Army Doctor Speaks Out on Substance Treatment Abuse

Military doctor blames Army addiction program for 2 deaths 
USA TODAY
Gregg Zoroya
May 14, 2015

The Army Substance Abuse Program fell short for Army Specialist Christopher Hodges who later ended up on an expressway shooting at cars. During the shooting he killed a police officer, then himself.
USA TODAY

FORT GORDON, Ga. — Army psychiatrist Patrick Lillard still anguishes over that night four years ago, when a drunken soldier shot to death a sheriff's deputy along a shoulder of an expressway outside this base and then turned the assault rifle on himself.

Now Lillard has made an extraordinary decision to speak out about the case: If only the Army had listened to him, Spc. Christopher Hodges would have been in a hospital for alcohol addiction and two lives could have been saved.

Twice before the shootings, Lillard urged that Hodges, 26, an Iraq War veteran, receive at least a month of intensive treatment. Twice his recommendations were ignored by an Army substance abuse program that allows officers without a medical background to overrule a doctor.

"Two people died, and it could have been prevented," Lillard told USA TODAY. He called on the military to "step up — 'man up,' as they say in the Army — and admit this was a tragic mistake, or error, or whatever word they want to use. Take responsibility. Explain in plain language to the family of Christopher Hodges and the police officer and make sure it does not happen again."

USA TODAY reported in March that the Army's substance abuse program is in disarray, with thousands of soldiers turned away from needed treatment, dozens of suicides linked to poor care and too few qualified counselors. The Army responded to the story by ordering an ongoing investigation of all 54 substance abuse outpatient clinics.
read more here

Veterans' Court Saves Money and Helps Healing

Troubled Veterans Get Treatment, Not Jail
Hartford Courant
Peggy McCarthy
February 16, 2015

Mary Kate Mason, a spokesperson for the state mental health department, said, "The average cost of these services is about $420 per person per month" compared with the $2,895 monthly cost for incarceration.

Two programs that connect arrested veterans to treatment – rather than jail – report that many are getting their lives back on track.

Some 81 percent of veterans in the program run by the Veterans Health Administration have not been arrested again. And one run by the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services shows a 36 percent drop in illegal drug use among its veterans and a 44 percent decrease in symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

"So many people are getting what they really need, which is treatment and not incarceration," said Laurie Harkness, the VA program director. "It's making such a difference in so many veterans' lives."

The programs, designed to help veterans with mental health and substance abuse problems, operate in courts statewide, where social workers reach out to arrested veterans to let them know about treatment options for PTSD, anger management, and addictions, among other illnesses.

If a veteran agrees, the social worker will recommend treatment options to the court, and will guide veterans through the process. A judge decides whether to sentence the veteran to a treatment program instead of jail or other penalties, such as fines. The crimes committed range from motor vehicle violations to domestic violence charges to car thefts.
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Look back at where Veterans Courts began

The Buffalo Veterans Treatment Court

The Veterans Treatment Court originated in Buffalo, NY in January of 2008 and is presided by Judge Robert Russell and the assistance of court coordinator Marine Vietnam Veteran Hank Pirowski. There are several veteran mentors with varying degrees of experience who play an integral role in the function of the court. By giving defendants the opportunity of being guided by someone with whom they can relate to, these veteran mentors provide an essential function to the treatment court

Veterans Court Resource Guide National Center for State Courts

Lost Marine Found New Way Home

What PTSD Drove a Veteran to Before he Disappeared 
13 WHO News
BY DAN WINTERS
FEBRUARY 2, 2015

"It’s a raw, aching description of life 

with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."

DES MOINES, Iowa — Kate Lay had always been skeptical of love at first sight. She’s practical. She’s a surgical nurse who was born and raised in Iowa. But she says practicality flew out the window the first time she laid eyes on the man she would eventually marry.

“He was a Marine. So, he was big and buff, and beautiful. I fell in love with him right away,” she said.

After proposing, Brandon finished his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. They married, bought a house, and started life on their terms. She said Brandon’s job as a delivery driver wasn’t fulfilling his ambitious dreams of traveling the world and helping people. She could see that he was bored. Still, she never dreamed that one day he would disappear.

Kate said, “Everything that I thought I knew got torn out from underneath me.”

One day, she came home from work and Brandon was gone, along with his Jeep and his dog. Kate called the police. “I didn’t even know if he was alive.”

