Alcohol Abuse is very Common in the Military

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Military news…

A memorial for the Global War on Terrorism may still be a long way off, but it has taken an important step towards its eventual completion.

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Facing It. “The Harder I Held on, the Further I Felt From Home.”

Drew Pham grieves for the family of the man he killed at war. His peers and commanders told him it was a good kill, but how can a kill be “good”?
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Air Force Discharges 27 For Refusal to Get COVID Vaccine

The Air Force has discharged 27 people for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, making them what officials believe are the first service members to be removed for disobeying the vaccination mandate.

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Guardsman in Jan. 6 Mob Gets Probation, Still Serving in the Guard

A Wisconsin National Guard soldier was sentenced in federal court Dec. 10 to two years of probation and $1,500 in fines and restitution on one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

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Kentucky National Guard Soldier Returns to Hometown For ‘Deeply Personal’ Mission Following Tornadoes

Kentucky National Guardsmen uncovered the state and U.S. flags while clearing debris last week at the County Courthouse destroyed by a tornado in Mayfield, Kentucky.

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103 Marines Already Separated For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine

At least 103 Marines have been separated from the Marine Corps for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the service said Thursday.

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Army veteran, hit man in killing of Navy officer, awaits new sentencing hearing on death row

Army veteran David A. Runyon, convicted of being the hit man in a murder-for-hire slaying of a Navy officer, was sentenced to death in 2009, but in December 2020 a panel for the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that the case be sent back to Norfolk for a hearing.

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Another excerpt from my upcoming book, Signs of hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of life.

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Just One More Drink!

I knew some men who were lost in the drinking world. They couldn’t put that glass down. When they drink they would drink to the last drop, not wanting to waste any of it, like a soldier on the desert getting the last drop out of their canteen. 

Alcohol abuse is common in the military. I was a naïve and unknowing boy when I went into the military. I hadn’t done any drinking of any kind. I was right out of high school. 

But once I got to Korea I met some veterans of another kind. They were veteran drinkers.

They wanted me to go with them to the base tavern. I resisted for a while and they kept after me. I finally went with them one night. It was the end of the month, and they were having drinks for ten cents each. I think they said they try to clear out all the booze at the end of the month, because a new shipment was coming from the main land.

Ten cents? Wow! I thought. This is too good of a deal to pass up. I was nearly broke, but I had a couple of dollars. That could buy me twenty drinks. (What a deal!)

I was with two soldiers that I befriended when I got there. One was an athletic looking guy, and the other was a “tall drink of water,” from Texas.

They showed me that they loved to drink. I decided to have my first drink. I asked them what drinks were good. They told me the Zombie drink was especially sweet, and tasty. I had no idea what kind of drink it was. (I should have known just from the title of the drink!) They each also ordered one. They brought the drinks to our table.

The Zombies were huge. They were in a tall glass and had a murky green and brown look to them.

My friends (?) said “Let’s have a drinking contest. Let’s see who can finish their drink first.” I fell for the trap. We all held the glasses to our lips and one of them yelled “GO!” 

I had two gulps down before the burning sensation in my throat started. I thought I had swallowed a nest of yellow jackets! I coughed, and tried to standup.

They guys pulled me back down and said, “You aren’t finished yet. Keep at it.” I wanted this experience to end so I kept drinking. I remember about four gulps, and then everything went black. I was having a black-out.

I didn’t remember the whole rest of the evening, and woke up the next morning lying next to a big truck and having dry heaves. There had to have been people walking by the spot where I was, but no one helped me. They probably just said, “Oh, there is another recruit who just got in.” 

It took me several days to get my life back to a livable state. I had to go to the infirmary to get some medicine to help, and the doctor just laughed and said, “You must be a new guy.” 

So what did I learn from that?

  • Things aren’t what they seem.
  • Friends you are supposed to trust aren’t always good friends.
  • If something looks like it may be wrong, it probably is.
  • You don’t have to do things to empress anyone to make them like you.

Now days, I have a beer once and a while, but I never overindulge. It just doesn’t make sense to me to be drinking just to get drunk. I used to think that non-alcoholic beer was a joke. I also thought, if I am going to drink beer I am doing it for the buzz, not the taste. Now I enjoy the taste, and feel that once I have quenched my thirst that is all I need.    

How about you? Do you struggle with drinking too much? I know it is possible in the military to have down times, lonely times, depressing times, drinking with buddies, where you seem to be attracted to alcohol, because it is needed to drown your sorrows in it.

I suggest to you that the opposite should be true. We shouldn’t be going to the one thing that could give us more depression. We shouldn’t be going to the one thing that could cause us to stop thinking clearly, which is dangerous when you are depressed and lonely.  

During your moment of depression you should be thinking as many positive thoughts as you can. Push out all that garbage out of your brain. Talk to friend. Let them know you are feeling down. Don’t go to alcohol to try to hide your pain. It may cause you more.

IWILL

If we can keep our minds clear of all the negativity around us, we have a much better chance of fighting off the dark side that is trying to cause us pain. We should never, ever think we need alcohol to free us of the mental pain.

Think about this

Isn’t it interesting how we think we are sad, and yet we have so many people around us who want to help?

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Checking on on you. Have things gone wrong from you drinking too much?

FEAR NOT!!

There are over 13,590 fellow veterans subscribed to this site who have your back.

If the dreams just too much for you right now, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number to call 24/7. There are highly qualified counselors there to help you, and they will not hang up until the know you are OK.

1-800-272-8255..texting 838255.

