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!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Hello again

I HAVEN'T BEEN BY because I could not get access to a computer. I have not been feeling well. My methadone is down to 80mg and I feel sick whenever I have to move myself to get to that overheated chemist's shop. Strangely, apart from feeling cold, I feel fine at home. As I say, it's only when I start moving myself that I get a disgusting sweat on that only evaporates a good couple of hours after sipping the noxious gunk I am prescribed. I feel my life is over now I'm no longer taking drugs. OK I do indulge about once a fortnight but I never feel the gear. I've had the odd bit of crack but I don't even like that. So I'm stuck in sobriety and hating it because I'm so unmotivated and down.

I got a letter through because they are turning off the old analogue TV signal in London next April and I'm eligable for a Freesat dish and box, fully installed for just £67 ~ about $100 ~ giving me over 100 channels without any need to subscribe. So I'm thinking of going for it.

Apart from that no news. Just missed doctor's appointments (I felt to ill to go). And poor sleep. Up all night, in bed all day not wanting to get up. Then the dreaded trek to the methadone chemist and having to remove half my clothes in that ridiculously tropical shop. I stink because I have not had a shower in over a week, just half hearted attempts at washing over the sink. I don't want to be dirty but I just feel like a block of ice when I wake up. I need my methadone AT HOME so I can take it IN BED a good couple of hours before I get up. THEN I will be able to stomach showers, changing clothes, washing hair all the things normal people do. All the things addicts on methadone supposedly start doing again but cannot when the methadone is not in their hands. The longer this poisoning goes on the worse things will get. I just want off that noxious rubbish as quickly as possible. There is no earthly reason why I should experience any withdrawal whatsoever. If I reduced a dose of heroin by 5mg per week I wouldn't feel anything at all. So why should I feel the reduction in methadone? I'm fine once I've drunk it and waited the infernal amount of time that rubbish takes to come on (over two hours). But I'm not OK when I wake up in the morning. Unless the clinic give me control over drinking my own dose at home I'm launching a formal complaint and/or simply scoring my own methadone on the street so I can walk to the chemist without hot and cold flashes and flushing half the dose they give me. They probably wouldn't notice if I did that. I don't want to play around with my dosing but I'm getting more and more wound up on this point. I got advised to issue a formal complaint some weeks ago. Everyone else I know gets good treatment apart from me. It's almost as if they were deliberately eroding my mental health. Example: by insisting I go to group therapy which is only compulsory for convicted petty criminals. I went to two groups very reluctantly just so I could say I'd tried it. Then very happily turned my back on that complete waste of time. 90 minutes of patronizing rubbish I have heard a million times before. No thanks.

I'm not in the mood for NA because I don't go anywhere these days. I feel very run down and mentally exhausted. My mother did not seem to like the letter I wrote her explaining my past. She doesn't want to face my point of view. But she did tell some very interesting stories of her own which I'm sure she considers true. Viewpoint, viewpoint. It's all in the viewpoint.

Well I have to dash I'm on a public computer yet again. I will be back sooner if I can get to a computer that actually works, which many in this shop don't. Take care everyone and have a charming weekend...

9 comments:

Baino said...

Disappointing Gleds, youre sounding like a broken record. Have a shower the night before, no excuse to be stinky. It is a shame they won't give you the methodone to take at home but I guess there are those who abuse it. Hey, you'll get used to hot flushes. I've had em for a while! have a good one hon.

Gledwood said...

No clean clothes!
I sweat like a disgusting pig, it is grotesque. Methadone should NOT do that to me. It is a "heroin substitute"; heroin doesn't do it. So if methadone is a substitute, it won't do it either.

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Hey, it's good to see you back.
I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling well.
Does your bathroom have good eating? I remember at my granny's she had very little heat in the bathroom and getting undressed for a bath was misery.
Take care,

bugerlugs63 said...

What is their reason for not letting you take home your meth?
Maybe they would let you take half home. Why do the fools want to make something that is already nigh on impossible, any bloody harder?
I know that methadone sweat. I have take home meth and gear in the evening but still wake up soaked in the stuff most mornings. It has a specific smell. A hint of fried onion? Yuk. You've done well to get down to 80ml. Hows the cigs going or staying? It was good to see you back yesterday. I hope you get some energy soon.
Take care
With love
Di x

Bimbimbie said...

Hmmm viewpoints between the generations are seldom if ever, the same.

Baino's right about the shower - try and get into the habit of having one late in the afternoon when it's warmer than late at night or first up of a morning. You know it's not good to miss your dr's appointment - when you're feeling too ill to go is actually the time you really have to go see the dr...

Anonymous said...

I know just how you feel,methadone is an awful substitute,but then most pharmaceuticals are,along with nasty side effects.People tell us to get over it,we did this to ourselves,no?Perhaps,we did,but when we seek help we expect help ,not moralistic nonsense and a wagging finger..We all know they have better ways of helping,but if you can't pay,you can't play...?One of the side effects of methadone is sweating,i found.It has made me reluctant to use public transport.I stick to my script most days,cos like you i still barely feel the gear and its ughh..sorry for the long post,i missed you!!
Annie x

Gledwood said...

Taffeta: no heating at all in the bathroom!

Buggerlugz: I got changed to a new clinic totally against any wishes of mine and it's policy to make all new customers take it supervised, no matter how stable they might have been before...

Bimbimbie: the methadone is back on a level dose and not dropping so I have no excuse not to go straight in. I just lost it for a week, had no clean clothes, was dirty and pissed off at feeling ill bc of the methadone being reduced but I'm ok now...

Annie: I've never heard of a doctor putting their hand in the methadone cabinet. But they seem to be at the morphine/etc all the time!

Eyelick: i just want off methadone asap but don't know if I can handle the subutex switchover I wanna be on the absolute minimum methadone before I switch... how on earth anybody can hold down a job on methadone is beyond me. All this crap about it giving you your life back it doesn't really it just makes you feel nominally OK. I can't wait to have that toxin out of my body!

Anonymous said...

how on earth anybody can hold down a job on methadone is beyond me. All this crap about it giving you your life back it doesn't really it just makes you feel nominally OK."

You've never had a job, much less a life to get back to begin with. Totally pathetic that you are content living off the system and doing nothing with your life. You're a total waste.

Gledwood said...

Of course I've had a job. Whether or not I had a life is a good question ~ hence methadone not being able to give one back, you're right there.

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