BLOG

An article in the Saturday February 12 edition of The New York Times, titled For Some Troops, Powerful Drug Cocktails have Deadly Results, has brought to light, once again, that the military doctors and psychiatrists appear to be taking the easy way out when trying to help returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan to handle the stress, nightmares and disorientation they feel back at home–just throw a bunch of pills at them. The quote that says it all comes from one soldier’s father, Charles Endicott: “He survived over there. Coming home and dying in a hospital? It’s a disgrace.” Yet the article highlights not one isolated case, but several. We already know the figures: over 300,000 soldiers are returning to the U.S. to be diagnosed with different forms of PTSD, depression or TBI (traumatic brain injury). Many go without any sort of treatment until a violent outbreak makes it inevitable, and many are treated, as the article points out, with a handful of pills, what may turn out to be a deadly concoction.

As the article points out:

But those medications, along with narcotic painkillers, are being increasingly linked to a rising tide of other problems, among them drug dependency, suicide and fatal accidents — sometimes from the interaction of the drugs themselves. An Army report on suicide released last year documented the problem, saying one-third of the force was on at least one prescription medication.

So what is the solution? There are many others. The soldiers need more dedicated attention–and alternative therapies that allow them not to blind themselves from their fears or illness or stress, but to confront them in a calm, direct way. The soldiers need to be eased back into their home life, into the civil work world. Alternative treatment such as music or art therapy, simple conservation in groups, community service, anything that allows them to be themselves and be social, seem to be more organic ways to address the difficulties and the isolation they may feel. As the journalist, James Dao, writes:

The Army and the Navy are also offering more treatments without drugs, including acupuncture and yoga. And they have tried to expand talk therapy programs — one of which, exposure therapy, is considered by some experts to be the only proven treatment for P.T.S.D. But shortages of mental health professionals have hampered those efforts.

There may be a shortage of mental health professionals, but there can’t possibly be a shortage of able-bodied citizens who wouldn’t mind donating their time and expertise to help a fellow man or woman, especially one who has just returned from one or several difficult missions whose purpose is to ensure the safety and well being of U.S. citizens. Given today’s situation, with so many people out of work, and so much more awareness of the deserved needs of the returning soldiers, from here we can only continue to encourage individuals to give some of their time and join any of the many groups dedicated to their care. There’s a list of some of these on this very website on our Resources page.