My Ph.D. in Crack: A Beauty Queen's Rise and Fall

to English. Uh. Former beauty queen, former Swedish royal tractor down outside of Stockholm, in a town called es Caltoona Worldwide, Nietzsche scholar. I'm not finished that I mentioned the Swedish royal partner beauty queen, but I think I did that. I mentioned the pH d and the workwo on Nietzsche. Did I mention that? Or the professorial gig at a Tony East Coast University? But then things got strange stranger. You know, we're gonna let her tell it. Let's call

her up. See what she has to say, Ladies and gentlemen. One Ms Josephine, knock off, Hello Josephine. Okay, you you get here of me? So we we are six thousand miles away. Now now where were you exactly give us give us a location, like where are you physically in time and space? I am located about the same um latitude as anchored Alaska, Stockholm, a little bit um east there. So I mispronounced I mispronounced it terribly. I pronounced it eskil Tuna. Is that wrong? Where I put the I

put the emphasis in the wrong place? What does it say it again? And town town? I would have I would have assumed it had something to do with canned fish. Alright, alright, so all right, so let's back up a bit. Let's let's look. I gave you an intro, so you got you So you got the rocket ride through Stanford. You end up getting the PhD from was it University of Pennsylvania? That I have that right? So now after you get the PhD, I don't know, not having a PhD myself,

I don't Is it like the army? You go where they they? You know, when you get an assignment as a tenured how does it? How does it work? Academically speaking? So you got your PhD, you're in the University of Pennsylvania. You have to pick where you go next today? Pick you do you pick them? How did it happen. Oh no, no, no, that I do not pick anybody. They picked made. We go to the a p A convention American Philosophical Association,

and it's like a horror house. I mean, I have people just walking around prosecuting themselves and getting interviews, and I did you know, a few interviews and wake Forest was the one that went really well. I did have a few other good interviews too, but they're the ones who finally ended up offering me a job of the system considered philosophy. And I was going to be there content scholar because Emmanuel Kant was the philosopher that I did.

I PhD in his ethics, you know, the categorical imperative and act only in such a way that you can make your maximum into universal law. That's what he stamous for. I'm sure you've read Kant, how don't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have. But now I got this confused. I think that the Namas book threw me off because I assumed that it was Nietzsche. No, no, I loved me too too,

I mean I did. I fell a most FLOSSI in Stanford, and I got attracted to the University of Pennsylvania as my grad school because partly because of Namas, you know, I did faull Is hard. I fell hard in love with Nietzsche when I was eighteen, and it was just like, oh this is it just broke the shackles of all the whole political correct and stuff that was going on back then. Three um. But then I found love with Kant too. I mean, I love philosophy and the university.

University of Pennsylvania, Uh, Ploss department had both a con scholar, Paul Guyer, who ended up being my advisor, and Nahamas before he went over to Princeton. And when he did move to Princeton, there's like a whole camp of us, you know, trusty philosophy students driving over to Princeton every week too to go to his classes. They're ready to take take some classes with mammas too. He's a charismatic man. So so it was Hitler, But I don't know why

I said that. It seemed appropriate. Uh So, okay, so you end up in North Carolina, which is where wake Forest is, right, so you've got for Sweden to California to North Carolina. That seems like a sort of culture mismatch, but it could just be my northern bias, right. I am used to moving. I am being moving human being. So it wasn't a big deal for me to move.

But going to North Carolina was actually sort of traumatizing because of the strong religious element and the fact that Wimston Salem were really small town and I stood out like a sore thumb I did. I mean, not not in a bad way, but they they did pay attention to me. I'm not going to start looking like a becret carry just because I live in with the Salem

you know. I had my bron Madonna Harridu and my little mini skirts, and I taught philosophy and I go in to restaurant and be like, oh, you're the new philosophy professor at Wimson. How do you guys even know me? I was thinking to myself, it made me very uncomfortable, but it was a small town and I did receive me, well, they really did. That seems that seems to me to be a sort of a function of fame, right, Like, so you were I mean, was it you were uncomfortable

with the notice? It's seems like it would have been pleasing. Oh yeah, but I wasn't. After fame at that point in my life. I was into um intellectual you know, a scholarly academic thing. I was not into people recognizing me wherever I went. You were there for how long? So you moved there. It's kind of traumatizing. But you're

adjusting or you're not adjusting, or what happens. I did enjoy teaching, I really did, and I got used to, you know, making a good name for myself, and the students loved me, and I was a good teacher and a faculty received really well. So it sounds it sounds like a pretty good deal. Oh, a totally good deal.

