HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

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, August 20, 2011

Sick

MY COMPUTER AND I are both sick. The computer has some cable disconnection and says no disk drive is found. Even though it's right where it's always been. I have caught a common cold and I feel mentally ill. I spent literally all day asleep. When I went outside I couldn't remember why I was there. So I bought some fags and went back home.

That awful X Factor TV programme is back on. It's got worse and worse. Horrible new judges with "attitude". And lots of "exciting" quick cuts back and forth on the "VT". The British X Factor is just second place to the proper American one now, with Simon Cowell over there to do that and not ours because ours isn't important enough. Cheryl Cole's over there too. Does anyone in America know who Cheryl Cole is? She's a really good judge, and I don't think Tulisa from N Dubz or Kelly Rowland from Destiny's Child could ever take her place.

Dubz always meant "crack cocaine" in my neighbourhood. It's short for W, meaning "white", as opposed to B which is "brown" (heroin). The Dubz in N Dubz actually refers to NW1, the Camden Town postcode where the band is from. I think they did best in Dubplate Drama, this late night "urban" soap. They made better actors than musicians.

O it's boiling hot. O yeah I've got my coat on. I'm going to bed early tonight. I hope my computer will work in the morning. Otherwise I have to write this book on paper. Actually I was going to write the first draft on paper to focus my mind. I don't even own a printer and I need some way of shifting my words round, keeping what I'd previously put for comparison. I often find if you remember a sentence the way you'd written it before, the words remembered are better than the version you kept officially. Just as with lines of misquoted poetry: they're actually better than the poets' versions.

There's not much else to say. Mrs Li is still teaching me to tell the time in Chinese. The CD got stuck at 5 in the morning, blaring Mandarin sounds around the place like a psychedelic tangerine.

I've got to go; my cheerfulness is running out. I'm really exhausted.

7 comments:

LL Cool Joe said...

I'm a big N-Dubz fan, I think they are all talented in their own ways. I'm not that keen on seeing Tulisa as an X-Factor judge though. I preferred her when she had street cred.

Get well soon.

Gledwood said...

Cheers. She was a really good actress in that Channel 4 drama. She should get a job as a film star and stop wasting her time on television.

Syd said...

Hope that you feel better soon. Take it easy Gleds.

Akelamalu said...

I love watching XFactor, the auditions are hilarious, so many deluded people! Didn't Cheryl Cole get the big E from American XFactor??

Very informative post about N Dubz Gleds thanks.

Janice Seagraves said...

Get well soon, Gled.

Janice~

Baino said...

Nah not my cup of tea at all then I don't watch much tv beyond the news. Man flu huh? Hot toddies and panadol, you'll be right mate

Gledwood said...

The cold was just a sore throat, probably from smoking too much. The actual illness is probably called "depression". I would never know this if it wasn't for experience, by the way. I don't feel "depressed" about anything. Just tired, ill and flat and very negative. I'm feeling desperate enough to take risperidone again even though it makes me panic (what a shit drug, a "tranquillizer" that causes panic) but it's all I have. I'm just looking forward to going to sleep again.

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