Several days later, Brandon finally called. He was in a small town in Montana. The secrets were about to be revealed. Kate explained, “Not a single person knew what was going on.”
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Vancouver SWAT Veteran Standoff Peaceful End

Allen St. standoff: Man sticks loaded gun in friend's face 
TDN News
Marissa Luck
January 31, 2015

Renford said Kennedy, a security worker the Weyerhaeuser Co. mill site, is a good person who has struggled with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. They served in the army together, including a stint in Iraq in 2004. Kennedy was having a hard time accessing treatment at Vancouver Veteran’s Affairs, Renford said, and was self-medicating with alcohol.

Rex Renford never expected his best friend to point a gun at his face. Standing at the end of loaded pistol, Renford said he feared for his life. But instinct and years of military training kicked in, helping him to disarm his friend Ronald Kennedy.

“I had to get the gun away from him,” Renford, 47, of Longview said Friday, the day after police arrested Kennedy after a two-hour standoff at his Kelso trailer home off Allen Street near Taco Bell and Burger King. “There was no thinking about it. It was do this or die.”

Kennedy, 47, was hanging out with Renford and another friend, Lynne Galloway, Thursday night when Kennedy’s ex-girlfriend Margaret Sullivan showed up to pick up belongings. Sullivan told police she and Kennedy had broken up last weekend. The couple got into a heated argument.

When Sullivan left, Kennedy wandered into his bedroom, drunk and upset, Renford said. Renford said he went to check on Kennedy and found him with pistol pointed at his head. He threatened to kill himself. read more here

California Doctor Will Practice Again After Drunk Doctoring

Drunk Doctor Who Passed Out at Work to Continue Treating Patients
NBC 7 San Diego
By Paul Krueger
Jan 16, 2015

A local doctor who drank so much he passed out at his medical office will be allowed to treat patients again. NBC 7 Investigates reporter Mari Payton explains how the state Medical Board is keeping tabs on this doctor and trying to protect his patients.

Lane told investigators his alcohol problem worsened when he returned from military service in Afghanistan and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

A local doctor who drank so much that he passed out at his medical office, will now be allowed to treat patients again.

Dr. Jason Lane collapsed while working with the Kaiser Zion Medical Group in October 2013, according to a formal accusation filed by the Medical Board of California.

Lane's blood alcohol level was .39, which is almost five times the legal limit, and his colleagues in the emergency room had to treat him for alcohol poisoning, as revealed in the Medical Board’s accusation.

Those documents, obtained by NBC 7 Investigates, also reveal that Dr. Lane drank more than two bottles of wine, the night before he collapsed at work.
read more here

Veterans Court Where Justice Considers Service

For veterans in legal trouble, special courts can help
CBS News
By INES NOVACIC
November 10, 2014

Every Wednesday Patrick Dugan, a judge at the Philadelphia Municipal Court and a captain in the U.S. Army Reserves JAG Corps, presides over a special kind of courtroom.

"You are here because it's your choice," he told a roll call of defendants as he opened court on a recentWednesday morning, pointing to the front bench behind the lawyers: "All these folks are here to ensure you take advantage of the benefits you are owed."

The "folks" in question were representatives from various agencies linked to the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), because all of the cases being heard in this court involved veterans of the U.S military. Almost everyone present served in combat, according to Dugan.

"It's kind of like a one-stop shop for veteran services," said Dugan. "We're streamlining, because on a county level, we now have the federal government in the courtroom to offer services."

Dugan added how the requirements demanded by veteran courts are much more stringent than a typical criminal defendant experiences: "What I want our veteran defendants to understand is, if you're coming into my courtroom, you need to be ready to go to treatment. You need to be ready to address the underlying issues that cause the criminal behavior."
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PTSD Afghanistan Veteran Fights Demons With Help

Mark Patinkin: A soldier finally faces his demons
Providence Journal
By Mark Patinkin
Journal Columnist
Published: November 09, 2014

Courtesy of Tim Laprade
Tim Laprade's unit, 2nd Platoon, B Company, 27th Engineer Battalion, nearing the end of deployment in March 2007

Tim Laprade lay in bed in his Providence apartment unable to sleep. He had taken a Benadryl to help but it wasn’t working and he knew why. Laprade had served two tours in Afghanistan and like many soldiers, felt lost when he got home — now he’d agreed to be interviewed about it the next day and he could not sleep.