It was such a great deal. And if I hadn't, you know, and it's not really a matter of where where I was, I would have probably he felt empty and in need of something more anywhere in the world. No external, uh context could have cured my inner need. So what was going on? What was going on? I had this in a yearning for meaning. I met a bartender who was connected to the cocaine scene. Because when the Salem was like, if you make a bee line from Florida up to New York, Winston sounds pretty much

in the middle. So the cocaine shipments they were pretty clean, you know. When they got to Winston and through him, I started doing cocaine and it was there was a good ship. And we only did it in the weekends. And then he got back to his job and I have my job during the week but I only had to work like a whole of six hours a week, but a lot of free time on my hands. And I did have a lot of money because my job, it was very well paid. I was expected to do research.

I don't know, I have a quick mind. I did manage to do the research and teaching and a lot of cocaine. So it became kind of twenty four seven kind of activity for me. You were teaching, so you were functioning, right, you were showing up. I mean yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was into my what was it, second or third year teaching. It's a blur, but I did. I did start doing cocaine and teaching successfully. And I know

they hate me um for this. Uh, they are really mad at me the university for stilling the beans in this way. But I did function and I did really well, and the stinks loved me. And I am so then what what what what happened? How did this? I mean it's it sounds. It sounds to me like that's a prescription for success. I mean, not the one that everybody should use. But you're teaching students. Love you, You're there, You've made a home in whit and Salem. What's the problem.

The problem became me. I couldn't just snort, you know, dofy lines and out of my little baggy with my key bomp you. I don't know. I had that little baggy straw in the ladies room before class. That wasn't enough. I turned to crack and that became a lot harder to do in the women's room, but I still managed to do to smoke crack and teaching. Um. Bizarrely enough, you didn't you would you would you go to your car or your office to smoke or where would you go?

I know I didn't. I wasn't. I wasn't ever, you know, because people have these illusions about crack addiction where it's like, you know, you have to have it, you have to have it, like every half hour you go Brasil. It's not heroin. I mean heroin, that's what you know. You do your picks to get well crack you do it too. You know, have fun or to feel attentive and alert, and I was able to stay alert. You know, my

problem was my nerves I had. I've always been high strung and sensitive, hyper sensitive, and the crack made me kind of relax. But when I had to go to teach, you know, I wouldn't wake up and smoke crack. I woke up and we went to class and taught, and then I came home and smoke my crack. So it was crack. Is it's not a heroine or it's not it's not physical drugs, it's psychological. And I do not regret for one second my drug addition. I don't why not?

Why not? I do not. It was a trip into the underworld that my soul because I do believe in the soul. Now now that I don't do analytic philosophy, I gets to believe in the soul. I don't have to be a materialist and empursist anymore. Um, my soul had this deeper calling and I was pulled into this exploratory thing, like I crossed the river sticks and went down into the underworld, and I stayed there for a

few years while teaching. So so do you think that people you worked with had any sense at all or are none. I have been caught with a d U I like a half a year earlier, and they found you know, maybe graham of shake like that I had just forgotten in my purse because it was really shitty weed and it was there. But that was the only drug charge I ever had. And I actually told the faculty about that and they're like, oh, it's all good. But then when this person called and snitched me out,

they're like, oh, cocaine. And so then they made me they gave me a drug test. I was like, well, you know, I really probably if I had known my citizens rights, I probably wouldn't have taken it. Oh, but yeah, whatever I did, I did, and and I did test positive positive after uh ten days of not doing any karak. I was like, oh, no, I have to be I should be clean, definitely clean by now. But the um the drug tests are a lot more accurate when you're

dealing with that kind of level of employer. Okay, so they find they find for sure that you're taking cocaine, and and what's their move at that point? Oh well then then the deans just like you know, you have a choice either resign or we fire you. So I resigned because that was technically better for me. I think, Yeah, I got the benefits. I got a year actually of almost a year of severance pay, and I had already been denied saying here, So the the actual amount of

months that I was not without paid was insignificant. Not insignificant, it was I did lose very little money from being fired, but the honor and the shame has stuck with me like a huge stigmas, Like I am walking around still with this this letter on my foreheads like former cocaine at it and it's Exactually, even now as a social author, I am scared of using my name knockoffs, which I just I changed it back from my former husband my exposing with them back. Can I have that as like

a cover name? I was like, oh yeah, they can't google me and find out about my horrible history. Stay tuned for more of Ozzy Confidential, where a smart people go. So if you resign, the next step, what did the next step be that you try to get another philosophy job, or or at the very least get get the hell out of Winston Salem, Like why would you stay there? I stayed there. Yeah, I was told to stop teaching UH in May, and then I went to my first rehab,

which didn't work. You know, a good thing about wake Forest has they gave me the health insurance, but kept me in Winston with the health insurance because getting clean is not easy in the USA. You know, here in Sweden the state pays it. But there, you know, you have to be rich, you have to have a job to even get clean. I feel really sorry for people we're on drugs and do not have any kind of insurance that way. But I did go to that rehab and it worked. But I did meet a guy that

