Mood:  bright

WHEN I WAS HOMELESS and sleeping in an abandoned bilding with holes in the roof and rats and pigeons for company I used to get so cold on winter nights that two pairs of jeans, two jumpers, a jacket and coat worn inside a sleeping bag with blanket thrown over would just about keep me tolerably warm.

   I was giong through one of my mad phases at the time. I thought living rough was the most "natural" form of existence.

    My "natural existence" was hardly lacking in excitement. Now this squat was enormous and though I'd known a number of the previous residents, I ended up with the entire place to myself.

    Apart from being cold enough, even in May, to keep my cyder cans refrigerator-cold, and dripping like Fingall's Cave whenever it rained, and apart from the fact this place was open for anyone to sneak in at all hours of the night and kill me in my bed (and as well as rats, the local cats and foxes seemed to have the run of the place) — apart from all this, THE BUILDING WAS HAUNTED.

    There were some spectacular apparitions. I had all kinds of frights. Some lit up the Great Hall (as I called it) as brightly as a 1500-watt bulb. Now that is one hell of a bright ghost!!...

Posted by gledwood at 6:53 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 3 December 2006 7:05 PM GMT

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Mood:  incredulous

HARVEY, THE CHINESE SWINE, made a jailbreak last night. The hour was 5am GMT — his nightly ramble time — when the swine made his jailbreak — rushing my sleeve to freedom. & gaah! — no sign of the rodent.

    Ten minutes passes. I have not to be frantic because this will frighten him off.

    Then his vole-like face emerges by a can of lighter gas under my bed. On first glimpse, believing he is tame,  I lunge at him and he pings away. He's so depressingly quick and agile I am despairing.

    Now I know what that dark "dorsal stripe" is for. It is a chipmunk-style go-faster stripe. And it works.

    And now I've frightened him, he's vanished well and truly. No sign of the escapee at all. I go out and get a cyder to calm my nerves.

    Off goes the normal light, on with fireglow bulbs. His fishtank is sideways on the floor, tempting him with food and water and his own bed.

    And suddenly, poppy-eyed and chipmunk-nimble, the swine reappears.

    The smell of his own bed is too much to resist & bang — I caught him.

    Ears down and pentinent He ckulks back to his nest, cussing to himself , "Drat — back to a life-sentance of four glass walls and a diet of glorified muesli."

Posted by gledwood at 6:40 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 3 December 2006 7:06 PM GMT

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Mood:  chillin'

I'M IN A STATE OF FLUX. Intending to score /intending not to. Put on shoes. Took shoes off. Told self it was too late to call Person I had in mind. (It's1am Saturday.) Put shoes back on (I say "shoes", they're minging silver Nikes.)

    Went out in the rainy dark.

    About-turned again.

    The money is there but I can't afford to score. There are bills & debts I'm meant to pay.

    So I'm being real respectible, for now...

Posted by gledwood at 6:34 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 7:18 PM GMT

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Mood:  blue

Visited a girl's website yesterday; "true life of a high class callgirl". Gorgeous-looking site. And impossibly glamorous. All false lashes & diamond-studded lips. Makes my site look incredibly rustic and yokelly. Other photos revealed a headless man who'd just paid her to wet his own pants.

    Compare this with last night's BBC report on UN Peacemakers in Haiti exploiting the local prostitutes. I must confess some of the claims rang false (they are, after all, prostitutes who are getting paid to be "exploited").

    Being a hopeless junkie, I know a lot of prostitutes. None of these would call themselves exploited. Most work for themselves on the streets. One, who works the saunas, makes an absolute fortune.

    I tend to think the guys paying for it are the exploitees as much as anyone else. They are, after all, paying for something that's supposed to be free.

    A lot of the clichés are true — "tart with a heart" & all that.

    But having said all this, not one of these Working Girls seems to be happy beneath the façade. Whether that's to do with their job or the fact that they're all desperately hooked on drugs I couldn't say...

Posted by gledwood at 6:22 PM GMT

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Mood:  special

Slept all day. I'm so exhausted. People yelling in next room have no sleep cycle. Washing up against wall at 4am.

    It's not as if I didn't sleep between 2am+10am.