His apartment is in Elmhurst. Laprade, 30, shares it with his girlfriend. He recently moved there to be walking distance from the Providence VA Medical Center. Most days, he goes in for counseling and group sessions.

If it weren’t for the VA, Laprade was sure he’d still be homeless and using. Or perhaps gone. It was crazy that he turned down VA help for so long, but that’s what soldiers do — they feel they should handle it on their own. He’d learned that doesn’t work.

It’s why he agreed to be interviewed. Perhaps, Laprade felt, if he told what he’d been through, others would recognize themselves.

Now, as he lay there awake, knowing he’d be asked about it, his mind went to one of the worst moments.

He was in the back of an armored vehicle returning to base after an all-day route-clearing mission.

That’s what he did for a year during his second Afghanistan deployment — drove down roads to find and detonate IEDs. Laprade was full-time Army and proud to do the job — all his battle buddies were. But every day, often every moment, he expected something to happen.
read more here

Veterans sleeping on the street down 40 percent

Number Of Homeless Vets Sleeping On Street Drops Nearly 40 Percent In 4 Years
The Huffington Post
By Robbie Couch
Posted: 08/27/2014

Thousands of homeless veterans have found stable housing in recent years, thanks to federal, state and local initiatives combating the crisis.

According to a press release issued Tuesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), data collected from the annual Point-in-Time Count showed there were 49,933 homeless veterans in the U.S. in January, reflecting a 33 percent decline since 2010. The data also revealed a nearly 40 percent drop in the number of veterans sleeping on the street.

The decline continues a downward trend: Last November, the VA announced a 24 percent reduction in veteran homelessness over the previous three years.
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One year in Vietnam changed PTSD veteran's life forever

Vietnam experience sent soldier into dark spiral
The Desert Sun
Sherry Barkas
August 16, 2014

Ezra “Jim” Pratt was born and raised in Indio, where he lives again today. A member of the Indio High School Class of 1963, he was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War.
(Photo: Sherry Barkas/The Desert Sun)

“My physical wounds healed quickly, but the spiritual, psychological wounds still today can give me trouble,” Pratt said. “I started to question, ‘Is there really a God and why has he got me here going through this,’ ” he said, sitting in his sparsely furnished Indio home.

One year on the front lines in Vietnam put Ezra “Jim” Pratt’s life on a different course, forever.

He went over thinking he was doing something positive for the country and returned with a hardened outlook on the war and the United States’ involvement.

“I wasn’t in Vietnam a month and I realized it was just some kind of race between the communists and capitalists...,” he said. “We were just kids.”

“I came from a middle-class family and thought I would get married and go to work at the same job for 30 years,” said the recipient of a Bronze Medal for valor and a Purple Heart. “I got over there and I started questioning life in general. I got involved in something so terribly horrifying, it killed my spirit.”

His life since has been wrapped in addiction, relationships and jobs he couldn’t hold for long and some time in prison on drug charges, Pratt said.

It was a diagnosis 25 years later of post-traumatic stress disorder that finally helped Pratt get his life on track, showing him the root of his anger and ways to curb it without becoming violent. With that he also sought help for his substance abuse.
read more here

Corps probes Marine Suicides,,,,again

Ending it all by their own hand: Corps probes Marine suicides
Service hopes to halt a 'trajectory toward death'
The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun
By Brett Kelman and Drew Schmenner
Mar. 24, 2014

As the sun rose over the sleepy desert town of Yucca Valley, Sgt. Martin Francis Scahill stood in his backyard, a black 12-gauge shotgun pressed against his chin, a single shell in the chamber.

After contemplating suicide for months, Scahill pulled the trigger. His body fell backwards onto the ground, the shotgun landing between his legs.

It was 6:30 a.m., April 5, 2010, the day after Easter Sunday. Blood seeped into the sand.

Forty-five minutes later, two deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department rang the doorbell at the Scahill home, waking his wife, who was asleep on the couch. Together, they found the body in the backyard. Scahill's belongings were scattered around his bedroom.

A laptop was left open, lingering on an image of his infant daughter, Emma. A gun box was open with a revolver inside, unloaded. A box of shotgun shells sat on a nightstand, one shell missing. A notepad rested on the bed, covered with messages his wife scribbled during an argument the night before.