I kept in touch with, and he um. He went to his sober living environment in Charlotte, and I went back to Winston, and I was queen and I was like al Pachi for a while. And yeah, then Phil, the guy from the rehab that I had that went to Charlotte. He relapsed and got kicked out of his sl E silver living environment and he's like, oh joke, thinking can I come live with you? I was like yeah, because I can't say no. I mean, I cannot say

no to somebody in need. And so he came and lived with me and of course, then the drug abuse started, name too, addicts in one house. We're not going to stay clean off each other, seriously but not. And so we started actually, yeah, we started shooting cocaine. He was a diabetic and he got free needles, and so that was like yet another step down smoking craft down the

shooting cocaine. What's the difference in the experience, Oh my god. Um, well, if you want to know from snorting down to smoking or smoking down to shooting, you shooting, well you you went. You went from smoking to shooting. Yeah, shooting as you're completely at peace and all your senses are vibrant and the auditory hallucinations are amazing and you're just like lying there smiling and everything feels so good. I think that's the closest probably do what you know, David Bowie was

like talking about with heroin or something. Now I think I think I think cocaine was this thing as well, during the the Thin White Duke era. I think it was cocaine. So now, now how are you So now two of you guys are living there and went some So how are you making money? Because we need neither one of you were working at this point, right, But I still had my pay That's that's the great thing about lakes for Oh my god, I'm so sorry you guys,

my my philosophy department people. I'm not gonna call you by any names, but you I expounded my coke cabin. Thank you so much. I did. I did have that paycheck, oh again, up until March. So I went from June to March on a full paycheck, and I practically shot up the cocaine. I shot it up until the money ran out. Okay, oh no, I'm not supposed to laugh. This very tragic. Uh well, what is supposed to be and what it is it could be very different things.

So what happens when the money runs out? You know, I had done my share of prostitution for really shitty pay. When when as part in Carcel of being a female drug addict, Eugene, you uh put it out or you don't get your drugs at least if ye're um as gullidal as I was. I mean, I had. I had a few girlfriends who I know. I'm not even I'm not going to get involved in their sex lives or what they did with dealers. But for me, the dealers they expected to you know, get a blow job at

least before they could even sell me any drugs. So the money is run out, you go through hooker stripper, Uh, you go, you go through, and then where do you end up? Well, then I was like, no, I'm not going to do that because I believe that my co addiction was partly maybe six addiction, and I'm not ashamed of that. I don't regret it, you know, for me, if I had, I never considered myself a prostitute. That's the bizarre thing about the term prostitution. I um, apparently, okay,

this is how I have come to see this. I felt so ashamed about doing drugs that obviously clearly I had to do all kinds of demeaning things with my own body in order to get drugs. And who would I have been to uh expect anything in return, because I am just addict and a whore and a female. So Josephine ends up and a better rehab, a nicer one, a better fit day program, and she emerges from it clean.

But what we don't know is it Phil, the guy that she's been shooting up within North Carolina, had somehow put together the wherewithal to follow her three thousand miles and is there when she gets out. So the first thing we do and I got out of rehab was get a six pack of bed Wiser and sit there at the boardwalk and look out at the ocean and drink our beers and then uh, oh, I really have to go into this. Yes, he got jealous. I mean

he was an ugly drunk. I was not, you know, and so he at one one night that her he got jealous. He thought that I was flirting with a guy, and he just grabbed my head like there's a potato so I can slam me up against them marble pillar, uh, very edge edge, and my skull cracked up as like there's blood all over the pavement and I've kind of

like standing there's blood dripping everywhere. And then the ambulances were there and the cops and I end up getting like sixteen staples in my head and I hear them rolling him in at the R two. He's like, I'm so sorry. I was like, I only wanted to say, is you are you are forgiven? But I didn't have the energy to say anything. And the cops, while they were interviewing me there at the at the hospital, bed, there's like, this is the ugliest domestic violence. Incidentally, every

scene there was so much blood. So yeah, and a few weeks later, I don't know now it's a few months later. I mean I got into a new s m E. Phil got into his other fly and I stay clean. He did not. He started shooting heroin and suddenly he died of an overdose. And I just fell to the floor what they called me in the morning, crying and and it was very glad, kind of was like, yeah, that's that's what drugs can can do to a person.

