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Subscribe to RSSBinge drinking and prescription drug abuse among the nation's military has grown and top military leadership should address this "crisis," according to a new report released Monday.
The study, by the national Institute of Medicine, called its findings of alcohol and other drug use in the armed forces "a public health crisis" and characterized the level of use as "unacceptably high." The institute is part of the National Academy of Sciences.
The report found that 47 percent of active duty service members engaged in binge drinking in 2008, up from 35 percent a decade earlier. Heavy drinking was reported in 20 percent of active duty service members in 2008, up from 15 percent in 1998.
The number of prescriptions military physicians wrote for pain medication quadrupled since 2001 to almost 3.8 million prescriptions in 2009, according to the report. However, some attribute this growth to combat-related injuries and strains from carrying heavy gear.
Current approaches to preventing and treating substance abuse are outdated, the report said.
"We commend the steps that the Department of Defense and individual service branches have recently taken to improve prevention and care for substance use disorders, but the armed forces face many ongoing challenges," said University of Pennsylvania professor Charles P. O'Brien, who chaired the committee that wrote the report.
"Better care for service members and their families is hampered by inadequate prevention strategies, staffing shortages, lack of coverage for services that are proved to work and stigma associated with these disorders."
Related: US Army investigated soldiers over suspected drug abuse in Afghanistan, data show
The Institute of Medicine wants military leadership to acknowledge these facts and to attack "substance use problems before they begin by limiting access to certain medications and alcohol." Among the committee's recommendations are to curb easy access to inexpensive alcohol on military bases, reduce the number of outlets that sell alcohol, restrict their hours of operation and reduce the type and amount of alcohol purchased.
Barriers for military members to get help for substance abuse is also an issue, the committee wrote. Fear of negative consequences, gaps in insurance coverage, lack of confidential services and stigma are among the obstacles, the report listed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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So the amount of pain medications subscribed has quadrupuled since 2001. Hmm lets think. What happened in 2001...oh ya the war on terror began following the world trade center attack. Of course the number of pain meds increased. We entered a war and have to keep troops going from minor injuries while in the field. I do agree that they are too quick to write prescriptions instead of solving the problem. Good ole grunt candy aka Motrin.
Drinking has been an issue for decades in the military. Many military members are in their college years and drink as such. Compare those number to the averages for the U.S. colleges. Probably be surprised how close they are, college may even surpass it. Much of the binge drinking occurs on return from deployments when ppl have been without alcohol for up to 15 months. Some ppl do go to far, but everyone misses some of the luxuries they had before after a period of time. Its part of R&R for many, to celebrate their return home.
You need drugs and alcohol to numb your conscious when you realize you traded a collage education for following orders to kill people.
Really. so you are saying coleges are drug -free- alcohol free zones. Tale a look at the idiots like Loughner and Holmes that went on shooting sprees. UVA ring a bell?
The military always becomes de-moralized under a PC liberal administration. I guess when media covers up what is going on, the ROE is changed to where you are nothing more than a target, you see your closes friends killed and you cannot do a thing about it. It has a tendency to effect your psyche.
So what happens when you graduate college and you realize that the dictator you loved and worshipped has so wrecked the economy that you are living at home with your parents? BTW.. your mom said your pot pies is ready so go eat.
It started with the military lowering its requirements to enlist. Lets raise the bar a little and be more selective of those individuals joining the military. Starting with an individual that has some good value and moral compass will in the end prove a better soldier in the long run.
My family has a strong military history that includes the Marines, Army and Air Force. In the name of political correctness and for humanitarian reasons (and others I'm sure I haven't mentioned here), training for new military recruits has been watered down to the extent that graduation from Marine Corp boot camp now includes color coordinated tee shirts for family members. Really??? We need to get back to some basics when it comes to boot camp and playing Mr./Ms. Nice Guy isn't cutting it. If a recruit can't tough out the crap thrown at them at that stage of the game, they don't belong there. Soldiers engaging in ego-driven acts in combat zones, drug use, the hazing of fellow recruits/soldiers - this is not the same military from 30 years ago. Sometimes, "progress" really isn't.
This is obamas military and thus will be weak of fighting spirit and more liberal than other eras. It is a gayer more democratic based military simply stated by the average age of the those joining and the data gathered on that sector.
They are less Christian and less moral and more social which means they care more about what their buddy thinks than what their superiors or the UCMJ think. And given that we have had several years of no-child-left-behind graduates enlisting, they are less likely to be the over-achievers that the military was known for in the past (as a whole).
But, they still go through hell. They still do long hours/days/weeks/months in places no civilian could imagine and they do it because they volunteered. So, we need to find a way to help them. They deserve that.
