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20) Cold Water Therapy

Present tense: October 23, 2023, Cape Town, South Africa. I am currently living at Liberty House, a sober living facility in Cape Town. I...

19) Validation Junkie

Yes, I was a junkie. Down and out, hopelessly addicted to cocaine. I was as bad as it gets: days-long benders, horrific crashes, stealing...

18) I deserve it

This idea, that I “deserve it” fueled my drug use for a very long time. In fact, this rationalization was present from the beginning. I...

17) The Art of Flipping

It's all in the eyes--the eyes. That's what the sex workers used to say. They would stare men down as they walked down the...

16) One Year Sober!

Today is an exciting milestone for me. I am 365 days clean. 365 days of continuous sobriety. It is a tremendous achievement, as I had...

15) A woman for everyone

When I first showed up on the streets, I mistakenly thought that jealousy would be the largest challenge among the sex workers. I thought...

14) Hierarchies on the streets

The hierarchy that existed among the sex workers was incredibly complex and took me years to unpack. Where do I begin? First of all, the...

13) Smoking base

In Ecuador I became a regular user of cocaine. But I remained a "weekend warrior," which is someone who parties hard all weekend and then...

12) Back to the pimps

Back to Quito (2009-2013), the capital of Ecuador, nestled high in the Andean mountains. Back to the streets, back to my fieldwork....

11) Living Life on Life's Terms

In this blog I plan to play with time and place: this particular post will reflect upon a recent day where I am currently living, in Cape...

9) Escape from Fieldwork

Several posts prior, I posed the question, how did my research affect my drug use? My previous post was meant to start to tackle that...

8) Rules of the Street

I never smoked base with any of the sex workers, nor with Santiago (all names have been changed) or his partner, Carolina. Despite...

7) The Golden Paste

Base is a street drug found in much of South America, though its origins are in the Andes. Called basuco in the Spanish Andes--derived...

6) My Bodyguard

Santiago (all names changed) was my unofficial bodyguard while I did my fieldwork in Quito's red-light district. When I first started...

5) Fieldwork Beginnings

It took time to earn the trust of the women I worked with in the field. Many people ask how, on earth, did I approach these sex workers...

4) Sex Work by Day...

I moved to Ecuador in September of 2009 to conduct my doctoral research on sex work in Quito's red-light district. I was studying at New...

3) Halcyon Days

Those were halcyon days--those days of cocaine use during my years in Ecuador. I was still just dabbling, a casual user, which is the...

2) Bolivian Marching Powder

Actually it was Ecuadorian. Ecuadorian Marching Powder. I had tried cocaine a few times in my 20s, but it wasn't until I moved to Ecuador...

1) It Wasn't Always Like This

One day I became a cocaine addict. I can't tell you when this line was crossed--this mysterious, mystical line, between casual user,...

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