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!

Monday, August 08, 2011

More looting and rioting


MY LOCAL SHOPS, including the 24-hour convenience stores are all SHUT this evening thanks to widespread rumours of rioting in this area tonight. I've already heard vulgar voices outside my window and am armed and dangerous. Anyone who dares come in will be getting it bigtime.]

I didn't mean to imply rioting was good in my previous post: I was merely describing the carnival atmosphere down Wood Green High Road yesterday morning. Soon as I got off the bus there were crowds of people gawping at the smashed windows of HMV -- CDs and DVDs everywhere as if a hurricane had hit the shop. T Mobile was completely vandalized. McDonalds strangely missed out -- possibly because nobody wanted to loot a rancid Big Mac. Neither of the big supermarkets got it either. Mostly sportswear stores: JD and Footlocker, electrical shops and places selling DVDs etc. Police were in attendance but not exactly guarding the looted premises and this WAS about looting and not rioting the true riot was in Tottenham. No evidence of petrol bombs to be seen. I could easily have crawled into HMV and just helped myself to Barbra Streisand memorabilia. I was still a bit manic yesterday (that's why I was in such a good mood on top of the carnival atmosphere of the place). I was in a very good mood indeed when my stingy crackhead friend came back and repaid my 25 quid. Reason he hadn't repaid was that he's basically gone and got himself a crack habit. That's what's happened. Even his immaculate wife was piping away and they wouldn't give me a pipe because they've seen me on crack and it's not pretty. I indulged in heroin instead. To be frank I was suspecting my chemist had watered my dose because I felt ill ALL THE TIME. The heroin did at least put me to sleep ALL NIGHT for the first time in days on end. I also fell asleep in my chair, like a normal person. If you can't fall asleep in front of the telly there's pretty much no point going to bed in my book. Yes I do feel weak and idiotic for taking heroin. I wish they hadn't come round now the longer they stayed the grottier I felt I was so incredibly tired and so thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in this morning it was a real luxury. Also whenever I tried to get up I was too chilly for words. I have some mystery illness, I know I have. What the bloody hell it is I haven't the faintest idea but the symptoms are these: farting, sweating, chills (having to wear a Russian hat in August), physical fatigue and insomnia (3 hours'sleep a night) plus mental feelings similar to being high on coke. What illness is that? I know the mental side is called hypomania but what about the physical symptoms? Also I'm dreaming of Barbra Streisand?... She's singing me the most beautiful lullabyes. My family once told me Leona Lewis had a better voice than Streisand because it sounds normal and not nasal but NOBODY beats Streisand in the singing stakes. Have you ever heard anyone who sounds even remotely like Barbra Streisand? I haven't. Whitney Houston is arguably superior because her voice is stronger and more even. But Whitney has completely destroyed her voice by all accounts -- freebasing cocaine. Silly bitch! BTW I'm talking voice-as-instruent here not choice of songs. If musical repertoire were the criteria for greatest pop star Madonna would beat everybody hands down!

Now I must check my tex mex pizza. I stocked up on cloudy lemonade at 54p for 2 litres and Old Jamaica ginger beer at 1.04 for 2 litres on special offer. Even Morrisons were closing early in terror. So far the unrest has spread to Hackney where there are no decent shops my friend Tommy Tired used to live on Graham Road so what anyone can loot from Hackney apart from dealers'supplies of gear, crack and evil cannabis I've not the faintest idea!

My Dad is telling me now not to move anywhere near the main shops but I think community nuthouses are on twee suburban roads like the one in Posh Park. I so much hope I get the chance to move out there I have just had enough of living as I do. Did you know I once kept my washing up in the shower for 6 months because I couldn't face doing it? The Posh Park nuterhouse has shared kitchen and living room so I can watch telly with schizophrenics instead of watching telly on my own and bouncing my balls forlornly on the ceiling to piss off the 2faced dole scrounger downstairs (claiming benefits yet driving an enormous car and barely ever in residence so my chances of actually disturbing him bouncing a ball at 4 in th emorning are about one percent!)

Shit I forgot 3 cheese coleslaw to go with my tex mex pizza. Ho-hum. I did get Onken chocolate flakes in vanilla yogurt with little chocolate strawberry hearts to dunk in it. I don't know what the health benefits of live yogurt are meant to be but somedays yogurt is literally the only thing I can stomach...!