Of course binge drinking and drug abuse in the military is out of control. When I was in OIF/OEF, the rules in-theater were very clear: Any drinking, drugs, sexual contact, pornography, etc. was exclusively forbidden as not to upset the sensitivities of our Muslim 'hosts'. Any violation, no matter how trite, was punished in a Draconian manner; I've seen many fine service members careers go up in flames for something a simple as being caught with a Playboy or drinking a beer. They even got rid of non-alcoholic beer in our chow hall because they didn't want us to 'miss the taste of beer', whatever that means. The results? When combat veterans from GWOT come home, they catch up on everything that they went without of for a long period of time (human nature), often with tragic results. Often times, it's to drown out the horrible things they saw and experienced, which no one should ever have to. The veterans up to Vietnam were somewhat lucky, at least they could have a beer in-theater every now and then (along with other adult-oriented stress reducing diversions); the combat veterans today have the following for stress relief over there: B-rated and bad teeny-bopper movies at the Rec Hall, 'libraries' stocked solely with donated lousy romance and sci-fi novels, pallets and pallets of the Girl Scout cookie flavors that NOBODY wants, and loads of other 'G' Rated Fun (we got cheap cigarettes though, how better to cull the load of veterans/retiree benefits by giving us quick-killing lung cancer while we're serving?) that can be thought of by the supposedly morally-pure brass. We're ADULTS d*** it, start treating us like it, we're old enough to bleed aren't we?
Drugs and alcohol are a far better use of time than murdering innocent brown people around the world in the name of our evil, dying empire.
Innocent? Don't read world history, or the news much, do you? The Middle East and North Africa were unstable (thanks to innocent brown people, as you put it) long before the U.S. ever showed up on the international stage! If you hate this 'evil, dying empire' so much, why don't you leave and go live with the 'brown people' you supposedly love? If they didn't want to go to war with us, then they shouldn't of attacked us on 9/11, or any of the other terrorist attacks before of since then. They DESERVE everything they got.
Over a decade of seemingly pointless, endless war will do that to the force.
Cappy-1911, quick point...there's no draft anymore, so everybody in uniform volunteered and it's not like a war "just broke out", it's been, as you so eloquently put it seemingly endless. I am a veteran, a combat veteran, I have a boatload of empathy for what our troops are going through. Having said that, there's a cure for endless rotations overseas...don't re-enlist. I put ten years in, did seven of them overseas, five of those in combat or hostile zones, but I chose to do it and when I finally had enough fun, I went and did something else.
I'm impressed with the job these kids are doing, I'm proud they've been able to endure as much as they had too. I'm distressed at the levels of PTSD and service related mental illness that's being reported. We're going to feel the effects of these wars for a long, long, long time to come.
Some lady going to law school says we should pay for her birth control (she can afford Law school, but not condoms, what's that say?). We aren't paying for the care our veteran's have earned and this lady wants you (not me, you) to pay for her birth control?
Cappy-1911...don't misunderstand me, I'm not knocking you or your opinion...am just saying sometimes life isn't fair, "you's pays your money and you's takes your chances." nobody is holding a gun to any body's head and making them sign those papers.
Youre preaching to the choir, RTColorado. I did 8 years active duty US Army, albeit none of them in combat and 5 overseas with two of those being up near the DMZ in Korea. So while I can sympathize, I cannot empathize what they are going through the way you can. Obviously when enough is enough, soldiers can opt not to reenlist and I share your regard for anyone who wears the uniform. I was attempting to say in one sentence pretty much what you said in your post, however you went into it from the perspective of the soldier and I was strictly making a statement about what 11 years of seemingly pointless and endless war can do to the force. Something that the politicians and the American people need to be aware of before committing our troops to combat.
Heh Cappy-1911...I wan't knocking on you, maybe I'm not as skilled at posting as some...it sounds like you and I agree. My heart goes out to the troops and for all their faults, I'm proud of them. I remember listening to old farts tell me what it was like in the old days. Now it's me...I'll shut up now. I just didn't want to leave it with bad feelings.
No worries! I have profound respect for your opinion and the opinion of anyone regarding these issues, who put on the uniform and got in the game. It's the people out there who keep talking about how "we" need to attack Iran, North Korea or anywhere for that matter, but refuse to enlist and put their money where their mouth is.
My father was in the Military (WWII). I was in the Military (Viet Nam). My daughter and her husband were in the Military (Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan - with multiple tours). My dad drank to calm himself and even joined the VFW and American Legion, after the War, because "they served cheap booze". Fortunately, he grew out of that habit. I drank to excess while in the Military to calm my nerves, but quit, almost completely (save for the odd glass of wine) afterward. My kid and her hubby are borderline alcoholics, because of the stress of it all - AND CHIEFLY BECAUSE THE MILITARY MAKES DRINKING CHEAP, EASY, AND ABOUT THE ONLY AVAILABLE RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY.