    Was it something I took at 10am that knocked me out again? Why it should knock me out today especially I don't know. It's the same gear as yesterday.

    Ho-hum. I gotta go. A dog wants to see me about a man. But seriously I'm hungry + wanna go up the rd b4 the shops all start shutting.

    OK then. G

Posted by gledwood at 4:05 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 7:15 PM GMT

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Mood:  hug me

Valium Marilyn is lurking nearby; I hear her cries. Guesss what I found out about her? She is an old age pensioner and still on the drugs. She puts reading glasses on and takes false teeth off before smoking crack.

    When I'd stayed overnight I ha d such entertainment from Cockney Marilyn Monroe the other morning on the phone. "Oh please help me, ‘dear’ — I'm a poor old age pensioner and my money hasn't come through. I haven't got a penny!" (Sob, sob.)

    She threw in about three dozen "dears" in the space of ten minutes, winking at me conspiratorially every time.

    It's deep midwinter. Dark from not long after 4pm. All anyone wants to do is hibernate. No wonder the Chinese Mouse stays in bed round the clock. Roll on spring!

    Marilyn's nephew was in Australia last week. He sent back photos of a place called the Ice Bar in Sydney — literally it's carved out like an igloo. Every punter gets a free winter coat to put on at reception.

    I had never guessed Marilyn was a pensioner... She told me she was 47 years old only last week!!

    Bumped into another oldie who I'll call "Lucky" tonight. Had drink, smoke. Lucky showed me her old photos. Lucky is one of these people who has grown into her features; looks better in her 50s than she did as a kid. The only parallel I can dredge up is Joan Collins, who looked better in Dynasty than she ever did in her 20s. However, Lucky is no Joan Collins. Lucky is a true one-off.

    They're babbling on the radio about trains. Do you know what's embarrassing about Britain? Our only proper 180mph highspeed line is the one going to France!!

    Well I'm off now for more Jaffa Cakes. L8Rs, G.

Posted by gledwood at 11:10 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 7:16 PM GMT

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Mood:  party time!

You are welcome to post me any question about myself.

So long as it's not too personal I'll answer as frankly as I can. Please give a name and your country.

Where are you? How old are you? How did you get on drugs? — Mousie, France.

I'm mid 30s & I'm blogging from lovely old London Town. How did I get on drugs? A v. hard question to answer because things started with a bang but carried on more insidiously from there.

My 1st encounter with "illicit" substances came after I had finished school. A girl asked me if I'd ever tried cannabis. I said no but I saw nothing wrong with it. And so began a beautiful friendship... with drugs.

A week later at a "rave" party where everyone was on ecstasy I sampled LSD, unwittingly necking 4 doses at once (I didn't know how tiny an acid "trip" was).

Of course my brains got fried. I had a monumental bad trip from start to finish. (& incidentally, the guy who sold me the "trips" committed suicide 18 months later.)

So much for my introduction to drugs.

After that experience, I remember realizing that a fork had opened in the road before me. Maybe if I'd taken the "straight" route... who knows where I'd be now?

Only after years of depression etc etc etc had intervened (long story) did I get into the harder stuff.

I had used, not used, used sleeping pills to sleep. Etc, etc. But once the hard drugs came along and they "got" me, I used them morning, noon and night. And so things continued, pretty much to this day. I won't make any promises for the future, but I will say here, Who knows where life will take me? It's not over yet.

TO POST YOUR OWN QUESTION, JUST CLICK THE RED "POST COMMENT" SIGN BELOW (BOTTOM RIGHT) ↓↓→. I WILL ENDEAVOUR TO ANSWER ALL REASONABLE QUERIES AS CANDIDLY AS POSSIBLE WITHIN A DAY OR SO.

This blog is very new; I'm trying to get as much interaction going as possible. So go for it! Pop that probing query HERE!!! (It can be on any subject under the sun. Doesn't necessarily have to be about the old drugs either...)

Looking 4ward 2 hearing from you!

Please leave a name and what country you're from. Many thanks.

                                                                                                                                 Gledwood

Posted by gledwood at 8:36 PM GMT

Updated: Thursday, 30 November 2006 5:25 PM GMT

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Mood:  chatty

Wednesday's child is full of woe...