Scahill is one of at least 16 service members — 15 Marines, and one sailor — who committed suicide from 2007 to 2012 while at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms. That tally does not include one Marine from the Combat Center who killed himself while deployed to Iraq in 2008.

The military has not yet released base-specific suicide data from 2013. A Combat Center spokesman said he could not confirm how many Marines had killed themselves at the base last year because he could not speak for the multiple battalions that operate at the base.
read more here

Homeless veterans too proud to seek help or unaware

Before you read this, there is something we need to consider. Assuming they returned from combat with no support is part of the problem. While it is true that not all of our veterans had supportive families to return to, the truth is deeper than that. Many families did not understand what combat did to many of them. They did not understand the change and had no tools to cope or help. They ended up making PTSD worse.

There was a time in our life where I reached that point with my husband even though I knew what PTSD and how to help him. I felt as if there was nothing more I could do and I wanted him out. The shelter in Boston was full. Hundreds of others were either there or on the waiting list. If I ended up feeling that hopeless with him, think about how much harder it is for families when they have no understanding at all.

Revisiting those dark days now is painful. We got married 30 years ago. I have seen the worst but I have also seen healing. Not just in him, but in myself as well. Getting help offers hope for them and those who love them. It also restores the idea that they are not worth less than they were when they wore their uniform.

Self-medicating homeless vets not seeking help they need
Bridge Magazine
by Ted Roelofs
13 March 2014

On a bitter January day when the wind chill hit 20 below in Grand Rapids, U.S. Army veteran Chad Long headed from a downtown mission to a drop-in center for the homeless a few blocks away.

He had been homeless four months.

“Man, it sucks to be here,” he said. “I feel like anybody who served (their country) should have a place to lay their head, not with 150 other guys.”

Long, 35, served in Germany from 1999 to 2002. He said he did well enough for himself after the military, earning good money as a construction worker and construction site supervisor. But a drug habit, three knee surgeries and two bulging discs in his back knocked him off his feet.

He said he has been clean for months. But he has yet to seek help from the array of programs available to aid veterans. “I just never reached out,” he said.

Experts say Long is typical of many homeless veterans, individuals either too proud to seek help or unaware of programs to help them find jobs and housing.

“There are all these men out there and they don’t know we are there to help,” said Joyce Hopp, homeless veteran outreach specialist for Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids, a nonprofit that offers job training and support services for people with barriers to employment.

Vietnam War U.S. Army veteran William Yates, 68, said he found himself homeless in January, following surgery and a lengthy recovery at the Veterans Administration hospital in Ann Arbor.

During his stay there, he lost the Grand Rapids apartment in which he had been living.
read more here

Ex-VA doctor says she was forced out after limiting opiate prescriptions

The stories we need to know!
RETURNING HOME TO BATTLE

Ex-VA doctor says she was forced out after limiting opiate prescriptions
The Center for Investigative Reporting
Aaron Glantz
The Center for Investigative Reporting
Byron Pitts
ABC News
Feb 25, 2014

Dr. Basimah Khulusi says she was forced out of her job as a rehabilitation specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Kansas City, Mo., after patients complained that she would not prescribe high doses of opiates. She says many of her patients had been addicted to opiates for years yet received escalating doses from VA doctors as their tolerance built.
Credit: ABC News

On the eve of a congressional hearing about the Department of Veterans Affairs’ skyrocketing use of narcotic painkillers, a former VA doctor has stepped forward with new allegations about the agency’s prescription practices.

In an exclusive interview with The Center for Investigative Reporting and ABC News, Dr. Basimah Khulusi said she was forced out last year after patients complained that she would not prescribe high doses of opiates.

“I had to do something about it. And I tried,” said Khulusi, a rehabilitation specialist who worked at the VA hospital in Kansas City, Mo., for five and a half years. “And then, you know, I was let go.”

In September, CIR revealed that VA prescriptions for four opiates – hydrocodone, oxycodone, methadone and morphine – surged by 270 percent between 2001 and 2012.

That far outpaced the increase in VA patients and contributed to a fatal overdose rate of nearly double the national average, the agency’s own scientists found.

