At War With Alcoholism
In America, where there is an “epidemic” of mental health problems and alcohol abuse that have been reported in the troops returning home from war zones in recent years. Overall, more than one in ten (13 percent) of the respondents said that they were drinking alcohol in quantities defined by researchers as hazardous, according to the World Health Organization’s Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test .
Soldiers and Alcoholism
It is a concern for officials in Britain and America to focus on prevention of PTSD, whereas a culture of binge drinking and alcohol misuse could be more of a problem, both before and after each soldier’s tour of duty. American’s serve at least a 15 month deployment compared to the 5-6 months in other countries. This has added to the mental unstability of the troops returning from duty. In Britain The charity Combat Stress said, however, that it had seen a 66 per cent rise in demand for its services in the past five years, with veterans taking an average of 14 years to seek help after being discharged. Support services were now seeing about 4,000 new veterans each year, but this could rise to 9,000 a year within a decade, the charity added.
A recent Army mental health report concluded that most service members need closer to two years between tours before their battle-related symptoms resolve themselves. Studies show that alcohol consumption is up 13% amongst armed forces. There are several factors which lead to the higher rate of PTSD, alcoholism, and mental instability within returning troops. Although our troops are fighting our country’s battles, sadly they return to only 5 years of coverage after their duty is completed. Compare that with Britain’s lifetime care and it is absolutely unacceptable considering soldiers do not report their symptoms on the whole for quite some time after their return.