Thursday's child has far to go...

Don't even know what day I was born on. I did ask what time. And got two totally different answers from mum and dad. My Dad said somethng about an important football match clashing with my birth "fixture" so I'd tend to take his word more seriously. (Soccer) football is about as "important" here in the UK as anything gets.

You could even say it's Britain's national religion, because far more people watch the World Cup, say, than ever go to church. The local pub was literally overflowing on the final France v Italy. Amusing national rivalries came out at this time. Eg.: Every goal Italy put in got massive roars of approval.

We Brits still haven't got over our military spats with France: the 1066 Battle of Hastings (which we lost) or the 1815 Battle of Waterloo (which we won).

I was talking about this (Britain's national relationships with other nations) to an old lady I know in the Post Office queue the other week. She wasn't having any of it. Wouldn't admit that national prejudices exist at all, when we all know they do. Football matches are a prime time obviously for them to come out.

France, our nearest neighbour, we've always had a love-hate relationship with. Despite our being on the same side in two World Wars, despite our love of French wines (esp. Champagne) & cheeses & the fact that most posh restaurants still feature a mostly French menu. Despite the fact that we all (try to) learn French as our first (& usually only) foreign language & that being au fait with French expressions is considered a sign of good education. Despite the fact that France is the number one location for second homes, there still persists this lingering resentment/jealousy/rivalry. After all we are nations of roughly equal size. (60,000,000 population each.) Except they have about five times more land to live on, a more bearable climate, the glamourous Mediterranean coast as well as Alpine skiing. Plus++ one of their départements (county shires) is a Caribbean isle.  The French definitely grabbed the finest plot of land in Europe. I mean, what more could you ask for?

I won't get into London-Paris comparisons. Except to say London is very much the superior town... Anyway...

I used to think national characteristics didn't exist; but they do. A nation, after all, is merely a vastly extended family and all families have their own particular habits, views and ways of life. That's not to say that individuals should be judged on nationality. I hate hearing people say, Those Germans/Spanish/Dutch/whatever, they're all the same. Because of course they're not. What I'm saying is we all hold on to group as well as individual identities.

I always find the American view of the Brits amusing — the one that believes we're all so formal and uptight and conventional, when actually,  I have v often found the exact reverse to be true. The British have just always liked to do things in our own understated way.

Compare football English crowds with foreigners... even then we're understated. For sheer ebullient exotic uninhibited maniacal excitement we cannot match the South Americans. ...And to think Pele, #1 footballer in the World in the 1960s, reduced to small newspaper ads touting erection failure assistance. What can I say?

How I got from Wednesday to Viagra, who knows? Mousey slept up my sleeve last night only to wake me at 4am with his incessant ferretting up and down my arm. When I offered him the freedom of the Great Outside, he peered suspiciously out from my cuff, sniffed the air, turned on his tail and pinged back to the warmth and safety of my elbow nest.

It is endearing seeing him treat me as "home". He runs away from my hand when I attempt to pick him out. No thanks. I'm fine here.  And he is so tiny!

In his proper home (an aquarium) he sleeps in an empty Jaffas Cakes box. The morning after I gave him this luxury hamster bedroom (bathroom ensuite, there's loads of poos on the floor) I cannot help but notice the humungous holes the little beast has chewed in the floor. Yes I know they're called "rodents" because they're nibblers by nature — but honestly! Not even 24 hrs and there's holes in it already. Right in the middle of it, mind. Not the side. So what he got hold of to get his teeth into I cannot fathom.

Imagine the translation in human terms: "— Oh, what a lovely place. I think I'll live here. Oh yes indeedy. And this lovely big shaded chamber shall be my bedroom..."

(An hour passes.)

."..Oh dear. Ooh. Ooer. Oh dearie me. I'm so bored. What on earth am I going to do? Oh I know — I'll chew a bloody great hole in the floor!"       

— See what I mean?

When we had wild mice, one chewed a footprint-sized dent in my cupboard. What he imagined he was doing I'd truly love to know. And he didn't have the excuse of being bored in captivity. Anyway I'm off now. It's 4:30 pm and dark already.

