PTSD:After the Battle, Fighting the Bottle at Home

After the Battle, Fighting the Bottle at Home

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: July 8, 2008
Most nights when Anthony Klecker, a former marine, finally slept, he found himself back on the battlefields of Iraq. He would awake in a panic, and struggle futilely to return to sleep.


Days were scarcely better. Car alarms shattered his nerves. Flashbacks came unexpectedly, at the whiff of certain cleaning chemicals. Bar fights seemed unavoidable; he nearly attacked a man for not washing his hands in the bathroom.

Desperate for sleep and relief, Mr. Klecker, 30, drank heavily. One morning, his parents found him in the driveway slumped over the wheel of his car, the door wide open, wipers scraping back and forth. Another time, they found him curled in a fetal position in his closet.

Yet only after his drunken driving caused the death of a 16-year-old cheerleader did Mr. Klecker acknowledge the depth of his problem: His eight months at war had profoundly damaged his psyche.

On Oct. 28, 2006, he drunkenly drove into a highway divider, trapping Deanna Casey, 16, in her small car.

“I was trying to be the tough marine I was trained to be — not to talk about problems, not to cry,” said Mr. Klecker, who has since been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. “I imprisoned myself in my own mind.”

Mr. Klecker’s case is part of a growing body of evidence that alcohol abuse is rising among veterans of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, many of them trying to deaden the repercussions of war and disorientation of home. While the numbers remain relatively small, experts say and studies indicate that the problem is particularly prevalent among those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, as it was after Vietnam. Studies indicate that illegal drug use, much less common than heavy drinking in the military, is up slightly, too.

Increasingly, these troubled veterans are spilling into the criminal justice system. A small fraction wind up in prison for homicides or other major crimes. Far more, though, are involved in drunken bar fights, reckless driving and alcohol-fueled domestic violence. Whatever the particulars, their stories often spool out in unwitting victims, ruptured families, lost jobs and crushing debt.

With the rising awareness of the problem has come mounting concern about the access to treatment and whether enough combat veterans are receiving the help that is available to them.

By last March, he had seen enough. He ordered the base’s newspaper, The Fort Drum Blizzard, to publish the names and photographs of all soldiers charged with drunken driving. To date, at least 116 have appeared. Half were combat veterans who had returned in the last year, the general said, though others may have deployed earlier.

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In part, this dynamic is rooted in the warrior code. Trained to be tough and ignore their fear, many combat veterans are reluctant to acknowledge psychic wounds. Or they worry that getting help will damage their careers. And so, like Mr. Klecker, they treat themselves with the liquor bottle or illegal drugs.

Self-medicating is what they call it. They may seek out drug and alcohol rehabs when their families demand it or their civilian bosses, but they do not work. They do not work for one very simple reason for most. They are not addicted to the chemicals but are trying to kill off the feelings they do not want to feel.

When PTSD spiraled out of control, my husband checked into several rehabs. None of them worked. AA didn't work. He would dry out, get angry and jumpy, then start self-medicating all over again. He had a mentor from an AA group once, another Vietnam Vet like him. He told my husband that AA worked in his case because he was in fact an alcoholic but did not have PTSD. My husband didn't stop drinking until the treatment from the VA began to work with a combination of medication and talk therapy. That was when he began to get his life back.

It's one of the biggest problems families face when they come home with PTSD. We have to deal with the changes in someone we love; acknowledge the fact they have become strangers to us; deal with walking on egg shells afraid to set them off; try to keep the house calm so they don't freak out; live on edge wondering if they will be having a good day or another bad one and then have to worry about yet another night of their nightmares freaking out the entire household. Oh, but that isn't the worst.

When they are self-medicating, we go from worrying about the doorbell ringing to tell us they were killed in action, to worrying about it being a police officer to tell us they were killed in an accident, or killed someone else. We get to a point when their runaway days of taking off, not knowing where they are or what shape they will come home in, to not wanting them to come home at all. While they are away from there house, there is normalcy in the house. At least that is what we think because we cannot see the wound we ourselves carry within us.

We change as well. It's very hard to not change when you live on a roller coaster ride of emotional turmoil constantly. One day they seem like their old self but the next they are strangers again. One moment they could be talking to us the way they used to but say the wrong word conjuring up the wrong image in their mind and they explode. Sometimes they feel so badly about themselves they are actually looking for an argument or fight just to be able to rationalize how badly they feel inside. Then we have to deal with the fact love, compassion, passion, has all dried up inside of them. We know it's there somewhere within them but we just can't find it.

You can't find it until they are being treated for the wound and even then, it's not the same as it was before they were wounded. We adjust. We find what works as we try to understand what makes things worse. We get used to doing things alone we used to do with them like shopping, going to family functions, to the movies, out to dinner. We have to handle the finances and make the decision because they are no longer capable of making rational choices. Then there is the short term memory loss frustrating the hell out of us. They can remember something that happened twenty years ago but can't remember a conversation we had with them just this morning.

The hopeful thing is that when they are being treated for PTSD, things get better. There is no cure for it and there is no undoing the parts of them that are lost forever, but we find a way for it to work if we are willing. Some of us can't do it. Some of us can and then we make a commitment to understand we are no long living with a normal person but living with a wounded one instead. How can they be "normal" when they lived through what they did? We've been married almost 24 years. I've spent more than half my life with him. My husband is living proof treatment works but I had to be willing to stick it out. It's a joint effort. He was willing to receive help and the VA was there to help him once his claim was approved and I was willing to stay.

What about the veterans who have no one left to stand by their side? They end up being homeless without an advocate taking care of what a spouse would. They have no one to calm them down or worry about their well being. There are too many of them left to fight alone. They end up in jail because no one is there to get them into the help they need but feel they do not deserve or when they do not trust anything associated with the government. Without support, emotionally or financially, they do whatever it takes to get the relief they need. Crimes and violence all play into this.

In a perfect world they would all be taken care of automatically. In a perfect world there would always be someone standing by their side watching their back as they had while deployed. This is far from a perfect world. We have yet to come close to taking care of them and even further away from taking care of the families. We need support to stay and forgiveness when we cannot. Whenever you read a story about a veteran falling through the cracks, you need to acknowledge there is also a family dropping off the face of the normal earth with them. Senator Clinton wrote a book called It Takes A Village, but in this case, when it's PTSD, it takes an army to care for the wounded.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington