Undercover Angel Podcast
In Undercover Angel, Dave Kehnast takes readers on a vulnerable, raw, gut-wrenching journey into the heart and mind of a sensitive, often love-sick teenager in his explorations of marijuana, LSD, alcohol, and ultimately opiates and heroin. This harrowing memoir brings us among junkies and thieves, prostitutes and police, heartbreak and love, and to Japan and back. As Dave navigates the Dantean realms all addicts face, he ultimately encounters both his inner child and inner warrior—and the unlimited possibilities that emerge from the power of hope and surrender. This rare look at the experience of addiction from the inside out sh...
Heroin/Honeymoon/West Side/Japan Part Two
The experience in Japan was one of the single most terrifying I have ever lived through. This was when all of it got more real than I ever imagined it could. I cannot explain how I survived the situation; I only know that I did.
Episode 43 - The beginning of maintenance alcoholism and the no turning back nature of alcoholism and addiction.
I take a sip in the morning and there is no turning back.
Episode 42 - A bit on my failed teaching experience and then leaving Colorado.
I leave Colorado in the midst of dysfunction and addiction.
Episode 42 - A bit on my failed teaching career, leaving Colorado and a short stint at a meat salesman.
I leave Colorado in the midst of alcoholic chaos.
Episode 41 - The Needle/The Patches
Once the needle goes in is there any redemption possible?
Episode 40 - The Demons
What happens when a person gets drunk? Are they kidnapped? Where does one go in a blackout?
Episode 39 - The Party In Fort Collins Continues and I begin teaching
The forces of dark and light continue to dance back and forth as I begin a teaching career but have also been lost in the alcohol and drugs for years. The end of it all is a few years away,
Episode 38 - The Crash and Oxycontin
There were forces of darkness and light going back and forth with one another as I crashed my snowboard on a dreary cold day. I traumatise a child and then get addicted to pills as a result. I was deserving of all of it.
Episode 37 - Wrapping up the initial run in Colorado
Colorado was in so many ways a magical place to live in the 90s. I am still friends with so many of them from back then.
Episode 36 - Sunshine Dumps me
More heartbreak as Sunshine ends the relationship and harder drugs come onto the scene.
Episode 35 - Cheez and a night in the woods
The night in the woods would lay the groundwork for what eventually became my relationship with what I choose to call God.
Episode 34 - Sunshine
Sarah Sunshine was a hippy girl with dreads who was the one who I loved after Lilah. She fit the template of trauma-bonding like all of the rest up until now.
Lilah - One of the first girls I ever loved.
I fell in love in my first semester with a girl who was a couple of years older than me. Sadly, she decided that we wouldn't work and I experienced many years of heartbreak as a result. This was, you guessed it, more trauma bonding and a complete soul abandonment.
Episode 32 - The beginning of college and more trauma bonding with another "wrong crowd."
I managed to recreate the dysfunctional party crowd that had become toxic by the end of high school. There were kids going camping and doing great things. I was drunk in a dorm with cheap vodka.
Episode 31 - Tussin and Scotch Guard
The consumption of Robitussin was a regular thing amongst my friend group toward the end of high school. I found it disturbing and disgusting. Those who "Robo-tripped" insisted it turned them into vampires. I couldn't get down with it.
Episode 30 - Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead are still in my opinion the greatest band to ever exist. The experience I had at Soldier Field in the Summer of 1992 changed my life forever.
Lesson 29 - The Coalition
What is teenage rebellion? More often than not, it is rooted in the dysfunction of the family system. The rebel kid realizes things aren't right on the home front and then lashes out at society.
Episode 28 - Friends
My friends and I bonded as a result of our collective and individual woundedness, similar to trauma bonding but distinct phenomenologically. As I say in the book, "It's like our wounds became friends."
Episode 27 - LSD
LSD is a potent and powerful substance that we, as kids, had no business messing with. But we did. The fact that most of us survived is still beyond me.
Episode 26 - Life as a Stoner
There is essentially what amounts to a psychic change that happens in the life of a person who gets addicted to drugs. There was very little that could be done to hide it. My entire aura shifted as I basically turned into a stoner.
Episode 25 - Weed.
The first time I got stoned it was in so many ways just a continuation of that which had begun long before. Before the intoxication on the part of illegal substances, there was the emotional intoxication produced by the chemicals in my child and adolescent brain. In so many ways it seemed destined from the very beginning.
