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!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Mysteriously Better

I TOOK A PILL last night. My prescribed medication, which I have VERY mixed feelings about (side-effects). And today I feel nearly a hundred times better than yesterday. So either that's the placebo effect. Or the mood swing has bottomed out. Or risperidone really is that amazing. I have a GP appointment on Friday when I'm going to ask her to please switch me to quetiapine because I don't want a pill that's actually making me more anxious. She might say only the Psycho Doctor can authorize that. Or she might just gimme a script. I also need an ECG because my methadone could elongate my QT-interval (whatever that is) and the clinic need to know. This doctor also wanted some bloods done which I was far too paranoid even to contemplate yesterday. I felt it was some huge plot against me, or that the results would be used against me. Whatever happened I was bound to lose (I felt). Now I feel I was being STUPID. But the upshot is, no bloods have been done. Frankly I'd rather they sliced my leg open with a scalpel and collected the gushings than stuck me with needles all over. Because my arm and leg veins are now nonexistent. They could get one in my femoral (crook of the thigh, in deep) or my neck, two places I never injected. They call the femoral your "groin" which can cause some confusion as women are just as likely to inject there as men. If your femoral gets messed up you could lose a leg, which was always far more offputting to me than losing my life, as you probably know by now. I had an awful death wish for a long time.

I tried going to a group therapy session today. I did tell them I'd give it another shot. But I couldn't handle speaking to people I didn't know. I couldn't face it and so departed. The time before when I attended I said far too much, which is offputting as I feel like an idiot now. Not for any specific thing I said; just for having spoken at all. I was the happiest person in the room by a long way in that session, all hyped up. This time I was the most miserable person in the room, but not by a big margin. There's always a lot of misery in that room.

So I'm out of the group and on my own. I'm feeling OK. I'm just a bit down now. My mood has risen. Yesterday I was very down. My computer needs a hepatic infusion and is refusing treatment! No, there is a cable disconnect and the back needs unscrewing, which means me buying tiny screwdrivers from God knows where. If that doesn't work I haven't a clue what to do.

O man there's a script error on this page so I'd better hurry up and post before I get frozen out or logged out. It's soggy as a wet sponge here in London. Been raining all day. The river is turbulent and full of mud. Mrs Li is still teaching me to tell the time in Chinese...


Illustrated: quetiapine aka Seroquel..

3 comments:

Syd said...

Gleds, you keep messing with your medication and refuse to do what the clinic wants. That sounds like a bad plan to me. What about trying what they suggest for a month, get the blood drawn, and stop being your own doctor?

Lori said...

Gleds honey, I agree with Syd. I am like you, always questioning and researching, but in reality I didn't go to medical school. I, too, have been through the pharmaceutics gamut. Felt like a damn guinea pig. Now I am on a reasonable med regimen. I am also bi-polar. I am learning to deal with the depression part by painting, reading or writing. Please be well and don't give up.. Much love from the states..xoxo

Gledwood said...

You inspired me to do a post I answered most of the points today Wednesday.

Really the clinic is there to give out scripts, not interfere in people's lives. I need an ECG as there's some rare cardiac side effect methadone can have, so I will get that IF my GP signs the form. If she doesn't there's nothing I can do, and she didn't want to sign it before.

See they make it into a Kafkaesque nightmare when really they're only there to dish out jollop!

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