How old was he? He was about forty two, So was this was this this like in movie terms, this would have served kind of as a as a wake up call for you change your ways? I mean in movie terms, is that what happened in real life? For yeah, it did. That's right, it did. It totally did. That's right. It made me just be like, okay, even though heroin was my druging choice, and I know he drank heroin, he drank a lot of vodka and combined it with heroin,

which will kill a person. Uh like relaxed saying on cocaine was not even you know, in my list of choices by that because I didn't want to go I didn't want to go there. And then and then kept going to a m and started study feeling strongly in by itself. And Yeah, happy, I started being happy. I could be happy, which is something I haven't been like genuinely for a long time. So that sounds good. Yeah, happiness is a real tricky thing. So you're clean, You're

feeling happy. Um, this sounds like a good thing. It sounds like a positive, super healthy development. You're clean. There's a clarity. Um right, things continue to get better from there or or or not. Yeah. I was loving life. I was living in a beautiful s l e up in Santa CA's mountains. And yeah, and then I fell in love with the father of my oldest daughter. Take a mutual friend introduced us, and we started to hang out, you know, very innocently in the beginning, just like doing

bike rides and sunset like along the coastline. That's very romantic at the beginning, very romantic. And it was pt keen for a while. He uh was HIV positive, however, and I kept on pretending like I was commune to HIV, which I don't know if I am but I believed I was so that would give me an excuse for uh having undepicted sex with Jake, because Jake was afraid that I would break up with him because of this obviously, you know, I mean, who wants to keep an HIV

positive boyfriend? But I did. I was like, I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you. For me, life is about taking risk. You have no idea what's going to happen. But I've always taken risks. I am a huge risk taker. You unburden him essentially, you say I love you. Uh, you know, probably wish you could have told me sooner, or maybe you said something like that. I don't know, but you get you get by it right. I didn't even think about holding him accountable. I didn't.

I did not even go there. There's something and like some conviction in my soul. That's all I can explain it through. My soul is just like you are you. You cannot be hurt, you cannot be harmed. Do it. Call it what you so you will, you know, you can call it crazy, drug hounding, feending. But there was this crazy pull of my soul just being like it's okay to do this and so I have a theory about why I did all this drug sex, high risk taking.

It was my life mission is the purpose of my life at that point in time, was to experiment and do it as madly and crazily as possible without any limits. And I did it, and I came through. I'm not going to advise anybody else to do it, but for me, I'm you know, thanking God, right, I'm thanking good. I on my angels and guys that they enough contact to me to help me feel secure, because at no point was like handnaked about that but so bizarre, right like

nor a people be like, oh what the fuck? I never? I never was so so now bringing us up to present, you are you're living in I'm gonna mispronounce this escatoona yes and uh and the happy mother of two kids. Things seem to be okay, right, Oh they are so well all right, and they are like they are brilliant, sensitive, artistic and so. And then when you got back to Sweden, Jake was with you or no, I left Jake. I left,

Jake was stilfi in my belly. I left, I left with the child in my stomach in order to give birth to her here in Sweden and have full custody. I do not do romance very well, so at this point I'm pretty happy being single. But at the same time, my heart is open and yeah, I look good anyway. Let me guess you got a few other questions, all right, in short order, let's go through them. One. Josephine apparently is not HIV positive. Unbeknownst to me, I never heard

it before. Swedes, because of how smallpox had ravaged the country hundreds of years earlier, have a genetic uh disposition to be HIV resistant. Who knew you could look it up? It's there. The father of her first child has actually met his daughter. The father of the second daughter, who lives in Sweden as well, is involved in his daughter's life.

And Josephine herself, despite having the PhD and philosophy, is working towards completing a master's that will allow her to start a business that helps low income single mothers in Sweden. Now there's your hall mock ending. Yeah. Next up on Ozzy Confidential, we'll find ourselves standing in the middle of the Tenderloin in San Francisco, a neighborhood that harkens back

to on occasion times Square back in the seventies. It's not a red light district exactly, but it's it's not the kind of place you expect to find what we found Heinrich von Arrant, a man dressed up and fully accurate SS Nazi officer gear Huh what exactly? Ozzy Confidential is produced by who Else May Eugene S. Robinson, an executive produced by Robert Cools, and this episode is sound designed,

edited and mixed by Jamie con and Nick Johnson. For more Ozzie Confidential, check us out on ozzie dot com. That's o z Y dot com slash confidential. Thanks ha ha ha. Well that's more stuff I know that's not in the story.