Transitioning Out Of The Military When You’re Struggling With Addiction

Adapting To Normal Life After The Military

The transition from military to civilian life can pose many challenges for veterans. These can range from lack of connectivity to friends and family to difficulties with finding work or housing. For a large number of veterans, the adjustment period also includes dealing with mental health or substance use disorders (SUDs).

Returning Home From The Military

In the years since 9/11, ever-growing numbers of veterans face mental illness and substance abuse during service and upon returning home. Among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, 63% who were diagnosed with SUDs also met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD as a condition caused by experiencing or witnessing traumatic events. Symptoms can include flashbacks, nightmares, rage outbursts, and intrusive memories.

Common substances misused among military personnel include alcohol, marijuana, and prescription drugs. The National Institute on Drug Abuse found that veterans were more likely to participate in heavy drinking, with 65% of veterans who enter professional treatment reporting that alcohol was the substance they misused the most.

If you are a veteran yourself, there are steps you can take — in coordination with professional mental health and substance abuse treatment — to attempt to cope with PTSD without drugs or alcohol. Suggestions by the Department of Veteran Affairs include developing a support network of other veterans and trauma survivors, performing breathing and stretching exercises as a mind-body approach to stress reduction, and working with a therapy animal.

How Do I Help A Veteran?

If your loved one is facing mental illness or SUDs, know there are ways to get them help. One way is locating centers that provide mental health and substance abuse treatment to veterans regardless of insurance status or payment abilities. Mental illness and SUDs can often co-occur, and those facing both challenges should seek out treatment programs that address each in tandem.

Family members can also assist struggling loved ones by performing an intervention with the assistance of a professional interventionist. During the structured, planned event, family and friends discuss the way their loved one’s addiction has negatively affected their lives. Those staging the intervention should have an appropriate treatment center picked out beforehand, and make clear that not attending the treatment program will have consequences such as a cease in contact with children or a halt in financial support.

You Aren’t Alone

Remember that if you are a veteran facing mental illness or substance use disorder, you are not alone.

Mental illness and substance use disorders can feel isolating, but you do not have to carry the burden on your own. By seeking help, you can connect to others struggling, and find professional resources to guide you through the treatment process and ease your transition into civilian life.

Contact a treatment provider today to learn more.