
American Pain
How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic
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Narrated by:
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Charlie Thurston
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By:
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John Temple
About this listen
The king of the Florida pill mills was American Pain, a megaclinic expressly created to serve addicts posing as patients. From a fortresslike former bank building, American Pain's doctors distributed massive quantities of oxycodone to hundreds of customers a day, mostly traffickers and addicts who came by the vanload. Inked muscleheads ran the clinic's security. Former strippers operated the pharmacy, counting out pills and stashing cash in garbage bags. Under their lab coats, the doctors carried guns, and it was all legal...sort of.
American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis. The narrative, which swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, is populated by a diverse cast of characters. This includes the incongruous band of wealthy bad boys, thugs, and esteemed physicians who built American Pain as well as the penniless Kentucky clans who transformed themselves into painkiller trafficking rings. It includes addicts whose lives were devastated by American Pain's drugs and the federal agents and grieving mothers who labored for years to bring the clinic's crew to justice.
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Narration UGH
- By Linda on 01-05-18
By: John Glatt
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Playing with Fire
- The True Story of a Nurse, Her Husband, and a Marriage Turned Fatal
- By: John Glatt
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing could have shocked the sleepy community of Morgantown, West Virginia, more than the lurid details that surfaced after a house fire claimed the life of Shelly Michael's husband, Jimmy. Local authorities suspected possible arson. Then they discovered that Jimmy had been dead before the fire even started - paralyzed by a fatal dose of muscle relaxant.... Did Shelly Michael, a respected nurse and mother, kill her second husband and torch her own home?
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Neverending
- By Brett on 05-11-21
By: John Glatt
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Son of a Grifter
- The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in America: A Memoir by the Other Son
- By: Kent Walker, Mark Schone
- Narrated by: John Glouchevitch
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1988 a troubled young man and his flamboyant mother were arrested for murdering a wealthy widow in her New York City mansion. Suddenly America was transfixed by a pair of real-life film noir characters. The media couldn't get enough of the twisted relationship between Sante Kimes and her 23-year-old son Kenny. But the most chilling story of all was never told - until now. Kent Walker, Sante's elder son, reveals how he survived 40 years of "the Dragon Lady's" very special brand of motherly love and still managed to get away.
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CON PEOPLE AT THEIR WORST!
- By jaye on 07-03-17
By: Kent Walker, and others
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No Angel
- My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels
- By: Jay Dobyns, Nils Johnson-Shelton
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Getting shot in the chest as a rookie ATF agent, bartering for machine guns, throttling down the highway at 100 miles per hour, and responding to a full-scale, bloody riot between the Hells Angels and their rivals, the Mongols - these are just a few of the high-adrenaline experiences Jay Dobyns recounts in this action-packed, hard to imagine, but true story of how he infiltrated the legendary Hells Angels.
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"I would avoid this one..."
- By Chris on 12-27-12
By: Jay Dobyns, and others
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Sex Money Murder
- A Story of Crack, Blood, and Betrayal
- By: Jonathan Green
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on years of research and extraordinary access to former gang members, reporter Jonthan Green creates an epic character-driven narrative, drawing on first-person interviews, police reports, and court transcripts to offer a unique and engrossing work of gritty urban reportage. Magisterial in its scope, Sex Money Murder offers an extraordinary perspective on modern-day America.
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Narrator using the N word was cringe worthy
- By Bmac on 09-07-18
By: Jonathan Green
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Bone Deep
- Untangling the Betsy Faria Case
- By: Charles Bosworth, Joel Schwartz
- Narrated by: Gary Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Two days after Christmas, 2011, Russel Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home to find his wife, Betsy, dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She had been stabbed 55 times in a brutal murder that would set off a chain of events leading to one man's wrongful conviction and imprisonment, another man's death, the revelation of a diabolical scheme, and an astounding miscarriage of justice left unresolved for another 10 years.
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One of the Best
- By V. Orner on 03-01-22
By: Charles Bosworth, and others
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One Deadly Night
- By: John Glatt
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 28, 2000, former Indiana state trooper David Camm made a frantic call to his former colleagues in the state troopers office: He had just walked into his garage and found lying on the floor the bodies of his 35-year-old wife Kim and their two children Brad and Jill, ages seven and five. Three days later, things got worse when police arrested David Camm for the triple murder. Soon new stories started emerging about mistresses and violent bursts of temper.
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Wow!
- By Anne on 04-17-15
By: John Glatt
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The Black Widow
- By: Linda Calvey
- Narrated by: Linda Calvey
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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If you think you know everything about the East End's toughest gangsters, think again. Meet Linda Calvey, a.k.a. the Black Widow. Growing up in the East End of London, Linda falls in with gangsters including the Krays, Freddie Foreman and Ronnie Cook. When the love of her life, Mickey Calvey, is gunned down on a job gone wrong, Linda resolves to carry on his work. But in 1990, after years of living in fear of her lover Ronnie Cook, Linda finds herself accused of his murder in a trial that shocks the nation. Still, Linda sticks to her code of honour, refusing to confess. Until now.