As the Looney Tunes used to say, That's All Folks!

Gleddie xx

PS We used to know a lady called Luna. I told my friend her surname was Tick — and he believed me!

Posted by gledwood at 3:36 PM GMT

Updated: Thursday, 30 November 2006 5:47 PM GMT

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Mood:  energetic

"Hi, my name is Harvey the Naughty Chinese Harvest Hamster. If my owner was bright enough to scan + add my mugshot, it would be right here↓→."

Okay I've let the mouse speak. I've always been one for pets of the rodent variety from syrian hamsters (the big tubby ones) to "fancy" mice, Campbell's Condensed Russians to Winter White Dwarves (the last two are practically the same).

Harvey is still a baby. He was sold to me as a girl and I'm glad I double-checked their facts just for my own information. Girl hammies have 2 holes close together; boy hammies have 2 pink dots further apart. Eventually as they mature they develop unfeasably large testicles à la Buster Gonad from Viz magazine. (A hamster's testes are as big or bigger than his head!!)

Being a baby he still sleeps a lot of the time. I have to say that from the minute I bought him he is the tamest pet I've ever had. While his cagemate pinged violently from corner to corner, Harvey just at still on my hand, peering goodnaturedly at the action. (Hamsters, mice & rats are extremely shortsighted, hence the old expression mouse sight, meaning "myopic".

Because they dislike direct light (even lamplight), I put fireglow bulbs in mine. Little rodents can't see by this so to him it's near pitch darkness when the room is lit a peaceful red. His ears prick up to the max and he pings to & fro up my arms to shoulders and down again — 5am being peak time for him. By daylight he is tucked up in bed and practically unrouseable.

As I say, a Chinese hamster is nothing like a tubby Syrian hammy. For one thing, he's about a quarter of the size and a tenth of the weight (if that). He does look to all intents and purposes like a mouse with a 2cm twiddly tail & black stripe down his back. His fur is "ticked" all over (ie. black-grey-brown) and a far richer colour than the ordinary house mouse's dull coat. His tummy is white with black undercoat. With his big poppy eyes he looks more like a European woodmouse than anything else. And as the websites say, he does hug my finger with all fours, just like an English harvest mouse. (hence the nickname).

Harvey is called a hammy not a mouse because he does occasionally use cheek pouches. But they're never enormously packed to overflowing like the golden hamsters' of my childhood. Plus (another oddness) — he will not run the wheel. Even when I hooked it over the side of a chair three feet up so he's nowhere to go but round the wheel, he spent most of the 20 mins peering down at the fallbreaking pillows I'd arranged below, wondering if a grand leap to freedom was worth the risk. When I did persuade him to tread the wheel, with coaxing: "come on, come on!" he did it so gingerly and unenthusiastically I eventually let him down. Never in my life have I met another hamster who hated wheels!

Well that's enough about Harvey. He's currently drinking from a Coke bottle lid because his waterbottle's broken, so I'm going out to get a new one now.

L8Rs,

        G.

Posted by gledwood at 3:02 PM GMT

Updated: Monday, 4 December 2006 7:13 PM GMT

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Mood:  crushed out

BETWEEN A ROCK and a hard place...

When I haven't got it I think of little else... When it's there I find myself wanting more.

Remember that song from a few years back: The Drugs Don't Work? It's a feeling I know too well.

When I talk of wanting more I don't mean more drugs. I know there isn't a drug in the world that's going to answer my craving ——. A craving for what?

I'm rarely lost for words, but I can't name what I most desire. Maybe we're all like that. Maybe I've just pushed myself further than most in certain respects. And maybe most people don't even know they want this nameless wordless thing. Who knows?

Now I admit it here. — I can be exceptionally lazy. I'm an all-or-nothing kind of person. When I do set out to do something I get such a bee in my bonnet it obsesses me night and day. E.g. You should see how many Confessions I have scrawled in my notebook and not posted!

At times past in the most intense period of my addiction I was so intent on using-scoring-raising money to score I thought of little else. I stopped daydreaming. I stopped planning anything except when I was going to go out and start raising money.The future meant nothing to me. My life reduced to the 24-hour cycle of day-in day-out using. I was living with someone who was extremely challenging to be with. I blocked this person out; I blocked out most of life in the process.

