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!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Cup a soup day

I COULD have waited till this evening to post. But you'd just get a longer rant on a miserable day; so you might as well get it now.

I got up at nine. Took methadone. Drank a chicken vegetable Cup A Soup with croutons and watched the Royle Family Xmas Special while I waited for it to come on. By ten o'clock I didn't feel like a block of ice any more.

Went up the methadone chemist. I'm too paranoid these days to bother doing anything much outside my house. I got the hell out as quick as possible. Nothing at all to eat in Morrisons. I'm strictening up my diet again. I'd gone in there for coleslaw but had gone off the idea by the time I got near the shelf.

My drugs worker seems to have totally the wrong idea. He thinks I'm on a level because I'm not cycling up and down any more. Yeah a level. A level of misery. I could ring Naomi but her Nutter Club, the one good thing in life, has been cancelled. And if I phone her I'll be asking for help. I don't want to ask for help. I have this horrible feeling that anything I do say could be used against me in some way. I know it's probably "paranoia", but I can't help feeling this way.

I don't even know whether to take my pills again. They're not antidepressants and my problem is that I'm a miserable bastard. I'm not psychotic anymore. In fact I'm not even sure that "schizoaffective" isn't a misdiagnosis. Risperidone is a psychic blocker. I don't even know wether my psyche should be blocked out. I could have got a job as a medium some years ago, but didn't want to get possessed. It's this psychic function that antipsychotic meds block out. So I don't even know that they're a good thing. What risperidone did was put breaks on my mania and stop me hearing voices. I hardly ever hear voices now, despite no risperidone. The voices I do get are in my head. True, my head is more and more confused. But I'm too confused to tell anyone. Like I say they would probably find some way of using my own words against me.

I don't feel my drugs worker understands much of what I say to him. I'm too scared to admit how I really feel (that drug addicts, especially me, should be lined up and shot by firing squad). It's probably good to put it in a comedy way like that.

And by the way those bastards in Switzerland are holding a public vote on whether foreigners should be able to travel in and make use of the country's liberal euthanasia laws. Cut off my last hope why don't you.

Anna Grace sicked out her small opiate relapse and was clean last I heard. I don't know what happened to her elevated manic mood but it probably helped her through the worst of the cold turkey. The worst thing about being opiate-sick is that it makes you see how harrowingly bleak and worthless an existence this life is. That's why most detoxing addicts want to kill themselves.

I would say I hope Anna stays clean but she would say that's hypocrisy as I am the ultimate limp handshake as far as any determination to stay drug-free goes. I've decided to give my life 2 days from now, to see how it goes. Then I don't know what I'm going to do. There's no point being on heroin. I'm shocked by the local junkies' low standards. The guy they say whose gear is best is selling utter shite. It's like a gear version of crack. You can only feel it going in, a little whoosh as you IV it. Then nothing. The whole point of gear in the olden days was that it made you feel way better ~ all day ~ than crappy methadone ever did. Unless you're willing to dose yourself somewhere towards 200mg, which the dr offered me, but I never wanted. The drugs clinic's equivalence tables were ridiculously skewed, advising mizzling small methadone doses that never compensated for street gear of decent quality.

Well that's it for today. I'm nagging myself to clean up my house. That's why I got up early to begin with: to turn on Vanessa Feltz on BBC London radio and do the kitchen whilst the populace of this great metropolis ring in to have a good moan.

I just checked yesterday's comments. Too para to open up anything earlier. Don't know who I thought had got in touch with me but ... whatever. Yes Jeannie if I'd been born in earlier generations there would have been no psychiatric treatment bar glorified prison. Least I can take those pills. I wish my head wasn't so confused about all this. I don't know why I am confused. Or how. I just know that I go round and round in circles about it all.

Well I have to go. Cup A Soup is powdered soup Taffeta. You add boiling water, stir and eat the croutons off the top. Anyone who buys Cup A Soup without croutons, in my humble view, deserves to be shot between the eyes.

8 comments:

Spindrift said...

You have some strong opinions on 'Cup a Soup' :o)

Gledwood said...

O yeah, I'm always highly vocal about the important things in life ;-)

Gattina said...

You watch a Royal Xmas Special in May ??? I think you are a bit early ! I told you already stop observing you like a bug in a closed bottle ! Read, clean, walk, and above all forget yourself go in a park and watch flowers and birds and girls all nice things !

Anonymous said...

I can join your club again. I'm down back to the comfortable sad state I live in.

My book comes out in two weeks. Maybe three depending one what kind of cover I choose. Fuckers.

The book is so shitty. I just read it again today, and I hate it. I hate myself too. I hate everything I do. I still love you though. Your great. My darling friend.

xoxoxoxox

Gledwood said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gledwood said...

Gattina: I keep telling myself to think on positive things and it does work a bit. I just cannot keep it going, I don't know why. But I keep trying.

I'm going to try Michael Jackson next, see if that makes the clearing out any more fun.

Anna: how do you choose a cover for a book? Can you draw? I would have to do an abstract cover for mine. Can't draw for toffee me. I can draw cartoons but I wouldn't want a cartoon cover. I'd want a photographic cover really. Why don't you take a photo with your camera phone. Or get one of you, chop it in half so it's half your face down the cover. I've seen that on a few books, it looks really good. You can photoshop it to your heart's content.

I'm miserable as fucking shit if the truth be told. Wish I was asleep. No heroin. No point getting any. I've decided to give it up for good. Which only a crazy or truly desperate person would ever do, so I must be one of those 2. Never doing gear again. How crazy is that. Well I don't need it to sleep. I'm sleeping all the time. Only difference between me on and off gear is I'm more miserable off it, and heroin gives me more sanity. The exact opposite to what everyone assumes. Heroin is a psychic blocker, so of course it makes you less mad. Well I've got to go it's past midnight :-/

the guy in the silk taffeta dress said...

Oh, okay, thanks for the info & details on the Cup a Soup.It sounds really good, quick and handy.
We don't have it here, but if we did I'd take your advice on the croutons.
I'm in a kind of Cup a Soup mood, you know kind of lazy and unmotivated and looking for a dinner that's nearly effortless.
Honestly, sometimes I crave very chemically flavored foods as opposed to pure, whole foods.
I love Nerds & Smarties candy which is all chemical.
Take care Gleds,
j.

Merle said...

Dear Gleds ~~ I love Cup of Soup too and it is so easy and filling, specially with a slice of toast to dip in it.
Thank you for your comments onmy brother's update on my health. I walked into hospital to have a kidney stone blasted by laser and was meant to get home next day. But 4 weeks later I got here and have to use a walking frame as I can't walk as I did before.
Can you imagine how mad I feel about all this. nnyway I am doing exercises to get my strength back and hopefully walk normally again.
Thanks for your comments on my 2 posts since I goy home. Things are going well and I am feeling better each day.Thak you for caring dear friend. Look after yourself.
Love and Best wishes, Merle.

Thanks

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