabis (by a long way) and 2: CRACK COCAINE... the 2 street drugs most liable to bring on extreme paranoia are used recreationally by paranoiacs themselves! But not all these people get full-on symptoms in every conceivable way. I once asked one whether something had ever happened to him that happened to me when I went mad ~~ and he looked at me like I really had a screw loose! His symptoms were probably more extreme than mine in many ways... but just different.

Yesterday's NA really helped me focus on WHY I want off these drugs I'm so hooked on. People remind me why I want to stop them, by telling how their lives were messed up.

I pingpong between believing heroin should be legalized and on sale from vending machines and thinking that all addicts ought to be executed by lethal injection (of heroin).

I still have a huge mark at the top of my thigh like a cigar burn. Originally it had a pussing head, but now it's scabbed over. I picked the first scab off but a beautiful second scab has appeared. There's a huge volcanic lump under it that I keep squeezing in the hope some pus might ooze. But it's totally dry. It's not disappointing not to have an abscess, but when I do have one, I most certainly get value for money out of it, with all the kneeding and squeezing and pus-milking.

This song was going round my head as I walked home from the chemists in a thunderstorm:



MADONNA: WHO'S THAT GIRL


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey babe, missed ya. I got email, and have emailed you back.

Gledwood said...

thank ya darlin!

Spindrift said...

I was born in England, and so, not for the first time you have brought up something cultural that I can relate to. Rhubarb and custard, Mr Kipling, as well. They don't sell them here yet, but I will keep a look out and if I see some I will from your recommendation alone try some. Rhubarb crumble, MMmmm... Well done for going to NA :o)

Gledwood said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gledwood said...

I was put off a bit by the idea of rhubarb because I remembered it as being quite bitter ~ but this was doe properly and absolutely fine

Rhubarb and Custard was a children's TV programme from back in "my day"... I still recall the music to this day. If I can find it I'll post it tonight

ps you could also get Rhubarb and Custard Ecstasy in the early 1990s, but I never tried any ....

pps but my favourite British pie ~ or better still CRUMBLE filling is BLACKBERRY.... yum yum yummmmeeeeeEEE!!!

Spindrift said...

Back in your day, back in my day. I was born in 1971. I grew up in England and I remember that cartoon, and as soon as you mentioned the show and the theme song, it started playing in my head. Thanks for the memory and I look forward to listening to it if you find it. I hope your day is well for you:o)

Gledwood said...

I've found it wait 2 mins

Gledwood said...

well that was a long 2 mins but it's all up there now :-)

Akelamalu said...

I love rhubarb, I have some growing in my garden. :)

Gledwood said...

i used to hate it, because it thought it was sharp.... then i had mr kipling's own well-sugared version and it was wonderful


i think the sourness has to do with my Mum having been on a naturapathic diet back in the 70s....)¿(

Syd said...

Glad that you went to NA. Take care Gleds.

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

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