My addiction was all-consuming. You could say it nearly consumed me.

Nowadays I try to cultivate interests. To read good books. (Wordsworth do a fantstic range of £1.99 Classics — my current read is Anna Karenina alternating with Lord of the Rings.) I love poetry. I love animals. I love my pet Chinese Mouse. (He's actually a cricitulus griseus Chinese hamster but he looks just like a little fieldmouse. His name is Harvey: Harvey the Chinese Harvest Mouse. He sleeps up my sleeve sometimes and doesn't want to come out. He is washing his ears by my elbow as I speak...

Must go now. I want some Jaffa Cakes. L8Rs, Gleds .

Posted by gledwood at 11:18 PM GMT

Updated: Tuesday, 28 November 2006 11:21 PM GMT

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Mood:  spacey

HEROIN

What is heroin?

"Heroin" refers to diamorphine, an "opiate analgesic" -- ie a strong painkiller -- derived from the opium poppy. At optimal doses it's probably the most efficacious of all painkillers of this type. Street heroin is a mixture of this plus morphine and other opium alkaloids left over from the production process, plus sundry poppy residues. Of course it's nearly always "cut" ie diluted with inactive substance(s) to bulk it out so a gram of "heroin" and 1000mg diamorphine are very different things!

What does heroin look like?

There are two types of heroin sold in the West.

High-grade white heroin is also known as "Number 4" because of the 4-step process of refinement.

The brown heroin sold in Europe is so-called "Grade 3" and only 70% pure (maximum) at manufacture. It has only gone through 3 of the 4 steps. "Brown" is more attractive to dealers because it can be easily smoked and is therefore a more attractive product to novice users -- no needles required.

Why do junkies inject?

Not all users or addicts do. Injecting maximizes the drug's effect. Intravenous injecting delivers the entire dose to brain and body in seconds. I was totally against needles in the beginning. An ex-partner of mine left some behind in my room -- so all the accoutrements I needed were on hand. Lack of money finally lead me to injecting. Once I'd started I found I couldn't stop.

BTW: Smoking heroin or snorting it is no less likely to give you a habit.

ANOTHER 1/2 FINISHED ONE.

IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION, PLEASE POST IT HERE. I WILL ANSWER AS FRANKLY AND ACCURATELY AS I CAN.

PS Anyone posting -- please could you state your location. (Country at least). - Ta

Posted by gledwood at 10:55 PM GMT

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Mood:  surprised

It gets lonely in the dark...

    It's 10pm at time of writing. The weekend is on the way out — what a relief. Weekends are the low points of all my weeks. My drug consumption hits a low, as does the mood. I count myself fortunate to have my sanity back as I speak. In times past my head has been like a radio set with frequencies bleeding into my own thoughts. I sometimes couldn't tell what was really going on — in the objective world out there — and what was just illusion. Lost in a hall of mirrors reality reflected itself so far over and back again I lost touch with where I myself stood. I will explain what I mean at some future time. As I say I'm simply grateful to be sane(r!) these days.

    A v. good friend did cook the most gorgeous Sunday lunch. Roast chicken. Roast potatoes. Sugar snap peas from the garden. Brussels sprouts. Swede. Lovely thick gravy — yummy! Thank you. I do appreciate my friends nowdays (I haven't always done so I'm ashamed to say — another of the follies of my youth.)

    Chaos is around me. People drunk and crying. Peole deranged. I get so sued to such madness; it's only in rare moments of clarity that I see the utter insanity going on. It's so unhealthy. I'm not giving details for I don't want to go into other people's misery right now. Save it to say, I'm not in a happy house. I'm really not.

    Britain is thee most CCTVd country on earth. We had 4,000,000 security cameras+++ at the last count. That is more than the USA with its four-and-a-half times greater population. The average Brit is captured on camera — however many hundred times a day I honestly don't recall. I believe it's 300+. Our roads bristle with thousands of speed cameras raking in millions in fixed-penalty fines. In US$ the top earning cameras are millionaires — outstripping some premier daytime soap stars in their Hollywood incomes.

