Pubdate: Sun, 25 Mar 2007
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Santa Cruz Sentinel
Contact: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/news/edit/form.htm
Website: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/394
Author: Asha Bandele and Tony Newman
Note: Asha Bandele is author of 'The Prisoner's Wife.' Tony Newman is 
with the Drug Policy Alliance.
Referenced: The New York Times article 
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n312.a01.html
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/veterans
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

TRAUMATIZED VETERANS TURNING TO ALCOHOL, DRUGS

The stories are pouring in. Large numbers of veterans returning from 
Iraq are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic 
brain injury. A frequent reaction to both of these painful health 
challenges is the use and misuse of alcohol and other drugs. 
Veterans, closed out of meaningful support when they return from the 
front lines, seek relief of their symptoms through self-medication. 
Some get better. Tragically, others do not.

For some vets, many of them on longer-than-expected tours of duty, 
the self-medication begins even before they have left the battle 
fields in Iraq and Afghanistan. A March 13 front-page story in The 
New York Times addresses the issue of drug use among soldiers: "It's 
clear that we've got a lot of significant alcohol problems that are 
pervasive across the military," said Dr. Thomas R. Kosten, a 
psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston. He 
traces their drinking and drug use to the stress of working in a war 
zone. "The treatment that they take for it is the same treatment that 
they took after Vietnam," Dr. Kosten said. "They turn to alcohol and drugs"

Then there are the heartbreaking accounts of veterans who can't quiet 
the demons from war and are committing suicide. On March 13, CBS News 
reported on veteran Jonathan Schulze, who killed himself after not 
receiving help from the U.S. Jonathan's father, Jim, talked about 
Jonathan's life after he returned from war. "In a matter of hours he 
could go from unbelievable anger and rage to just uncontrollable 
weeping" According to the CBS story, Jonathan turned to drugs, 
alcohol and fighting. When Jonathan tried to get help at a V.A. 
hospital, he was told he was 26 on a waiting list, and that they just 
didn't have enough beds for him. Four days later, he hanged himself.

In the March 19 New York Times, Bob Herbert writes about the terrible 
case of Jeffrey Lucey, another young veteran who turned to alcohol 
and then suicide as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder. "By 
the time he came home, Jeffrey Lucey was a mess ... He had 
nightmares. He drank furiously. He wrecked his parents' car. He began 
to hallucinate," Herbert's column states. Jeffrey's father, Kevin, 
found his son dead on June 22, 2004, after he hanged himself in their 
basement. The column describes Kevin's voice quivering as he says, 
"When we hear anybody in the administration get up and say that they 
support the troops, it sickens us"

One out of three returning Iraq war veterans is asking for 
mental-health services. What is going to happen to all of the people 
who served their country and are now suffering from depression and 
suicidal thoughts? Many will end up using drugs, as many of us 
civilians do. Now, on top of everything else going on, many of our 
veterans are going to have to worry about getting caught with illegal 
drugs and being arrested. Any service members who are incarcerated 
and separated from their families because of their addiction will 
become yet more "collateral damage" of this war. U.S. prisons are 
already filled with nonviolent drug law offenders, many serving long 
sentences for small amounts of drugs. It is easy for people to buy a 
bumper sticker and demand that we "support the troops," but if we are 
going to walk the talk, we had better offer treatment -- not a jail 
cell or a tombstone -- as we help our brothers and sisters heal from war.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake