Alcohol abuse on rise among US soldiers: reports

Nearly twice as many US army soldiers today are either alcoholic or engage in damaging behavior such as binge drinking than six years ago, and experts blame the rise on repeated tours in war zones. A report in the USA Today daily on Friday said US army statistics showed more than 11 soldiers per 1,000 were diagnosed in the first six months of this year as suffering from alcoholism or alcohol abuse problems such as binge drinking -- a jump from 6.1 per 1,000 in 2003. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told the national daily that he believed eight years of combat were at least partially responsible for the rising number of US soldiers with alcohol disorders. Experts at a conference held in New York last month said excessive drinking was a huge problem among US military personnel, even in combat zones in Muslim countries, where alcohol is banned. To blame for the high rate of substance and alcohol abuse among today's troops were multiple tours of duty in combat zones, with extended periods of time away from family and home, panelists at the conference, sponsored by the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse, said. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, showed more than four in 10 active-duty military personnel had gone on an alcohol binge in the month prior to the poll. "Binge drinking, defined as consuming four or more drinks on one occasion for a woman or five or more drinks on one occasion for a man, was reported by 43 percent of active-duty personnel during the past month, resulting in a total of ... 30 episodes of binge drinking per person per year," the study said. One in five members of the military binge drinks "on average more than twice per week ... putting themselves and others at substantially increased risk for a wide range of health and social problems" and potentially having a negative impact on force readiness, the report said. Binge drinkers were substantially more likely to "report being drunk while working and being called to work during off-duty hours and reporting to work drunk," the study found. Young Hispanic males serving in the Marine Corps or Army -- the two branches of the US military which are most often on the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan -- showed "especially high numbers of per-capita episodes of binge drinking," the report said.