Mortality Salience And The Trauma Curve: Soldiers Who Kill In Combat Less Likely To Be Alcoholics

Combat is correlated in some to depression and substance abuse - post-traumatic stress disorder is part of the lexicon today, real and claimed by clerks who never heard a gunshot while in the military and then a general malaise for people who had any kind of stress. But soldiers who endure the highest stress - those who kill in the heat of combat - are least likely to self-medicate, according to analysis of data by researchers with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research  and American University. In "Changes in Alcohol Use after Traumatic Experiences: The Impact of Combat on Army National Guardsmen" in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, they contradict common sociological wisdom.  read more

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