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

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Boredom and Loneliness Haunt Veterans

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Doug Bolton, the founder of the blog, Signs of Hope, which is at www.dailysignsofhope.com, has written a new book, “Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.” It reaches out the many military and veterans who may be battling anxiety, fear, depression, addictions, rejections, and the many other usual suspects. There are 22 military connected suicides every day. That is almost one every hour. Doug wants to help stop those statistics.  

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This is a new social network just for veterans. I joined it and made instant friendships with veterans who want to talk about what I want to talk about. Please check it out. You will be glad you did. 

https://www.rallypoint.com/join/spc-douglas-bolton

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One of the hardest problems veterans face is what happens after transition. This article may help you survive. 

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Veterans face a variety of problems once they leave the service. Whether it’s accurate or not, many veterans feel life is a little harder for them than for most people. But what if a big part of the problem wasn’t so much PTSD or poor transition assistance — at least not directly — but rather loneliness and boredom?

From being under a microscope to being unseen

The best and worst thing about being in the military is that it is all-consuming. It provides you with a place to be and a time to be there, pretty much 24/7/365.

You spend several months at a time deployed. When you get home, you work long hours, so that takes care of a good part of your day. Then you’ve got frost calls at the club on Fridays after work. Another weekend that month you have duty. The next there’s a mandatory fun event of some kind. Your next door neighbors are military too, so they invite you over for dinner every so often.

For better or worse, while you’re in the military, you’re always busy and rarely alone.

In the civilian world, after you walk out the glass doors, no one cares what you do. Outside of blatant misconduct that might discredit your employer, they generally don’t care much about how you live your life. They sure aren’t going to have you sit in an auditorium for eight hours on a workday to talk about why you should wear more sunscreen.

Shot gunning into civilian life is lonely in the best of times

Once you have that DD-214 in hand, your social network changes. Chances are you’ll get a job in a whole new city. Once you’re there, you’re no longer in that protective military cocoon. Your neighbors come and go silently to wherever it is they go. On one side, you have a college student whose parents pay his rent and who apparently commutes by skateboard. On the other, who the hell knows, because you’ve never seen anyone enter or leave — just vague signs of occupancy. You think there might be a serial killer with a torture dungeon living there.

It’s definitely not like the barracks, or even a typical neighborhood street in a military town.

If you do stay around your old duty station, your military friends will still have the demanding schedule you just left — plus you’re probably a sellout contractor, with the logoed polo shirt to prove it. Even if you decide to go back to your old hometown, you aren’t the same person as when you left. Unless you’re picking up that dead-end job right where you left off, you no longer fit in there, either.

Your new coworkers generally scatter to the winds after work. Unlike your previous semi-homogeneous band of mostly young male brothers, now you have a diverse group with lives as different as their backgrounds.

If you’re single or divorced, it’s even worse. You can’t party with the Friday night crowd unless you want to be the sad old guy in the club. If you don’t have children or they don’t usually live with you, you probably aren’t plugged into the whole kids soccer scene (and it would be a little disturbing if you were). Most of your peers are married, so if you aren’t, you probably aren’t going to be hanging out much. No one likes a third wheel. As far as meeting other middle-aged single folks, that guy who spotted you on the bench press at the gym was really cool, but it seemed weird to ask him to hang out after staring up at his crotch for 10 reps.

Falling into a cycle of self-isolation

When you get home you usually have nothing to do. At first, that fills you with sublime joy, but after awhile, having nothing and no one to fill the off-time becomes old. Some people handle that better than others.

Unfortunately, charming old-fashioned solitary pursuits such as painting, solitaire, and playing soulful jazz piano at dirty gin joints are far less common pursuits than things like excessive drinking and internet use. Both of those things are addictive, but they do temporarily relieve boredom and loneliness.

In the case of drinking, without anyone else to watch what you’re doing, that couple of beers after coming home from work easily becomes 3 or 4, maybe even 5 or 6. You aren’t trying to get shitfaced. You’re just hanging out, watching Netflix or playing video games, while sipping a beer. But sipping beers for several hours quickly adds up, even if you’re not trying. Vets have much greater rates of alcohol abuse than the general public.

Then there’s the internet, that great time-suck. It’s the refuge of the lonely, offering instant connections with people around the world. But that virtual companionship can destabilize your remaining relationships in real life.

For vets in particular, there’s a temptation to rekindle camaraderie on any number of vicious and misogynistic social media pages. An online life devoted to mocking civilians and treating women poorly is even more isolating — after shitting on every non-vet, and even vets who don’t live up to your standard (oh good, another POG hatefest), are you really going to go out, be friendly, and find new friends in real life?

Though I’ve wasted too many hours on social media, I’ve never thrown in with the vitriolic Facebook groups. But I see enough reposts of those groups from many of my old colleagues to know that it’s clearly a thing.

As far as alcohol, I’ve had more than my share of beers in a sitting enough times to know that I need to keep an eye on that, if for no other reason than my waistline. Along those lines, there are many other unhealthy time-killers, like overeatingsmoking, and dipping that vets are especially prone to.

Admit you’re lonely. But you’re not alone

The plural of anecdote isn’t data. But it’s indisputable that loneliness and boredom have profound effects on health and wellbeing. I can’t help but wonder if a large portion of the acute mental illness and substance abuse problems among vets might really be just the long-term products of poor social networks after leaving the military.

Some of the military’s and VA’s organizational efforts would be well spent in finding earlier interventions on that front, instead of waiting until vets’ lives go completely sideways.

And on the individual level, it’s just another good reminder to take care of each other. Taking an interest in each other’s lives isn’t a cure-all for our issues, but it does help remind us: We’re not as alone as we think.

If you are struggling with life after the military. You are never alone. We have your six. Get help. Here is a toll free number you can always go to to get help:

1-800-273-8255

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all….never, ever, give up!