SWEET LIES & SUGAR CHAINS

By Vernon Snell
Listen with Sir Michael Caine™ and 1,000+ voices
Length4h 59m

About this audiobook

**SWEET LIES & SUGAR CHAINS: CONCRETE FLOWERS 🌺** is a Poetic Cinema journey through pleasure, desire, identity, survival, addiction, money, technology, memory, and the invisible forces that shape what we want. Beginning with a little boy in Washington Heights discovering candy before he ever knew words like dopamine or conditioning, Vernon Snell follows the footprints of wanting across a lifetime. Candy becomes money. Money becomes power. Pleasure becomes escape. Screens become wrappers. And the question grows larger: When does something we enjoy begin making decisions for us? Through the voices of Benson, Vernon, and the Curator, memory becomes cinema and testimony becomes a mirror. This is not a book telling you what to believe. It invites you to examine your own wrappers, rewards, identities, and chains—and decide what truly belongs to you. **Poetic Cinema. Enter the story. See what you recognize.**

Audiobook details

GenreEducation and Learning, Health and Wellness
Length4 hrs 59 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateOct 3, 2026
LanguageEnglish

Table of contents

1Dedication
2Before You Enter
3A Manifesto Of Testimony
4The Voices
5How To Read This Book
Show all chapters
6MOVEMENT I — THE WORD
7MOVEMENT II — THE SWEET
8MOVEMENT III — THE BEAST
9MOVEMENT IV — THE CHAINS
10MOVEMENT V — THE HEIGHTS
11MOVEMENT VI — BREAKING THE CHAIN
12A Note About Washington Heights
13The First Image
14Exhibit One: Before Sugar Had a Name
15Exhibit Two: The Wrapper Learned My Name
16Exhibit Three: The Word Is a Bird
17Exhibit Four: That’s My Word
18Exhibit Five: Act 1. Act 2. Be You.
19Exhibit Six: Who Told You What Winning Looks Like?
20Exhibit Seven: The Convenience of Wanting
21Exhibit Eight: The Sweet Beast in Me
22Exhibit Nine: When Comfort Becomes a Cage
23Exhibit Ten: No More Sugar, No More Chains
24Exhibit Eleven: Sweet Lies
25Exhibit Twelve: The Number Game
26Exhibit Thirteen: The Dopamine Word
27Exhibit Fourteen: When Sweetness Stops Being Sweet
28Exhibit Fifteen: Threadbare Survival
29Exhibit Sixteen: The Strong Man Problem
30Exhibit Seventeen: Pain Has an Appetite
31Exhibit Eighteen: The Middle Nobody Sees
32Exhibit Nineteen: I Was Still in There
33Exhibit Twenty: The Beast Wasn’t My Enemy
34Exhibit Twenty-One: Sold in Every Form
35Exhibit Twenty-Two: Global Chains, Local Pain
36Exhibit Twenty-Three: The House Always Wins
37Exhibit Twenty-Four: The Invisible Chain
38Exhibit Twenty-Five: When the Chain Becomes Normal
39Exhibit Twenty-Six: Who Owns Your Attention?
40Exhibit Twenty-Seven: The Price of Convenience
41Exhibit Twenty-Eight: Washington Heights Was the Epicenter
42Exhibit Twenty-Nine: The Young Boy Watching the Money
43Exhibit Thirty: The Corner Was a Classroom
44Exhibit Thirty-One: The Reward Came Before the Receipt
45Exhibit Thirty-Two: I Wasn’t No Kingpin
46Exhibit Thirty-Three: The Block Remembers
47Exhibit Thirty-Four: You Can Leave the Block and Still
48Exhibit Thirty-Five: The Day I Started Watching Myself
49Exhibit Thirty-Six: The Pause
50Exhibit Thirty-Seven: I Don’t Need My Old Life Back
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