Soldier Took 12 Steps, Then Ran to Help Others

Soldier stays sober with 12 steps
Fort Campbell Courier
by Leejay Lockhart, Courier staff
Dec 8, 2016

“Soldiers who go to treatment they’ll clean up. They’ll be stellar, but as soon as you step out of treatment, you have no tools to use to keep you sober in the real world. That’s what recovery is. There is a difference and a lot of people don’t understand.” Sgt. Kristin Cloyd

When Sgt. Kristin Cloyd, a motor transport operator, assigned to A Company, 526th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, was in high school she started drinking at parties.

It did not take long before she started increasing the amount of alcohol she drank.

“My junior year of high school I started drinking a whole lot more,” Cloyd said. “Instead of every weekend, it was lets try to see if I can drink at school. Let me try to see if I can drink on weeknights before school.”

Before long her drinking caused the high school athlete to give up both basketball and volleyball, but because she maintained her grades, her life might have seemed normal to many of those people around her.

When she was still 17 she met an Army recruiter who convinced her to join the Reserves as a motor transport operator. Cloyd committed to becoming a Soldier in 2009 with the primary job duty of driving military vehicles over a variety of roads and terrain. Yet before she left for basic training, the police in California charged her with driving under the influence as a minor.

She was in the beginning stages of alcoholism and her life began to spin out of control. During basic training, she hurt her leg and ended up on pain medication. This added to her substance abuse problems.

At advanced individual training, the cadre discovered alcohol in her wall locker, which was a violation of her AIT’s zero tolerance policy. Part of her punishment included meeting with her commander who asked Cloyd if she wanted to remain in the Reserves.
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