O well I have to ride out the night on ginger beer and lemonade. I've given up alcohol! Haven't had a drink since Friday (I think: I'm not doing that one day at a time yet I'm counting the days thing). ALL the shops are now shut. If we do get a riot outside I'll post full details I promise you!

RIOTS SPREAD ACROSS LONDON: LATEST
Starting at 4:20pm, vulgarians kicked off the unrest in Hackney. Further flashpoints went off in Lewisham and Peckham (really scummy inner London suburbs way too vulgar for me to stray near!) Hackney's OK though. Nicer than Tottenham. Wood Green is the nicest place to have riots so far. I used to know someone who lived in Wood Green...

PLACES THAT BELONG TO YOU (VOCAL VERSION)
Love theme from The Prince of Tides - a brilliant film about a bipolar poet hospitalized after a serious suicide attempt. Nick Nolte plays the irritable city-hating brother, drawn to New York purely for his sister (the poet's) sake. Streisand is the psychiatrist. What starts as clinical unravelling of his sister's past turns into a love story...




PS MY CHINESE IS COMING ALONG FANTASTICALLY I GOT FULL MARKS IN THE END-OF-UNIT TEST. FAIR DOS IT WAS UNIT 1 BUT YOU GOTTA START SOMEWHERE!!


0016hrs RIOT UPDATE: EALING BROADWAY (W LONDON) HAS JUST ERUPTED; VIOLENCE IN NOTTING HILL (W CENTRAL); CROYDON (SOUTH) BURNING AND A NONFATAL SHOOTING. E HAM (EAST) ON FIRE. FIRES AND GLASS ALL OVER HACKNEY'S STREETS (NORTH-EAST). AND THE VIOLENCE HAS SPREAD OUT OF LONDON TO BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND'S FAMOUSLY VULGAR SECOND CITY... (ALL THE INNER CITY OPPRESSIVE ATMOSPHERE OF THE WORST OF LONDON BUT NO HARRODS, NO BUCKINGHAM PALACE, NO TUBE. ukh!)

LONDON IS THE ONLY CITY I'D LIVE IN APART FROM NEW YORK, TOKYO, PARIS, BERLIN ETC...


DAILY TELEGRAPH 0020HRS Violence spreads across London.

If you want to hear the latest, the best link is, BBC RADIO LONDON (phone-in station)...



SAM, YOU MADE THE PANTS TOO LONG
a highly intellectual song with emotionally complex lyrics. Not.

12 comments:

Baino said...

Just watching the rubbish in London on morning TV now, bloody horrible and looting is the worst crime. I'd shoot the lot of them.

Gledwood said...

The "rioters" are just piss-taking thieves they don't even have a political point. Yes it started with a genuine grievance about a 16 year old lad shot by police but it erupted into general lawbreaking and theft. That's all it's about now: theft and destruction of property.

It's hit the news in Australia? Wow!

Bimbimbie said...

This is what happens when kids don't get slapped on their backsides any more - no respect for anyone or property :( tv coverage say its spread to Birmingham and Leeds now

Stay close to home Gleds*!*

Gledwood said...

They should bring back the rattan like in Singapore that would fucking serve those scumbags right.

Anonymous said...

Hi Gleds! It's me, Deb. Been awhile...heard about this stuff on the news and wanted to check in and make sure you're ok!

Good to see that you're still blogging...I don't get much of a chance anymore.

See you have a rabbit sidebar...is he yours? Do you still have furry friends? (I have a rabbit now, he's SO cute).

Anyhow, I promise to check in more often...miss you! xo Deb

Anonymous said...

You know,i think there might be something amiss with me but the rioters have my sympathy...ever since the new condemns came to power they have hit the poorest,and people with kids,they took my kids ema away,they took my kids playgroups away all under the banner of "cuts" so if the youth of england are fed up of double speak and lies,media says you need new trainers,but fucked if you gonna get them..unless daddys rich!!
Annie x

Janice Seagraves said...

Good heavens. Rioting in London. Please keep us informed. And I hope your staying inside.

Janice~

Sarcastic Bastard said...

I hope you are safe, Gleds. I have been reading of this in The Daily Mail.

Love,

SB

Gledwood said...

Hi DEBS it's great to hear from you. No the rabbit was just an entertaining animation I really liked to I stuck it up there. I'd really like to get a chinchilla... or if I did get a rabbit ~ one of those enormous ones you can put in a harness and walk like a doggie...

