PTSD:The Battle Beneath: The Camouflage Continues

Mental health help for returning veterans
Saturday, June 06, 2009
By JOE GREEN jgreen@sjnewsco.com
VINELAND - In 1996, Eric Arauz was found to be untreatable. The verdict came inside a maximum security Veterans Administration (VA) ward.

No hope for a man who had served in Operation Desert Shield in the Navy and was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 and alcohol and drug addiction. It may have occurred to him then that he, like his father, would die a homeless veteran.

But 13 years later, he's receiving the Golden Bell Leadership Award from the Mental Health Association of New Jersey.

Arauz sat on an expert panel Friday at the Veterans Memorial Home discussing efforts to help veterans with mental illness and addiction, as he has, as a guest on Good Morning America.

The event, titled "The Battle Beneath: The Camouflage Continues," was organized by the Southwest Council, Inc. (SWC), a non-profit that offers services to people with substance abuse problems.

The SWC serves Cumberland, Salem and Gloucester counties. Friday's discussions focused in part on ways to extend mental health and addiction services to military veterans who suffer from a host of disorders.

Arauz founded Arauz Inspirational Enterprises (AIE), which offers motivational speeches and consulting to those suffering from the same types of afflictions he did.

"If I represent anything, it's that it was the best efforts of others that helped me, not my best efforts," he said on Friday, after panel discussions.
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Mental health help for returning veterans