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Great Book
- By Anonymous User on 03-12-25
By: Linda Calvey
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Lust Killer
- By: Ann Rule, Andy Stack
- Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When young women begin mysteriously disappearing in Oregon, Police Lieutenant James Stovall leads a relentless search for a killer. With little evidence available, and the public screaming for answers, he must find a remorseless, brutal killer whose identity will shock them all....
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Great book on Brudos!
- By Ms.Bliss on 01-06-18
By: Ann Rule, and others
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Boys Enter the House
- The Victims of John Wayne Gacy and the Lives They Left Behind
- By: David Nelson
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called “sex murderers” who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s.
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What we really needed to know about the Gacy murders.
- By Aaron on 03-02-24
By: David Nelson
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American Drug Addict
- a memoir
- By: Brett Douglas
- Narrated by: Ryan Turner
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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My name is Brett. I'm a college-educated man who was once a husband of 26 years with two children, three businesses, and a large home with an actual white picket fence. I'm also a drug addict. And I have a tale to tell. It's about the despair of addiction and the absolute certainty that it can be overcome. Recovery is not simply abstinence, but a process of growing up. I spent my entire life searching for the key to long-term sobriety. I would like to share with you what I have learned.
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UGHHHH. NOOOO.
- By karen McCann on 09-29-18
By: Brett Douglas
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The Demon Next Door
- By: Bryan Burrough
- Narrated by: Steve White
- Length: 2 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Bryan Burrough recently made a shocking discovery: The small town of Temple, Texas, where he had grown up, had harbored a dark secret. One of his high school classmates, Danny Corwin, was a vicious serial killer. In this chilling tale, Burrough raises important questions of whether serial killers can be recognized before they kill or rehabilitated after they do. It is also a story of Texas politics and power that led the good citizens of the town of Temple to enable a demon who was their worst nightmare.
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Odd narration choice
- By Amanda Fredericks on 03-08-19
By: Bryan Burrough
The second thing of note is that the 'vignette' stories chosen to demonstrate just how bad this Oxy issue is were a bit scattered, or perhaps the better word is thin... the author spent 80% of the book looking at the main characters and their drug marketing process but the 20% which looked at (real) people's issues with the drug, or the company, seemed randomly inserted. Sure, they were interesting, but the flow was not really logical - we read 4 chapters about the business, then a vignette chapter about an addict dying from a drug overdose, then 2 chapters of business, then a chapter with another set of characters drug addiction, etc. There didn't seem to be a pattern, unless it was meant to be a time-scale thing, but that was not clear.
I did, however, Google this organization when I finished the book and it seems the story was based on real characters, and real addicts, so perhaps the weird addition of certain addicts' details was because those were the ones whose information was public due to lawsuits, or whatever... and the rest of the addicts' story were just a conglomeration of stories blended together.
Anyway, all that being said, I couldn't put the book down. I don't understand how they were allowed to run this business this way, and/or why they had to go so far with it that they got arrested... because until some (unclear) tipping point, what they were doing was legal (which is sad in and of itself). Though I suppose once you start making so much money each day that you have to put it into garbage cans, you might realize you probably crossed a line somewhere.
The narration is fine. There is no graphic content but, of course, the material discusses drugs and drug addiction.
Worst part is that it was almost legal
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the streets all involved got off light especially the so called doctors.
Eye opening book
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If you could sum up American Pain in three words, what would they be?
A great storyWhat did you like best about this story?
The author paced the story perfectly; providing just enough detail and clarity, without ever getting bogged down in one part of the story. He drew all of it together seamlessly. This book was very well written. The author knows how to tell a story and did so effectively here.What about Charlie Thurston’s performance did you like?
He inconsistently used accents for some of the characters involved in the story, and it was unintentionally hilarious. Yet, at the same time, I think it may have added to the story. He did a solid job overall. I enjoyed his performance.Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It was a tragic story that never should have happened. All of the participants in the pain clinics clearly have some culpability. But the real villian in this story is the State of Florida who inexplicably allowed clinics like this to exist in the first place.Any additional comments?
The author did a fantastic job telling the story.Outstanding
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Amazing!
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This story made me angry.
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Inspirational
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I had no idea this happened.
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Couldn't stop listening
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American Pain enabled callous greed
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listen again. Sadly enough, a true snapshot of American History. I despise the entrepreneurs. What worthless slime. Assembled in the tragic hell of Florida. Jesus God. It’s so ugly. Be glad, those whom were never even close to this evil. F these guys. And sad pity upon their prey. Yeah, don your polyester wide collars, Mercedes, meaningless futile predatory existence and worthless presence. F You. F You. Just die.
Great book no weak points
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