Hi, my name is Rand and I'm an addict and alcoholic.

http://www.myaddictionart.com/mystory.html


My Story
MyAddictionArt.com by Rand L. Kannenberg

Hi, my name is Rand and I'm an addict and alcoholic.

January 10, 2009

Hi, my name is Rand and I'm an addict and alcoholic. I have never had a slip/lapse/relapse. I am also an addiction counselor. I had a very bad three day holiday weekend at work in November 1993 at a large medical surgical facility in the Denver area where I was the weekend clinical care coordinator for four inpatient mental health and substance abuse programs for adults and adolescents. One patient used a 12 ounce aluminum pop can and twisted it to the point that it tore open and became a sharp weapon that she used to threaten a mental health worker with. Another patient escaped from a seclusion room off a locked unit due to a definite employee error, took a housekeeper hostage, killed the security guard (who died despite me being the first person to start CPR on him after he kept me safe during the riot); and injured me with no ability to control her aggressive impulses and incredible strength because of Epinephrine. She struck me in my abdomen using great force a single time with a clenched fist opening my inguinal wall. She also seriously injured several others (one employee was brain damaged). To make matters worse, her husband got off the elevator for a multifamily therapy group I was about to cofacilitate, saw his wife naked (she took off her own clothes when running down the hall) and being folded and carried so that she could be safely physically restrained again to prevent her from hurting herself and others any longer, and he started attacking and assaulting all of us as well. He simply did not understand what had previously happened. A third patient fell out of bed three times and ultimately died and I was left alone to deal with the family, the coroner and the pathologist with the first death ever on that unit. I was not a nurse or a technician. I do not know if mistakes were or were not made in his care. Finally, a close friend who was supervising the intake and assessment team that weekend, the department I used to work in, became my closest ally after all of this and I relied on her frequently to discuss the series of events described above. We talked by phone almost nightly. She sounded under the influence or intoxicated or impaired by ethanol. However, I did nothing! She eventually relapsed on opioids (also known as painkillers, narcotic analgesics, opiates), and was admitted to a world famous intensive residential treatment program out of state because, like me, she was known in Colorado facilities as a professional and would have no anonymity She committed suicide shortly after discharge and returning home. No one believed that she had a legitimate source of pain in her abdomen after years of complaining because she also had been sexually abused and had an eating disorder. At the time of her autopsy they discovered a tumor that had never been seen on the various tests conducted before.

I had nightmares, flashbacks, avoidance and hypervigilance. I required three major surgical procedures and was prescribed Darvocet (Propoxyphene Napsylate and Acetaminophen), Tramadol (Ultram), and Soma (Carisoprodol). I took these medications from a single physician as directed on a regular basis, however, I still became physiologically dependent (I experienced increased tolerance and then acute withdrawal when they were discontinued). I have been clean from these pills for more than 12 years.

Like millions of other Americans, I watched the plane flown by terrorists hit the second tower at ground zero in New York City on 9/11. I started to have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) again and to sleep and manage the PTSD signs listed earlier I drank alcohol excessively. I quit drinking on my own almost eight years ago.

I used to smoke tobacco by way of cigars and pipes starting in high school and college. I have been nicotine free for 16 years.

Hi, my name is Rand and I'm an addict and alcoholic.

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."
(Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr, circa 1934)