    New cameras are already in action that automatically scan every numberplate as it whizzes past, crosschecking every licence number against a central database that will send old bill scurrying to apprehend you if you're even an alleged suspect of a crime.

    Hear the latest! Now, for the 2012 Olympics — wahey!! Cameras are proposed that will pick up conversations from as far away as one hundred metres, scanning them for fearful or threatening tones of voice and automatically scuttling security to any dodgy-sounding verbal exchanges.

    When I was at school, we did a short-story in English classes about a nightmare world where nobody was ever able to be alone because everyone was in 24-7 contact by mobile telephone.

    (This was several years before mobile phones were ever a part of daily life.) I don't believe anyone in my class took seriously the idea that the telephone would become the ball-&-chain of the 21st century.

    Add to this George Orwell's 1984 — it's truly frightening how much of that book is dawning true.I always thought Poitically Correct Speak echoed "Newspeak" — loudly — though my politically correct friends of a decade ago mostly disagreed with me then.

    All this is known as boiled frog syndrome. Put a frog in a pan of tepid water. He swims around happily. Put pan on hob. Frog continues to bathe contentedly as temperature rises... Obviously it's most probably an urban myth:— but,as legend has it, the frog will continue bobbing blithely about, not noticing the gradual but inexorable rise in temperature until it is too late: he is literally boiling to death. And that is what is happening to us...

Posted by gledwood at 10:00 PM GMT

Updated: Wednesday, 29 November 2006 10:02 PM GMT

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Mood:  sharp

THERE ARE TWO WAYS of tackling heroin addiction.

• 1 Detoxification which can be
• A Cold Turkey or
• B Medication-Assisted Supervised (methadone, dihydrocodeine, buprenorphine, etc is given in reducing doses to minimize withdrawals)
• 2 Substituation ie give the patient methadone or some other opioid to substitute for the heroin

The problems with detoxing are that if the addict isn't ready (he or she may genuinely believe he/she's ready to come off before detox) the whole experience can be so distressing the addict simply runs crying back to gear with a stronger resolve never to sufffer like that again. Ie -- far from putting the patient off, addiction is only reinforced.

One myth that holds sway over much of the general population seems to be that the best way to treat an addict is to get them off that stuff ASAP! & that "Cold Turkey is over in a week." True the physical part is. But "clucking" is a shock that takes time to get over. Anxiousness, mood swings, depression poor sleep and general exhaustion can persist for weeks.

If you're going to come off in this way -- make sure you have something to do once you are clean. A change is as good as a rest. Get away from as many of the people, places and prompts of your past life as you can manage. This is easier said than done. After some years a typical addict knows hardly anyone who's not on drugs.

Narcotics Anonymous (NA) can be an enormous help. There are meetings all over the world in English and all manner of other languages. If you're serious about doing the 12-step programme you must follow it to the letter (you can't pick and choose aspects you like, eg you must give up booze as well as ALL drugs except lifesaving medications). AND you MUST get a SPONSOR.

As for Section B Assisted Detox, only a reputable clinic can do this properly. (You can even be knocked unconscious!)

Find out in advance the House Rules.

Eg: Are mobile phones allowed? What's the policy on tobacco and caffeine? What medication is given (including sleeping meds) over what type of timetable? How late is bedtime? What is the visitor policy? How long will I be there? What's the food like? If it's state sponsored, do I contribute £/€/$ & how much?

Again, you must have a proper plan for when you come out!

On both counts A & B I'm speaking from experience!

Obviously these pointers are only my view. I am still using. I tried and failed. For someone who gets told I "think too much" I was guilty of awfully bad planning. I had no clear idea of what to do once rehab was accomplished. Literally none at all. Or perhaps "denial" was the issue. Do your own research and take whatever path you choose with your eyes open. Failure can be expensive!

This post 1/2 finished. Will update L8R.- Gled xx

Posted by gledwood at 7:42 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 26 November 2006 8:12 PM GMT

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Mood:  quizzical

If you're wondering why so many posts in one day it's because those were drafts.