CIR’s report helped spark a congressional hearing. At that hearing in October, VA officials promised to present a plan to address problems with opiate prescriptions within 30 days. A follow-up oversight hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Khulusi said the majority of veterans she saw in the pain clinic already were addicted to prescription opiates – receiving doses as high as 900 narcotic pain pills a month and 1,000 milligrams of morphine a day, 10 times the level she considered safe.
read more here VA's lack of pain treatment options led to opiate addiction, veteran says VA’s opiate overload feeds veterans’ addictions, overdose deaths

Military suicide prevention leaders frustrated

Military Core Values: They Don't Exist
Huffington Post
Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff
Former Special Assistant for Values and Vision to the Secretary and Chief-of-Staff of the U.S. Air Force
Posted: 02/03/2014

At a military DUI-prevention lecture, the speaker announced that if we wanted to commit suicide, that was our right -- but we shouldn't do it by driving drunk, where we could kill others.

Those of us involved in suicide prevention programs were frustrated by the instructor's blinders, even angry -- but not surprised.

Military initiatives aimed at preventing a host of problems -- DUIs, suicide, sexual assault, substance abuse, ethics violations, and religious insensitivity, to name a few -- make up a patchwork quilt, with no coherent strategy to ensure programs reinforce each other.

Secretary of Defense Hagel responded to recent revelations of misconduct among senior leaders by ordering a review of "how the military teaches core values and ethical leadership" -- but the truth is that "the military" (the military as a whole) has no core values.

Instead there are three separate programs for service-specific values: different lists for Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force -- and outside DOD, another for the Coast Guard -- as if military personnel should live by different values depending on their uniform... and despite the fact that joint operations are more the rule than the exception.
read more here

Andrew Bailey Spencer: In service, abides

Andrew Bailey Spencer: In service, abides 
In life, Andrew Spencer had a constant desire to help people. His family hopes a memorial fund in his name will continue his commitment to others by helping to prevent deaths from substance abuse. Roanoke.com
Tonia Moxley
February 1, 2014

Photo courtesy of the Spencer family

His father says he was diagnosed late last year with “significant post-traumatic stress disorder.” Andrew died Jan. 19 after inhaling compressed gas used to clean electronic equipment.

Andrew Spencer served with the Army Corps of Engineers from 1992-2004.

BLACKSBURG — Andrew Bailey Spencer’s motto was simple. Whether he was helping the elderly find their groceries at his new job at Kroger, serving his country in Bosnia or power washing the walkways at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church’s columbarium, it was always “Andrew, at your service! How may I help you?” And although his ashes will now rest beside those of his late mother, Norrine Bailey Spencer, in the columbarium he tended, Andrew will still be at the service of his community.

Spencer’s family and his church have set up a memorial fund in his name to help prevent deaths from substance abuse, which took his life unexpectedly on the morning of Jan. 19. He was 41. “We wanted something that could serve a useful purpose and do some good,” his father, Ed Spencer, said of the fund. “Maybe save a life.”

Born in Delaware, Andrew Bailey Spencer was adopted and came to Blacksburg while still a young boy. As he grew, Ed Spencer said, his son became a gifted athlete, able to play nearly every sport he tried. He also showed a constant desire to help others and to take physical risks that often landed him in the emergency room. Andrew Spencer excelled in structured environments from an early age, his father said, working his way up to Eagle Scout and becoming a member of the Order of the Arrow, another scouting program. The young man tried college, but found his calling in the military. read more here

Iraq veteran battles for fallen Marine to be honored

A young man living in Mexico, desperate to escape the violence, headed to the US for a better life. He entered illegally. He wanted to go to college. He also wanted to be a US Marine. Rafael Peralta made sure he got his Green card allowing him to do both an became a citizen.

William Berry, also served in Iraq. He ended up serving in jail because of PTSD and drunk driving arrests connected to Combat PTSD.

Peralta's life ended when he put his body over a grenade to save other Marines. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor but only received the Navy Cross for heroism. Why? Because some said it was an accident that Peralta's body landed on the grenade.

When you think about the argument, one question needs to be answered. Since when does the military award the Navy Cross for an accident?

They don't. Basically they admitted that Peralta was a hero. It is something that has been fought for by many people across the country wanting to make sure that his life is honored accordingly to his heroism.

As for Berry, he was one of the ones responsible for cleaning blood off of Peralta's rifle.

