US military’s alcohol-soaked culture taking toll on servicemembers

US military’s alcohol-soaked culture taking toll on servicemembers
By JENNIFER HLAD
Stars and Stripes
Published: December 26, 2012

WASHINGTON — Thomas Brennan was still unloading his bags at his first duty station when he saw the other Marines drinking on the catwalks.

“In a way, I expected it,” he said. “A bunch of people partying, having a good time, getting ready to go to war.”

Brennan, now a sergeant who will be medically retired this month, said drinking and partying in the barracks isn’t quite as obvious now. Marines know they will be punished if they get caught drinking underage or drinking hard liquor in the barracks, he said. But that doesn’t mean the drinking has stopped. People just keep their doors closed, he said, and if the platoon sergeant is coming at 6:30 a.m. for inspection, “that means all the evidence is gone by 6:15.”

While some military doctors say they don’t believe troops binge drink or abuse alcohol more than their civilian counterparts, a recent report by the Institute of Medicine called drugs and alcohol abuse among troops a “public health crisis.” A report released by the Army in January reported that 43 percent of active-duty soldiers had admitted binge drinking within a month of the survey and that 67 percent of the binge drinkers were 17 to 25 years old.
read more here

Links between PTSD, substance abuse explored,,dah!

I'm really sorry but I can't help myself,,,,,dah! They've had over thirty years to notice this....It's called self-medicating and has been documented since the Vietnam Veterans came home!

Links between PTSD, substance abuse explored
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Jan 7, 2009 18:20:34 EST

At a two-day conference for civilian and military researchers, doctors produced one idea after another for treating and preventing substance abuse in service members with post-traumatic stress disorder.

As the ideas bounced from person to person, they tried to tie them together in ways that could make sense in a military setting: They must be accessible to many people at once, they must be cheap, they must be proven, and they must be easy.

And they must be immediate.

About 20 percent of service members say they’ve had a few drinks and then driven a vehicle, Richard Keller, a researcher for the U.S. Army Battlemind behavioral health program, said at the conference, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuise.

The drinking, he said, also leads to domestic violence and fights, “particularly with our younger crowd.”

The military also is seeing 20 suicides per 100,000 people.

“Every Brigade Combat Team commander can expect one suicide per year,” Keller said.

Research has shown that alcohol can contribute to suicides because it makes people impulsive.

Roger Roffman, professor at the school of social work at the University of Washington, talked about an intervention that’s not as invasive as checking into a substance abuse program — in fact, it doesn’t even force a person to change, only to take a look at his or her habits. click link for more

What new veterans need to know about old veterans

Alcohol Abuse Rampant Amongst Returning Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans
This week I’ve been seeing a lot of reporting on substance abuse and service members. This is not at all surprising following the highly publicized death of Joseph Dwyer coupled with new studies and a few revelations about Veterans health care in general.

Alarm bells were already sounding last spring when Newsweek investigated a rash of overdoses. These are of course the most extreme examples of war veterans turning to substance dependency for relief. However there is now a far greater and more common problem that is coming to light, alcohol abuse amongst veterans.
As a veteran who has been a member of various veteran’s organizations for several years now (meaning as soon as I was eligible and stateside) I can say that I have seen this first hand. Drinking is a strong institution in most veteran’s organizations. Every VFW and American Legion Post I can think of has a well stocked bar. This is of course the way that most of these organizations gain their operating funds, and has been since they were founded. I’m not blaming these organizations for “enabling” because many veterans (including myself) want to drink, the problem is a few amongst us that are driven to, and feel a need to drink. The real problem here is a lack of resources and education available to returning veterans.

click above for more

My comment

:

Kathie Costos Says:
August 17th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
You are correct, however missing the big picture. New veterans are a lot better off than the ones who began the DAV, VFW, American Legion, Vietnam Veterans, and so on. They came back and had nothing but alcohol and whatever else they could find to self-medicate. They didn’t have veteran’s centers or counseling for PTSD. The only thing they had was courage to fight the government to make sure they were taken care of and all those who would come after them. The media didn’t care and frankly, they still don’t about the older veterans.

They came home suffering the same as the new veterans do and their families suffered, but no one knew about it. By 1986, Vietnam claimed another 117,000 lives because of suicide alone and this does not include the ones no one knew about because so many were abandoned by their families, ended up homeless, endured being called “crazy Nam vet” avoided because they were “just another drunk” or “just another druggie” when they were wounded inside. These men and women fought all these years so that their wounds would be taken care of and all the accomplishments and advancements happened because of them. Sure there is a lot more, too much work to be done, but because of them, the new veteran stand a lot better chance of not only surviving but healing as well.

By the way, I’m married to a Vietnam vet with PTSD. I’ve been doing outreach work for over 25 years now and I can testify that as hard as people fight for the Vietnam veterans, we are fighting just as hard for all the new ones.

I just wanted you to be aware that as bad as it is for the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, it would be a lot worse without them.

I could have said a lot more like the alarm bells were being sounded all across the country before both occupations began but no one listened.

Ex-soldier's post-traumatic stress ordeal

Ex-soldier's post-traumatic stress ordeal



Michael Cartmell

A FORMER soldier who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder died as a result of an accidental overdose.

Mr Michael Cartmell (38) was found collapsed at his home in Cuerdale Street, Burnley, on May 16th last year. An inquest at Burnley Coroner's Court heard he had been drinking and had taken a prescribed anti-psychosis drug.

The hearing heard how Mr Cartmell had lost a friend while serving with the Army in Northern Ireland. He had served with the Queen's Lancashire Regiment and Scots Guards.

The Express reported last May that Mr Cartmell had fought a 14-year battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. He had attended Briercliffe Primary and Mansfield High Schools and grew up in Briercliffe.

He developed an enthusiasm for the military from a very early age and joined the Sea Cadet Corps aged 12.

Pathologist Dr Abdul Al-Dawoud, who conducted the post-mortem examination, said toxological tests showed Mr Cartmell had a level of alcohol in his system above the legal driving limit. He also had six times the therapeutic level of the drug quetiapine. Dr Al-Dawoud gave the cause of death as the combined effect of the two.
click post title for the rest

If you have PTSD or know someone who does, do not mix alcohol with medicine. It alters the medication and makes the depression worse.