Anyway, is a "blog" meant to be an online diary or not? I've not had too much success trawling the cyberlands for other people's. (I would have said www, but my present address has no "www", does anybody know why?)

Is anybody out there at all? An entire week; well over a billion potential readers and no-one's stumbled across me yet... I've had a stab at registering with a couple of search engines. I don't really know the score re this. If anybody does happen to find this and has the requisite know-how, could you please help me out. I'd be eternally grateful.

Many thanks,

                      Gled

Posted by gledwood at 7:27 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 26 November 2006 7:38 PM GMT

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Mood:  hungry

It's actually 2am. And a piece of paper. I am not getting out of bed to use the computer.

    Just had a hit (as if you really wanted to know that). But we're going through one of those periods: the gear is tiddly-weak and yet I read the news today (oh boy!) -- A World Record Heroin Harvest came in last year. & according to The Guardian, "Heroin supply exceeds demand." One doomsayer predicted  on BBC Radio, Victorian opium-dens are prime to make a comeback, UK sezures of raw Opium are soaring at their highest-ever levels.

    I can see the insidious effect Opium might have if it does become widely available here. The student types, backpackers, young people on the Brink of Life who wouldn't go within a mile of the Bad Brown Sugar might well succumb to the supposed "romance" of the Big "O" -- imagery of Romantic Poets, Kublah Khan and Oriental Promise.

    Just because the stuff is weak and sticky and has a thousand years of folklore behind it doesn't mean it wouldn't lead to heroin as surely as the Silk Road leads to China.

    Opium is merely a fancy gateway to a dreary world. An addict is a slave. Opiates make great painkillers for the sick and the dying. But when abused, they're basically drugs of addiction. Heroin doesn't keep "casual users" for long.

    Take it from one who knows!

Posted by gledwood at 12:40 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 26 November 2006 12:56 PM GMT

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Mood:  sharp

DID I EVER TELL YOU about my fairytale life? No I didn't.

    I have, in the past, had an uncanny knack of spotting dropped drugs on the pavements of this metropolis.

    One example: One afternoon I'm trudging along a dank and leaf-strewn alley. A tiny blue thing catches my eye.

    Don't pick it up, I tell myself. It's only masking tape.

    Of course I picked up said blue masking tape. It was actually burnt-wrapping of carrier bag. Began to unpick it. A little brown powder trickled out.

    The next day, I felt like some more drugs, so I revisited the alley. Sure enough, waiting for me among the mingled sludge is another bag of gear.

    In the fairytales, of course, it all happens in threes.

    On the third day I was on my hands and knees for twenty minutes in the mud, scratting desperately for my free fix.

    I never found it.

    The moral of the story is right there, dear Readers.

Posted by gledwood at 12:38 PM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 26 November 2006 1:05 PM GMT

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Mood:  smelly

WHAT FUTURE? Seriously -- what future at all? I've lost my Best Years to illness and addiction. I can't go on like this. But I do. I do go on precisely the same, day in, year out. What changes but the date? Other people build and travel. I'm tied here. To this one place. Because my dealers are here. Oh I feel sick to the stomach and I hate myself.

    If actions speak louder than words, mine bear witness to years of selfloathing.

Posted by gledwood at 11:03 AM GMT

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Mood:  don't ask

Okay so we're up and running now. I ought to be excited but actually I'm depressed. I'm not sure whether I even believe in "depression" as an "illness" as such. I do suspect that too many Professionals have medicalized Unhappiness into so many subtypes and to such an extreme that almost any human behaviouf can be attributed to some newly recognized or relabelled psychiatric "disorder".

    I say that  what I have suffered from since childhood is Unhappiness. I've had some demoralizing encounters with psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors. One of these prescribed for me (among a huge many other weird and wonderfully named concoctions) the antipsychotic Haloperidol: Take these tiny capsules three times a day and they might cause some muscle stiffness.

    Some??! I'd only just taken my third dose and was minding my own business ambling up the road when my legs very nearly gave out from under me. I barely made it across the road to a pharmacy where I explained I'd taken Haloperidol. The pharmacist took one look at me and called an ambulance at once.

