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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: quehubo who wrote (126419)	12/5/2009 10:19:19 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 542043

My father was a marine and in from the beginning. Almost his entire unit was killed- he received a field promotion, and he always told me it was because everyone else died. By the time he was done on Guadalcanal he had malaria, malnutrition, a wound and scurvy. He was sent to Australia to recover in hospital. He looks like a cadaver in a few of the pictures I have from his recovery period. Most of the vets my father knew were alcoholics. That whole greatest generation drank like fish, for the most part- but the vets ... Well anyone who had a vet who had seen heavy action in their family knows what I mean. And I think the Vietnam vets had the same experience. These guys saw things, in many cases, that made it tough to return to society, and even more importantly, they were asked to do things, that no human being wants to be asked to do. My father had a great deal of guilt over the war- probably survivor's guilt- and I think that's really hard to deal with. Do other people have problems with alcohol? Sure. But many people walking around in the world have emotional problems they are trying to deal with, and alcoholics are often simply self medicating. As long as people are grown ups, and they don't drive drunk or stoned, they should be able to take whatever drugs they think make them feel better. It's silly to have a punitive model for this. It just doesn't work. What we need is lots more treatment available for people who want to quit, and meds available for people who need them, and want to try them- and then we might have a shot at curbing dependency.