ANNIE: they did bring up several times the level of government cuts hitting Tottenham in particular. Even Time magazine said that. Not sure it's the real reason; I suspect a lot of it's simply people taking advantage of a weakly policed country (weakly policed unless you're vulnerable eg a junkie into very petty crime ~ then you get all the toys used against you doncha!)... anyway a weakly policed country to thieve to their greedy hearts' contents. And all the people doing it seem to be the ilk of kids who don't want a proper job, just want to hang about serving up cannabis or B, fathering kids at 17 to prove they're a "man" and just frittering their lives away. Like junkies without the highs. Ie complete saddos in my book. I might be a useless layabout but at least I got that way by a conspiracy of circumstances these types WANT to do nothing constructive with their lives and in that sense they don't have my sympathy at all!

JANICE: there's been no shops smashed up closer than a mile away but my very local ones are fine. The rioting is North, South, East, West and Central ~ literally all over town and totally unpredictable. It's more looting than true rioting ~ motivated by materialism more than hatred or true unrest. I think most of the people doing it are just losers taking an opportunity who have little better to do anyhow. They should build giant 200-seater stocks and bring in tonnes of rotten eggs from China and let the populace take out their frenzied rage on these hooligans THAT would serve them right!!!

SB: o yeah I'm staying in strictly inside. My local shops looked like a seige had hit. One person being let in at a time and that was that. Nobody could tell when a flashmob might suddenly appear. Most of the takeaways and a lot of small shops just closed up last night and closed early, around 5pm or so. These were shops that shut around midnight normally. It's really weird and I'm sure it's not over yet.

Vincent said...

Hi Gleds, read your comment on my blog then came here to reply and read that you're back on the heroin. So sorry to hear that :-/

Anyway, to answer your question: We still have the coffee shops. Ridiculous situation really because nobody is allowed to own more than 5 cannabis plants for personal use. The "coffee" shops are legal though and so is their selling. Growing large or for commercial purposes is illegal however so where do the shops get it from? Coffee shops, like cafe's and resto's have a smoking room. This is the usual answer to the Dutch smoking regulations. So, you're not allowed to smoke in the area where it's sold but in the separate room where staff isn't s'posed to go (yeah, right!)

I hope you're keeping well and safe from the riots. I saw awful footage of it on the news and on facebook :-(

Natascha said...

This is crazy! Pleas stay safe!

Are pharmacies looted too? How does this situation reflect on getting ones methadone doses? Or scoring? Just curious.

Now that the looting in London is going on, i can't help but think that the Gov. is going to tighten security and surveillance of the public even more. The UK already is pretty crazy with police and surveillance, but i'm sure they'll use the current riots to make even harsher laws.

Just so you know, i have been off for vacation in July, so i missed out on a lot of blog posts and i'm not up to the newest stuff. Have to catch up. Won't happen again now anyway, as i got me a new smartphone. Now i'm able to be online anywhere i am and blog from anywhere i am.

Also, i'm blogging with my name Natascha from now on, instead of my nickname Mina.

Please be safe!

Gledwood said...

VINCENT: I haven't actually seen any rioting with my own eyes because it hasn't come that close to me.... I knew the cannabis situation in Amsterdam was strange. I think organized toking holidays are going out of fashion: it's so easy to get here. If I went to Amsterdam I'd want to see the Rijksmuseum, the bulb fields outside the city, the canals etc etc not some stupid cannabis bar selling a drug that makes you psychotic!

NATASCHA: yes I think it will be used as an excuse for yet more draconian laws. What they're SUPPOSED to do is introduce martial law which is only temporary! But they won't. They'll introduce permanent legislation which will be mis-applied giving Big Brother State yet more power.

I haven't heard of anybody attacking a chemist (yet) possibly because to use stereotypes, by the look of the rioters they look like grass smokers and not into benzos or opiates. My pharmacist was going to close early yesterday but I get my dose as soon as possible after 9am every day so it's not an issue for me. If the pharmacy got done over I'd probably have to pick it up from the drug service in person. That's what happened when my pharmacy was closed due to snow some years ago. I'd just drunk 90mg when I arrived at the emergency clinic to be told I'd have to drink my juice there and then so I ended up with 180mg swilling round my system. This is the only time I've felt methadone blockade the effects of heroin because yes I STILL used on top. No dose of methadone has ever stopped me wanting to use. Ever. I only don't use now because I don't want to, not because of methadone!

But back to your point I sincerely hope nothing does happen to my chemist or any other chemist. That would be a major headfucker!

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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