Bad Choices Make Good Stories

The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers (How the Great American Opioid Epidemic of the 21st Century Began)

By: Oliver Markus Malloy

Narrated by: William R. Keeton

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

A raw, uncensored, and brutally honest glimpse into the crazy lives of drug-addicted prostitutes. Shocking, heart-breaking, and mesmerizing. Once you start listening, you won't be able to stop.

Oliver moves from New York to Florida. Battling with depression, he gets sucked into the seedy underworld of Fort Myers, where he encounters a number of female drug addicts. He empathizes with them because of his own traumatic past. Oliver feels compelled to try to help them escape the addict lifestyle, but he soon finds out he is in way over his head.

©2018 Oliver Markus Malloy (P)2018 Oliver Markus Malloy

Synthesis of brain studies…trick’s point of view

This is an account by a sugar daddy/boyfriend/basically a trick, who developed an interest in addiction, and compassion for its sufferers, after he placed an ad seeking a sleazy arrangement. Hey…he never said he was perfect, but he’s as real as they come. I have long held a suspicion that some of my favorite ethnographies of street workers were undertaken when titillation unexpectedly turned into something more inspired. As someone who has experienced addiction and life on the streets, and later became a dogged advocate for others still struggling on the streets, I say, “Whatever gets the information out there.” In my Master’s work, I have been trying to find ways to convey, in layman’s terms, how addiction takes people out of the driver’s seat of their own minds. I was floored when the author explained how the consideration of morals and rational decision making takes place in the prefrontal cortex. The impulse to find and consume drugs occurs in the midbrain, which has thousands of years of evolution on the prefrontal cortex. In addiction, the midbrain reigns supreme, and the PFC is offline. The actively addicted person is unable access to her moral sense, or the information that drugs are NOT actually the most important thing for survival. (This is a mistake made by the midbrain because, when it evolved, pleasurable things were not bad for you). Basically, an evolutionary lag (my term) is responsible for keeping our rational mind, and what we know about drugs, from guiding our decisions, in active addiction. (Marc Lewis, Ph.D). Kudos to the author for conveying the thesis of a pivotal neuroscience text in a fun, exciting easy read! The book also delves into issues of childhood abuse, neglect, and PTSD. All in a raunchy and explicit account of, unintentionally I suppose, exploiting the vulnerability of these women. I suppose he justifies it by the fact that they are, apparently, exploiting him back. To be fair, he doesn’t blame them, or really look down on them. He is not exceptional in terms of male behavior, but he is the “exceptional male,” in that he understands that prostitution isn’t sexy and fun; it’s traumatic. He knows it’s not easy money, and they hate what they do. Today, he says, he is against prostitution because of the suffering inherent in it. Some would say he becomes a “Captain Save-A-Ho.” I say he made a deep connection out of what could have been an unhappy, superficial misunderstanding. Not bad, for a trick! On the other hand, I do wish he had learned a little more respect for the women he understands so well. His attitude toward the ones in personal relationships with him is a bit demeaning. For example, using, “Hussy,” as a pseudonym for one of them, and a bit of a sniggering attitude toward their addictive behavior and sexual mores, despite admitting his are hardly better. Perhaps worse, if we’re judging, because their promiscuity is not an end in itself, but a means to self-medicate unspeakable trauma. I understand that he was in personal, often emotionally tumultuous, relationships with them. That cannot be easy, but he sought out “hoes,” specifically. I AM glad that he didn’t omit his d*ckishness and paint himself as a savior, though he sometimes comes, distastefully, close. Perhaps that’s where the “attitude” comes from. He seems to think he is owed some respect for giving them money but, in personal relationships, once you give it’s not yours anymore. You can’t compel loyalty, honesty, or trust. In fact, paying a prostituted woman for “arrangement” is probably the best way to be earn the title, “just like everyone else,” plus extra resentment for getting personal. A self-styled sugar baby is a better bet…they are looking for that dynamic. I hope he is using the occasional tone of mild resentment to express where he was at, at the time, and had learned and matured since then. In the end, it’s not where you got your education but how much you learn that counts. I can overlook his flaws, as I know he would mine, because this author is a street scholar.

Waaaaaaa

I had to finish listening..
Veronica Veronica Veronica
Waaa waaa waaa
Omg the can’t believe Veronica is still doing this. It’s been 100 years and I cannot believe Veronica is still doing this. I just can’t believe Veronica..

ChumplovesuckerTool

starts off decent

I struggled to finish this book. it was ripping at first but then it was the same story over and over