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, July 16, 2011

Another Week Ends

OK HERE'S THE MISERYGUTS WEEKEND POST.

It is raining.

I am miserable.

I rushed to the chemist. Drank methadone that made me feel SICK. Hung around in Morrisons not wanting to be there, not wanting to leave. I smoked a cigarette in the carpark and watched the sky interlace the paving slabs in puddles.


Oh yeah and the bitch doctor wouldn't see me yesterday because I was more than 15 mins late. This is the methadone dr. I'd already got my 110mg oil tanker sized script. (Well THEY insist, constantly, that it's a lot.) I feel absolutely nothing at all from this dose. It does nothing to stop me wanting to use on top. I'm totally against maintenance methadone I want take this toxin grudgingly and want it OUT of my system ASAP.

This doctor refused to see me. If the dr is late next time I come I'm putting in a formal complaint under disability discrimination legislation as I believe I'm being discriminated against for being a psycho.

Everyone who's been to my present clinic and my past one has the same opinion as me about this clinic. I was wondering how Valium Marilyn, who lives only three streets from me, manages to go to my old clinic when she too lives over the Border in the Borough of Nightmaresville. The simple answer is, she lied about her address. I'm thinking of doing that too.

I haven't taken any heroin at all. I haven't bought any birds. I still want that goldfinch-canary cross. He's stopped panicking every time I look at him. I think he wants me to buy him. I have a huge converted hamster cage with perches gleaned from the local park in readiness. I know the council will go nuts if and when his supersonically loud singing starts ringing out, because birdsong really does sound loud inside a house... but who cares? I've wanted a canary ever since I used to walk past our local florists who had one tweetling away like a bright yellow feathery Whitney Houston.

I had a good look at my neck yesterday. This exfoliation has brought up some fantastic veins there. There's one on the left hand side that looks as thick as electrical flex. Plus I have several thin ones at the front, and another thicker one on the right hand side. I've used the veins running from nipples to armpits years ago when I was addicted to putting crack in my heroin. I was such a junkie.

I read this back and I seem really cheeerful when actually I felt nothing but emptiness between waking up at 11, getting up at 12, visiting the methadonery at 12:30 and hanging around feeling ill in the rain ever since. I don't think anything will ever sum up how I feel (thank God). I'm bored of my new hair colour already. Fair do's it's better than the original chestnut brown (which had nasty grey streaks in it, I now know, having examined the carrier bag full of evidence). To be frank: the current platinum would look fantastic with conker coloured lowlights. If I thought I could do this PROPERLY so my hair looked varigated, like the feathers of a bird, then I'd go for it. Only I don't know where to get the shower cap and hook thing women use for this procedure. And I've never put tinfoil on my hair, ever. Oh yeah and I'm thinking of getting green lenses in my specks. Green against brown. Won't that look funky?

Here's a quote from Sectioned: A Life Interrupted by John O'Donoghue p132

Cerys takes a drag on her fag... I've never really heard Cerys talk at any length before and I sit quietly as she opens up.

"They're fascinated by the likes of us, fascinated by madness, by derangement, because we've been there, we've seen heaven and hell, joy and despair. It means we've got dimensions they've never even dreamed of."

She takes another languorous drag.

"We absolute fascinate them. The groups ~ therapy ~ working on yourself. It's all just crap. They're not trying to help us. No. They want what we've got, but without going through what we've been through. The doors of perception have been wrenched from our hinges. We've seen what no-one else has. But they're scared by the thought of that. They want to stay in control, they're too afraid to ever let go, of status, power, comfort. They're turned on by the idea of madness, but they just sink back into their conventional roles, their straight 'careers', their schtick. And do you know who's the worst? Dan Cassady. Because he's the one with the pwer. He wants to be the Good Guy, Mr Laid-back, Mr Cool. But he'll be the first to kick any oen of us out if we don't play by his rules. He's the one upholding the status quo, making sure we 'progress'. But progress to what? To everything we're running a mile from for Christs's sake! Everything that's screwed us up in the first place: crap jobs, a society that's afraid of us, squalid accommodation. He's fascinated, obsessed. But where he sees sickness, I see health. And where he sees insanity, I see wisdom. Dan Cassady is exactly what is wrong with the world. I'd like to open his doors, to just smash them all down."


I couldn't have said it better myself.

I've always believed bipolar "disorder" makes you more of a person. If your emotions run on a course from minus one hundred to plus one hundred, whereas a regular person barely ever dips below minus ten or exceeds plus nine then bipolar "disorder" is only going to make you MORE of a person, not less of one. Add schizophrenia to the mix and you have a very superior person indeed.

I've always suspected that drugs workers of the ilk who've never used, never watched a sibling or partner kill themselves with heroin. The ones who just take it on as a random job instead of being a librarian or a filing clerk or a plant-waterer. Those ones. They're just junkies by proxy. Too scared of actually taking the stuff. But just loving the vibe that surrounds it. Ie the exact opposite of me, who loved being high and hated the lifestyle. The way they talk about injecting as if it's freakery says everything. Heroin is a drug for injection. DOCTORS INJECT IT into cancer patients. When did you last see an NHS ward full of pain patients chasing the so-called dragon. Well then. Some reality check is required. As long as I take heroin I shall inject heroin. I never ever will go back to smoking it, which I only did in the very very beginning. And being as I no longer use heroin, I expect never to inject it ever again.

I'm only cleaning up so I can die by the way. I want to die and I don't want to die a junkie. So if you're wondering where the sudden motivation comes from: that's it.

6 comments:

Jeannie said...

I've got those highlight caps - but I bought them at the beauty supply. Hairdressers use them on themselves when they do their own highlights rather than trying to do foils.

Gledwood said...

there's loads of African Carribbean beauty shops near me that might do stuff like that

actually black women don't tend to do highlights

well i'll have a look i would want it perfectly interlaced brown and yellow: that would look amazing!!

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Please don't clean up just to die.
I've been at rock bottom many times.Somehow or another I'm a survivor.
I really wish you all the best.
Hang in there, there's a reason and purpose you were put on the earth.
The hair talk isgreat (right up my alley)

Anonymous said...

great quote. Go pink, if you think it will suite you.

Anonymous said...

Are you really going to kill yourself? I don't want you to, but you probably don't want me to. I can't be a hippacrite. Except I don't have the willingness to get clean again. Why doesn't god give me a fourth stage cancer? I can't prepare for death anymore than I alreay have. Can you?

Gledwood said...

Anna: I did feel that way when I wrote it, plus it's a great motivation to go clean

what did you mean about pink? pink hair? pink glasses? i was going to get candy-kolored lenses... then i realized contacts are only £5 a month plus a £25 fitting fee so for about £40 + a £10 pot of solution I could have lenses for a year; I probably wouldn't use them every day but i did used to love having a huge shades collection. now every fucking pair of shades has to be prescription meaning i have the grand total of ONE plus one pair of self-darkening specs on order. glasses was my latest manic obsession which i've since crashed down from leaving myself depressed with bleached hair and dark glasses ha ha ha!

Taffeta: there is so much time between cleaning up and possibly dying I'd no doubt have changed my mind. i see it as a positive force. galvinizing me not to use come rain or shine. i've used once in something like 10 days (yesterday) the BIG problem with it is it makes me markedly less depressed and i was feeling lousy. and i always regret saying stuff like i said in this post. because it is true :-(

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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