Fallen Marine's rifle returns to U.S. soil
Richmond Times-Dispatch
BY LAURA KEBEDE
January 21, 2014

Almost 10 years after a Marine's heroic death during some of the Iraq war's heaviest fighting, a Virginia Marine veteran continues to hope the death will be recognized with a Medal of Honor.

William Berry, a longtime Henrico County resident who served in the Iraq war, wrote a letter from jail that brought the fallen Marine's rifle home to be put on display at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

Berry served as an armorer in Kuwait, Iraq and Japan after joining the Marines in 2003, making sure weapons were fully functioning and ready to go at a moment's notice.

Occasionally, Berry cleaned weapons of Marines who died in battle, and one in particular stood out — the rifle of Navy Cross recipient Sgt. Rafael Peralta.

Berry had known Peralta, though not well. They were in the same company and briefly served together in Fallujah, Iraq.

"We lost a lot of good people out there," Berry said.

Rafael Peralta was born in Mexico and entered the United States illegally to attend school in San Diego, in order to avoid gang violence in Tijuana. Inspired to become a U.S. Marine, he enlisted the same day he received his "Green Card" and earned his citizenship while serving in the Marine Corps.

His bedroom wall bore only three neatly-framed paper documents: The U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Rafael's Marine Corps graduation certificate. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor based upon the eye witness statement of the five Marines whose lives he saved. In a highly controversial move, the Secretary of Defense downgraded the award to the Navy Cross. Efforts continue by those whose lives he saved, as well as many other Marines, to see Rafael Peralta ultimately awarded the Medal of Honor for this action.
read more here

Calif. lawmakers say fallen Marine deserved military’s highest honor for valor

PTSD on Trial, Iraq Veteran shown mercy from legal case

Iraq war veteran to serve 18 months for DUI death
Richmond Times-Dispatch
BY MARK BOWES
January 6, 2014

An Iraq war veteran was sentenced today to serve 1½ years in prison for killing his best friend in an alcohol-related crash last summer on Branders Bridge Road in Chesterfield County.

Substitute Judge Walter W. Stout III of Chesterfield Circuit Court sentenced Aaron B. Christy, 30 – a Marine infantryman who served two tours in Iraq – to five years in prison with three years and six months suspended for involuntary manslaughter in the June 8 death of Andrew N. Buhrman, 29.

Although the maximum punishment for manslaughter is 10 years, state sentencing guidelines based on Christy’s record and social history called for an active prison term of 10 months on the low end and 2 years and 10 months on the high end.

Christy suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome related to his military service, along with “some other issues that he’s working through apart from alcohol abuse, said Chesterfield Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert J. Fierro Jr., who prosecuted the case.
read more here

Funniest Comic in Texas, OEF-OIF veteran with PTSD

A Q and A with Raul Sanchez, the Funniest Comic in Texas
Dallas Obsserver
By Danny Gallagher
Jan. 6 2014

Three tours with the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan left Raul Sanchez with post-traumatic stress disorder, crippling anxiety attacks and, at one time, a substance abuse problem. So, naturally he turned to comedy.

That might sound odd, but for Sanchez, the San Antonio standup comedian recently named the Funniest Comic in Texas in a competition among 24 handpicked funny-people at the Addison Improv, comedy is a form of therapy. Sanchez spoke to Mimxaster about how a comedy club's open mic night helped him through one particularly serious panic attack, his attempts to weave his military experiences into his act and the science of "why funny is funny."

When you were invited to the FCIT competition, did you think you were going to win? Uh, not really. I thought I had a pretty good chance because some of the material I used was strong. I didn't think, man, I know I'm going to win this.

I was a drug addict there for awhile and when I won Funniest Comic in South Texas [in 2012], I was doing a lot of drugs. So when I stopped doing drugs, I thought that maybe that would be like a factor, but thank goodness that it wasn't. It turned out much better. I think I performed a lot better, which is a dumb mentality to have, but I guess that what happens when you do that.
read more here

Veterans Court choice to "free of the demons that haunted them"

Fayette court program allows veterans to get physical, psychological help instead of jail time
Kentucky.com
BY JIM WARREN
January 1, 2014

Lexington veterans who run afoul of the law as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder, drug abuse or other issues stemming from their military service are getting a new chance under a recently launched court program.

The Fayette Veterans Treatment Court, which opened in early October, helps veterans get support and treatment for their physical and psychological problems as an alternative to simply sending them to jail.

