The scandalized fans of A Million Little Pieces enjoyed their slumming voyeurism more before it was revealed that Frey had fooled them. He had delivered to them something that confirmed a stereotype of the addict. Time and time again the sheeples show their pleasure at being fooled by fake, concocted reality.

Michael Winder tells a harrowing story of addiction and psychosis-- and for most of the time, he's doing just fine. He graduates from West Point while doing 5 hits of acid a day (they don't test for acid) as well as daily doses of GBH and ketamine. When he is discharged from the Army he applies and is accepted to law school, but takes a deferment to work on his poetry. For inspiration he turns to absinthe, cocaine, more booze, Adderall, Vicodin, Ritalin, more acid, GBH, K, steriods, etc. in steadily escalating dosages and frequencies until he becomes completely psychotic.

His mystical visions lead him to understand that he is Frida Kahlo and he begins stalking a local girl, who is predictably freaked out. A number of violent incidents, car crashes, and nighttime naked forays into the woods with knife in hand lead to a series of institutionalizations.

Winder's story is as thoroughly documented as possible, with hospital intake reports, police reports, photographs and so forth interspersed through the text. We'll have to take Winder's word about the hallucinations he experienced, but his story rings true-- if anything, because it's far stranger than Frey's, which was, clearly, much more commercially successful.

Seems that most readers only what to hear what they think they already know. They actually choose to consume media that reinforces their overly simplified and self-serving view of the world.