antipode
Posts: 1787
Joined: 4/19/2004
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quote:
cheap cowardly way out of dealing with your life
Uhh, gotta say this for you, when you stop being quiet I can hear it clear to the other side of the encampment... 
Morn, I agree with just about everything you say, but I also think you're going off on someone who, as far as I can see, never was equipped to handle any of the cards she was dealt. And, as you rightfully conclude, did not go get the help so abundantly available to her.
That is a very common and normal thing, patients end up in their own closed loop, and are literally unable to find the "off" button. It is right in front of them and they cannot see it. And in situations like the OP's, you have to ask if anybody in her environment could have noticed her running off the rails, and decided not to intervene.
True, alcoholism is not a disease, it is an addiction. Books have been written about the biological causes for substance abuse, so I don't need to go there, I think. I once attended an AA session, out of which I took away three conclusions:
a) I am not an alcoholic; b) most alcoholics fall off the wagon c) I don't understand native Virginia redneck lingo
Substance or behavioural addiction, however, are not under the control of their sufferers, and their substance abuse I would not classify as the "cowardly way out". For one thing, it is not a way out. It is an escape mechanism, with only temporary relief, hence the repeat factor. I know that in the 40-odd years I drank I was powerless to stop. I maintained a career and was deployed to places where no coward would have survived. Yet not until a couple of years ago did a combination of circumstances arise where everything was in the right place, and I was able to see my doctor and discuss the problem with him, and I was able to stop. Chemical assisted, yes, but no AA, no shrink, I just stopped. And I do not to this day understand why, in the preceding 40 years, that did not, could not, happen.
The problem with addiction is really a simple one. You're right that somebody escapes into the bottle, or the line, or whatever. That you can criticize. They make that choice, at some point - even then, you have to ask yourself how come we have this very dangerous drug legally available. But once the occasion becomes a habit, and the habit becomes an addiction, you've gone past that window, the addiction now fuels itself, that is how our brains are wired, we function, on an animalistic level, in an award structure, we are all fix driven. Especially for women, this is very dangerous, as one of their potential awards is to get pregnant. Women's brains are wired for this - the mother of six with octuplets is a very stark reminder of how strong this instinct is. Husband away, where he does not have to take responsibility for anything, even his own life, wifey, kids, the bottle - see the pattern? For many in the military, the availability of a life where they have no responsibility, is the reason why they enlist, why they make the military their family.
And then you raise some interesting points about the military. The military is not, as you would have it, "a weird organisation governed by archaic rules and customs". That is society you just described. There is nothing weird about the military, it is an organization like many others, with its strengths and weaknesses, dichotomies, and unwieldly civil service mass.
Journalist Gwen Dwyer said it most eloquently, in an essay on the purpose of the military: Soldiers are paid to die. That's it, that is all there is - they don't defend anything, they don't solve anything, they don't create anything, they don't build anything, they are at the root nothing but a flesh-and-blood barrier between whatever has bad intentions toward us, and us. We pay them to get shot up and blown to bits.
Spouses and partners of service members don't always understand this, but for those that do, there aren't any training classes. I look at the yellow ribbons in my neighboorhood and then wait to see if they eventually get replaced with balloons, or with the Stars-and-Stripes at half staff. But for the families, there is a stark truth that many civilians are not at all prepared for: your loved one is supposed to come home in a box. There is a reverse percentile at work here - the soldier does not have an xx% chance of dying, s(he) has an xx% chance of surviving.
I tend to turn your argument around - and I can say I personally have certainly adjusted my circumstances to my risk. A soldier who finds a partner, starts a family, and then picks up his kit and goes to deployment, that soldier is selfish and irresponsible. I know that I only ever had a spouse, and that I squared away with her and updated my will and got my shots and did all that other good stuff, before going to deployment. I knew that it was my responsibility not to leave a dependent wifey and the kids sitting alone back home waiting to see if I would get back at all, and in what state. You just cannot ask a spouse or partner "if they're OK with it all", because they can not, and will not, imagine what is about to happen. They did not become your partner so they could lose you. They're thinking you will come home.
When you have this conversation where you get your affairs in order and everything sorted with your partner, you can say the words and see the recoil, the not-understanding, and the mental refusal to deal with what you yourself have come to terms with. Because: this is your choice, it is not, and never was, theirs. They have no tools to comprehend.
So I don't think anybody is doing anything wrong, least of all the OP - she did not have the tools. And her husband was not a trained psychologist.
Where I believe the military is at fault, is that it does not with honesty tackle this issue. It does not have a "death 101" training course, where the average soldier is fully acquainted with their future - before they sign up, after they have had basic training, you come to class and there is your body bag, there is your coffin, with your name and number on it. Where the soldier is actively discouraged to have a family, during their service. I don't know who ever had the idea it would be good to have your service members grounded in society, with a normal familial structure - it's not, that is a complete joke. There isn't anybody who can make me believe that the soldier with wife and two kids at home is well placed in an assault batallion, where s(he) has to go forward knowing what the odds are. It is not like that in any other profession, there is a risk, but not the certainty. And there isn't any way that the civilian spouse or partner can connect with that. So don't blame them, because their life is a crap shoot they didn't know they signed up for.
Off my soap box...
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RE: Off the wall question, probibly stupid - 
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