If you put people in high stress jobs, give them nothing to do except drink, and then serve them cheap booze at every service "club" and surround every base with bars, what the f**k do you think is going to happen? Duh.
Or how about you deploy soldiers in an insanely conceived war in the middle of the biggest opium and hashish producing areas of the planet and then deny them access to booze because you don't want to offend the host nation? Think you might have a drug problem?
And let's not forget that, at least in my day, especially if you were a pilot, they used to ply you with pills - pills to keep you awake (basically methamphetamines) and pills to help you sleep ("downers"), so that you could maintain an insane operating schedule. Think maybe that has something to do with it?
I smoke cigarettes. I do so because my nerves were shot after my first tour and that was the only way I could stop my hands from shaking. Plus, the military sold 'em cheap, put 'em in your C-rations, and obliged you to "smoke 'em if you got 'em" when you took a break (and put you to work if you didn't smoke). Now that same government treats me like a pariah (and taxes me like a medieval serf) for indulging in the habit they heaped on me.
So, umm, yeah. I'm sure there are "substance abuse problems" in the Military. Then again, those problems kind of pale beside the prospect of having all your limbs and half your face blown off by an IED planted by the people you are trying to help.
If you don't want people seeking relief in drugs and booze, don't send 'em to Hell to do a thankless and impossible job and then hand 'em a beer when they come back from the field. Regrettably, the average bureaucrat, reading that sentence, will conclude that the correct answer is to withhold the beer, instead of stopping these idiot wars.
What a joke. The miitary encourages substance abuse.
The results of never ending Republican War Mongering...
Be sure and Vote for Willard and the rest of the Republicans as they have a new War lined up in Iran for the Soldiers to fight and Corporations too make billion$ from..
Hell who knows maybe they can even swing more tax breaks for the 1% in that war too..
Wait a God Damn minute folks...in my day I had a First Sergeant tell me he wouldn't recommend a man for promotion who had a Good Conduct Medal. It was a tradition to have a "Pig Push" before every deployment, any one promoted had to pay the difference between his last paycheck and his new rank for booze at a party. In my unit there was little if any drug use, but it was common enough in support units. Troopers were routinely labeled as either "juicers or heads". I don't condone abusing drugs (alcohol or other drugs). Now a days, troopers can be canned for a single alcohol related event, I mean seriously skilled troopers walked out the door over getting drunk. Back in the 90's I still did a little consulting work and was dumbfounded when it was politely pointed out that at a debrief I supplied beer for the boys at, it was DoD policy that non-alcoholic beverages had to also be supplied anytime alcohol was available (nobody touched the soft drinks), I was dumbfounded. Times they are a changing.
"Praise the Lord and pass the bong
We're winning the war on drugs"
- Asylum Street Spankers
Being in the military this isn't so much a problem as it is a way of life. I mean you watch your friends die, or heck even noticing that hey 'so and so hasn't come by in a while..." only to find out him and three others got turned into "pink mist" during a foot patrol. So then I get back stateside and I'm like "Hey I'm so high on life I'm gonna go play with some kittens and volunteer at the soup kitchen!" Wrong!! It's more like, "Here's a brew to the unlucky few, who gave their life so it wouldn't be you." Repeat as needed until you forget why you're unhappy. We drink to forget the ones we lost and the others we wasted, we try and escape the horrors of our actions while at the same time getting medals and awards for doing so. The fact that this just now became evident is either out of carelessness or denial. Either way allowing us to utilize sobriety programs without making us all to seem (and feel) like the most worthless piece of @!$%# to exist in the ranks would be nice. We don't just need to fix one thing, the military is like the rest of the country, and I'm getting tired of having to point out that WE NEED TO FIX EVERYTHING OR IT ALL WILL FAIL!!!!!
Stateside abuse is one thing but when you have soldiers in a combat zone high off their ass, it becomes a problem. Taking percs or opanas while on base or even smoking that spice sh*t while on patrol. They should try to resolve the issues in Afghanistan before maing it such a big deal back home.
I heard Monday night about a muscle relaxer made by Bayer that produces endorphins that is used in Europe to treat substance abuse, but the FDA will not approve it for use in the United States because Pfizer spends lots of money to protect its drug Antabuse for treatment of substance abuse. Perhaps the US Military can use its muscle to get this drug approved by the FDA and we can have a viable treatment for substance abuse in this country.