The recent report of increasing suicide among the armed services population is an issue of a serious magnitude. It is a National crisis. What this report represents is a snap shot of what is about to hit every segment of this nation’s economic and labor structure, and may be the world. This is my third warning article in the past sixty days in which I sounded strong warning about the state of our youth’s mental health and chemical dependency crisis. This recent report (Army News Service, July 29, 2010) validates my recent blog articles reporting on the state of mental health and chemical dependence epidemic among our young people.

I have been working with young people for over a decade in various capacities and in different clinical settings. I have enormous interest in young people and studied extensively evidence-based Children and adolescent disorders and their treatments. I strongly believe a generation is as good as the one they left behind. This country is leaving behind a generation in crisis if we do not pay attention to this generation of young people.  Our young people are in serious mental health, chemical dependency and addiction crisis. I have not seen it this bad and it keeps getting worst. Because of their long history of chemical dependence, many of them suffer from what we characterize in clinical field as chemical induced mental disorders. This co-existence of mental illness and chemical dependence call co-occurring disorders affect every areas of these young peoples’ lives among which are school, job training and personal responsibilities.

Many of them failed out of schools and job trainings. They have been in and out of juvenile detentions, mental health and chemical dependence treatment facilities prior to becoming of enlistment age into the military. In many cases, their mental illness is camouflaged by their addiction and addictive behaviors. Many of them are suicidal and have attempted numerous times to take their lives. Most of them are on multiple psychiatric medications. Majority of them are not interested in sobriety. Many of them are not capable of holding down a job and are only interested in doing very minimal with the least  possibly challenges.

Majority of these young people use the military as the only avenue to rebuild self-worth and hopes for a decent life. Their mentality is that they would survive the military life once they make it through the basic training. For some of them, attraction for the military is part of the dynamics of their mental illness.  The problem is majority of these young men and women are not mentally and emotionally fit for the military. It does not seem the military training instructors and commanding structure is trained to deal with the spectrum of complex issues these young men and women bring into the military.

In a national crisis of this magnitude, citizens wonder who is to be blamed. There is a lot of blames to go around. However, finger pointing is not important at this time. There are some clear crystal facts—our young people are in serious trouble. The future of this generation is in danger unless all of us do something right now. The military recruiting system that brings these young people into a system they are not capable of succeeding in is broken.

One can build a valid case that the military’s recruiting screening and assessment tools at the point of enlistment is obsolete and inadequate. This obsolete and inadequate system breeds a weak military strength, and young men and women who believe they have failed again. Their failure and frustrations with life challenges induce increase dependence on chemical and addiction to other substance. Their acute dependence on chemical and addiction to other substances further complicate already existing mental illness leading to increasing rate of suicides among military population recently reported. Let’s face the facts; majority of these young men and women were already suffering from chemical dependence and mental illness before enlisting in the military.

If the military intend to have these young men and women serve despite their mental health and chemical dependence and substance abuse issues, the system has to be in place to identify their disorders and needs at the point of enlistment and adequate care provided to address those issues once they are there. The wave of what we are beginning to witness among the military population is the tip of the ice berg about what the future of the labor force in this country will looks like unless this nation moves quickly and do something today. This crisis will top the AIDS epidemic and will threaten the foundation of our economic and societal stability if nothing is done now. Wake up America!

By Dr Chris O’Banye

http://www.iiwih.org

Technorati Tags: addiction counselor, chemcial dependency counselor, clinical psycholgist, clinical psychology, Health psychology, Integrative healing, integrative medicine, integrative wellness and healing, International clinical psycholgist, International doctor of mind body medicine, International mental health professional, Mental Health and substance abuse healing, oklahoma city mental health, substance abuse

Related posts:

1. Generational Genocide: A systematic destruction of the mind-body-spirit of our next generation.
2. Talking From Both Sides of Your Mouth: Mind-body-spirit connection.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.