Episode 24 - A bit on the chewing gum chapter which also deals with the loss of innocence but also laughter
I loved to laugh. I was in so many ways always laughing. It was another way to feel. I loved choir and all of the different personalities that choir class was made up of. So much of life was always so hilarious.
Episode 23 - Drugs slowly start to make their appearance.
There is no way to escape the presence of drugs. I was a very small kid when I started high school and this among so many other things wore on me in ways I didn't realize at the time. Drugs were becoming something inevitable as the high school years progressed.
Lesson 22 - Skating changes.
Skateboarding went in an instant from being an amazing way to express myself into a dangerous pursuit on many fronts This often happens when one is truly passionate, the need to fight for it.
Episode 21 - The importance of skateboarding.
Skateboarding was an important sub-cultural phenomenon and back in the 1980s in the suburbs of Chicago, it truly was a subculture unto itself and existed as the last bastion of innocence before drugs made their way onto the scenes of adolescence.
Episode 20 - "True Love" and trauma bonding.
I was in love with the character known as Elizabeth. There was pressure to make out and I was terrified. Jared had become more and more of a bully and as a result, I finally made the big move!
Soon thereafter, Elizabeth began abusing me, and our trauma bond was solidified. All of this built up inside me.
Episode 19 - Jean jackets, Coca Cola clothing, Vans, and fights!
I was maybe four-foot-four in junior high. It was in the first few days of my experience here that I witnessed my first act of violence which deeply impacted my soul in ways I could not anticipate. I had nowhere to turn with all these new feelings and had no one to talk to regarding the fear I now had. This could be what is described by Pink Floyd as "Another Brick in the Wall."
Episode 18 - The dark world of junior high is suddenly thrust upon me
There is no way to explain to a child the extent tho which their life will immediately change upon boarding and then exiting the bus on the first day of junior high. I'd been bullied before, particularly by my friends Jared and Jeremiah, and it certainly continued as soon as I entered the foyer at Hadley Junior High.
Episode seventeen (even though I say it's episode 16) - A talk on Jeremiah's affliction and empathy.
This chapter deals with the Character Jeremiah and how he got sick. This was a time in my life when I began noticing my empathic nature but had no one to process it with. Children feel so much more than they realize and in a perfect world, the adults around them would guide them effectively through their complex emotional landscapes. There is no one to blame here, especially considering how things were back then in the 80s.
Episode 16 - A talk on the chapter 'One on One' and how my friends respected me when we we alone together.
A talk on the chapter 'One on One' deals with the nature of sidekicks and how they can be turned on immediately and become victims.
Episode 15 - More on soul abandonment and trauma bonding as I broke the first part on my skateboard.
I became trauma-bonded with a couple of my friends on my eleventh birthday after I had gotten my first real skateboard in fifth grade.
Episode 14 - A talk on The Squirrel chapter and the sacredness of life I discovered that day upon seeing it extinguished.
My sensitivity was both a blessing and a curse and still is. I felt into the life of the squirrel whose life I saw taken that day alongside my friends who experienced the same thing.
Episode 13 - A talk on the chapter entitled Growing Up.
Growing up in the 1980s was a magical experience in so many ways, but the darkness had ways of creeping into my existence. There was a component of 'aloneness' to all of it that became more and more prevalent as I grew as a child in a very privileged town known as Glen Ellyn.
Episode 12 - A talk on the pool and my love of water and a bit on victim/perpetrator relationships.
This episode deals with my love of water which prevailed despite my defeats on the swim team.
Episode 11 - Soul abandonment and the early signs of a personality disorder.
https://www.youtube.com/@samvaknin
Episode ten - A bit more on snapshotting and my own narcissistic tendencies.
A bit on snapshotting, introjecting, my blanket, and the safe world I created inside of myself. Also, a bit on the Kevin and Jim chapter.
Episode nine - Discussing the chapter about friends in the dark.
A talk about the introjects I created and then interacted with on my insides. There is a bit of schizoid/borderline personality disorder that is somewhat hinted at here.
Episode eight - Getting at the generational nature of dysfunction and addiction.
Addiction is a generational phenomenon. This episode gets at the origin of it all.
Episode seven - The beginnings of emotional intoxication and my early battles with rage.
This episode gets to the origins of the emotional intoxication I began experiencing at a very early age. I've included a link to a video my a prominent professor and psychotherapist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1t4CZMUqak&t=1411s
Episode six - Addressing the "Why?"
This episode addresses the partially answerable but also somewhat unanswerable questions regarding addiction.