Veterans who elect to go through the court — and can qualify — may have their sentences deferred while they enter an 18-month, court-supervised program of treatment and counseling.

The hope is that those who stick it out through the 11/2-year regimen will "graduate," ready to resume normal lives, free of the demons that haunted them.
read more here

Veterans can get help instead of jail time but not in all states

Why should it matter where a veteran lives? They serve this one nation side by side. They come home to different states in this one nation. So why are veterans courts not in all states? There are 104 veterans courts. California has the most veterans and they have 11. Texas has the next highest veterans population. They also have 11. Florida has the third highest. We only have 3.

Veterans can get help instead of jail time
MSNBC
By Erin Delmore
12/28/13

No one said coming home would be easy.

Nick Stefanovic, a Marine combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, had been warned by a Vietnam War veteran who let him know about the combat wounds that never heal.

“You made a sacrifice,” Stefanovic recalls being told. “This is something you have to live with.”

For Nick, that meant living out of his car, homeless and alienated, with a crippling addiction to the painkillers he popped to keep the demons away.

“I’m just going to take these pills until I die,” he remembers thinking.

Out of cash and pills, the former sergeant E-5 walked into a bank in 2009 with a stolen checkbook. He flashed his own ID and signed his name on the check at the counter.

Nick was busted. It saved his life, he says. “Being arrested is the first way of getting help.”

Rather than serve time jail, Stefanovic, along with the thousands of other veterans suffering from addiction and mental health problems, was offered a lifeline. Like the civilian drug and mental health courts that pull offenders with documented medical issues out of the traditional criminal court dockets, veterans treatment courts apply the same principles to former service members. Judges across the country are allowing the growing number of ex-military men and women to choose a treatment program instead of serving time.

“When you come home, what helped you survive on the battlefield doesn’t turn off immediately,” said Col. David Sutherland, co-founder of the Dixon Center and a former special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury are “the signature wounds of these wars,” Sutherland told msnbc. Nearly a third of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans treated at V.A. hospitals have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and one in six suffers from a substance abuse disorder.
read more here

The History Justice for Vets

The first Veterans Treatment Court was founded by the Honorable Robert Russell in Buffalo, New York in January, 2008, after he noticed an increase in the number of veterans appearing on his Drug Court and Mental Health Court dockets. Judge Russell saw firsthand the transformative power of military camaraderie when veterans on his staff assisted a veteran in one of his treatment courts, but also recognized that more could be done to ensure veterans were connected to benefits and treatment earned through military service. In response, Judge Russell asked his local U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and volunteer veterans in the community to join in creating a new court docket that would focus exclusively on justice-involved veterans. 

As of June 30, 2012 there are  104 Veterans Treatment Courts in our country with hundreds more in the planning stages. They involve cooperation and collaboration with traditional partners found in Drug Courts and Mental Health Courts, such as the

Judge Russell ensures veterans in court receive the treatment and services they have earned

prosecutor, defense counsel, treatment provider, probation, and law enforcement. Added to this interdisciplinary team are representatives of the Veterans Health Administration and the Veterans Benefit Administration– as well as State Departments of Veterans Affairs, Vet Centers, Veterans Service Organizations, Department of Labor, volunteerVeteran Mentors, and other veterans support groups. Veterans Treatment Courts admit only those veterans with a clinical diagnosis of a substance abuse and/or mental health disorder.

Veteran died in motel room hours after VA discharge

For some wounded veterans, strong prescription drugs can be cause of more pain
PBS News Hour
December 7, 2013

Transcript
GWEN IFILL: Next: a troubling account of the consequences of overprescribing addictive painkillers to veterans.

The death rate from overdoses of those drugs at Veterans Affairs hospitals is twice the national average. But data shows the VA continues to prescribe increasing amounts of narcotic painkillers to many patients.

Our story comes from the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The correspondent is Aaron Glantz.

AARON GLANTZ: U.S. Army Specialist Jeffrey Waggoner received a funeral with full military honors. He was medically evacuated out of Afghanistan in 2007 after he sustained a groin injury when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded during a house-to-house search.

But that's not what killed him. Waggoner survived his deployment. He died back home in this motel, just hours after being discharged from a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Oregon. While recovering from his wounds, Waggoner's mental state deteriorated. He became addicted to painkillers. And the Army sent him to the detox center at this VA hospital in Roseburg to get clean.
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