
The Alchemy of Meth
A Decomposition
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Narrated by:
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Jason Pine
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By:
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Jason Pine
About this listen
Meth cooks practice late industrial alchemy - transforming base materials, like lithium batteries and camping fuel, into gold
Meth alchemists all over the United States tap the occulted potencies of industrial chemical and big pharma products to try to cure the ills of precarious living: underemployment, insecurity, and the feeling of idleness. Meth fires up your attention and makes repetitive tasks pleasurable, whether it’s factory work or tinkering at home. Users are awake for days and feel exuberant and invincible. In one person’s words, they “get more life”.
The Alchemy of Meth is a nonfiction storybook about St. Jude County, Missouri, a place in decomposition, where the toxic inheritance of deindustrialization meets the violent hope of this drug-making cottage industry. Jason Pine bases the book on fieldwork among meth cooks, recovery professionals, pastors, public defenders, narcotics agents, and pharmaceutical executives. Here, St. Jude is not reduced to its meth problem but Pine looks at meth through materials, landscapes, and institutions: the sprawling context that makes methlabs possible. The Alchemy of Meth connects DIY methlabs to big pharma’s superlabs, illicit speed to the legalized speed sold as ADHD medication, uniquely implicating the author’s own story in the narrative.
By the end of the book, the backdrop of St. Jude becomes the foreground. It could be a story about life and work anywhere in the United States, where it seems no one is truly clean and all are complicit in the exploitation of their precious resources in exchange for a livable present - or even the hope of a future.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Performance
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Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns across the country, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people.
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Beautifully written, but insubstantial
- By Flavius Krakdaddius on 02-10-10
By: Nick Reding
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Chasing a Flawed Sun
- By: Daniel McGhee
- Narrated by: Frank Gerard
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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This is a true story. A transparent story of the life of a young man in America, who, like many of our lost youth, found his way into the drug culture. This story is an autopsy into the mind, heart, and soul of an addict. It begins at childhood and takes us through the thoughts, turmoil, and inner conflicts of a person lost in the undercurrent of addiction, and ends in a climax of self-discovery and realization. It is a gripping tale of a suburban youth and his journey through the streets of Baltimore, institutions, prisons, addiction, and worst of all, his own mind.
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don't bother
- By Lindsay on 04-24-21
By: Daniel McGhee
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Dreamseller
- An Addiction Memoir
- By: Brandon Novak
- Narrated by: Brandon Novak
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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At seven, Brandon was a skateboard prodigy. By the time he was fourteen, he was living the dream. Discovered by skate legends Bucky Lasek and Tony Hawk. Touring the US with the elite Powell-Peralta team. Signing autographs and appearing in films and magazines. Brandon had it all. Then he got hooked on heroin. Soon he was living a down-and-out life in a garage, begging for change, and hustling to score his next fix. He stole from his family and friends. He pushed the fantasy that everything was okay, that he was going to rehab, getting help, and getting better. But it was all a lie.
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true story
- By Andi T on 08-07-24
By: Brandon Novak
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Never Enough
- The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction
- By: Judith Grisel
- Narrated by: Judith Grisel
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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From a renowned behavioral neuroscientist and recovering addict, a rare pause-resisting work of science that draws on personal insights to reveal how drugs work, the dangerous hold they can take on the brain, and the surprising way to combat today's epidemic of addiction. Judith Grisel was a daily drug user and college dropout when she began to consider that her addiction might have a cure, one that she herself could perhaps discover by studying the brain. Now, after 25 years as a neuroscientist, she shares what she and other scientists have learned about addiction.
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The author ruined her own book with her narration
- By Milan on 05-03-19
By: Judith Grisel
What listeners say about The Alchemy of Meth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- GJohnson
- 07-29-22
Moving kaleidoscopic portrayal of much more than meth in America
Moving portrayal of chemicals and people and institutions intertwined in a story of the unraveling of the contemporary US. The author makes no judgments, only close observations, even when observing his own story. A unique tale that connects big pharma to the meth market, it portrays the experiences of a wide array of people with terse intensity. I got the full effect of this sweep by listening for long stretches. The kaleidoscope comes into view and it’s sad and frightening, if not surreal. This book is about much more than meth. It’s about the unlivable life available to many Americans.
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- Francisco lara
- 09-18-22
Highly recommended and unexpectedly enlightening.
The real life stories of the characters, that are entangled, really bring you into the book as Jason Pine narrates his extremely informative and eye opening book The Alchemy of Meth.
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