    I was bundled on to a stretcher and from stretcher to trolley, my entie body twisting like a corkscrew. Then they left me in a cubicle. There I writhed for about an hour until the doctors came, shoved a canula in my wrist and gave me an IV hit of a drug used for Parkinson's Disease. I pity people with Parkinson's if that's the level of agony they suffer every day.

   I was sent back to the psychiatrist with a stern letter advising never to prescribe such noxious stuff again.

    My caring shrink never looked me in the eye. He simply wrote out a script for something else, asked the same monotonous questions about my mood and sent me packing without so much as an apology.

    Psychiatrists go through at least 7 years' training to qualify -- only to succumb to a more severe form of the most basic prejudices we're all subject to. I.e. now that I'm called a Junkie my Problem is labelled Drugs. When I was in great distress but not a smackaddict the problem was named Depressed Mood and they prescribed drugs of their own more poweful than anything a street dealer could sell to you. It's a MY DRUGS -VS YOUR DRUGS situation. LET ME medicate you. But if you dare medicate yourself we will insult you within earshot, calling you and your kind deceptive and manipulative. And if we do ever listen to you, we'll hear what we've been trained to listen out for -- not what you're actually trying to say.

    All common sense has been trained out of some of these "Professionals".

    Tell you what, though; this rant has lightened the old mood a little. Ha!

    There is heroin nearby but I'm trying not to take it. I'm broke and craving a drink and a ciggie. It's been raining so the dogends at hte busstop are too soggy to smoke. I could really do with a can of white cyder and a rollup.

    Cravings are the Root of Unhappiness.

    I'm reminded of one of the huge paradoxes of drugs -- that the heroin that can make you crave nothing else at all will, in the end, make you crave it more than anything.

    No-one can ever explain to a nonaddict just what it is that addiction does to you. It's a sickness of the very soul. All I can repeat is the common mantra: Drugs really aren't cool; Don't end up like me.

Posted by gledwood at 10:50 AM GMT

Updated: Sunday, 26 November 2006 12:57 PM GMT

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Mood:  mischievious

Righty-Ho Then! Had me cyder n chips. I couldn't fail to note all these ads springing up about me. I feel like I'm surrounded by billboards. At first it was drug treatments and detox clinics (v. posh sounding, too). But having ranted yesterday how much I loathe swineflesh for my Junkie Sausages -- what should spring up but Pork Recipes, Porky Plus etc. Oh dear!

  I was up by the shops yesterday with my friend who I'll call Marilyn. Imagine Marilyn Monroe, not dead, stoned out of her brains on Valium with a brash Cockney voice to boot. Spotting a Chinese vendor of electroglinting Xmas keyrings she bumbled up in full havoc-causing mode. "'Ere? How much are those?" she demands.

  Two pounds comes the answer. (I bet in New York City they're $2 or less.) Well anyway, at the top of her remarkably loud voice, Marilyn goes on to ask, "Have you got a passport? Have you got a visa to be 'ere?" Poor Chinese girl shakes her head. "Well I'm calling the police!"

  The poor Chinese girl vanished in a flash to the great amusement of her fellow traders/hawkers/sign a direct debit for charity and pay my bills for me people & sundry leafletters.

  Earlier on, Valium Marilyn had spotted a particularly overcrowded cybercaff and shrieked, "Ere, what are they all sitting in there like that for?" (pointing at the boxed-in wooded partitions).

  Rapping her rings on the plate-glass window, half a dozen 20somethings of all nationalities gawped on in surprise as, approaching top volume she yelled, "Are you all right in there? Have you got enough room to breathe? Bloody hell! Looks like the inside of a prison van in there!" And went on to describe her Holloway (women's prison) experiences much to the glance-exchanging delight of everyone at the nearby busstop.

  Wonder what ads I'll get this time? Let's add some cheeky choice wind-up words and see...

  HAEMORRHOIDS oh my haemorrhoids/haemorrhoid PILES anus piles PILES throbbing doctor GP embarrassing embarrassment DESPERATION...

  L8Rs folks,

                      Gleds

                                 xx

Posted by gledwood at 6:52 PM GMT

Updated: Friday, 24 November 2006 7:17 PM GMT

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