In 1971, RobertSteele from Connecticut and Morgan Murphy from Illinois, two U.S.
representatives, made an official visit to a war zone, Vietnamand they got very disturbing news about the soldiers. They told that 15% ofU.S. army was addicted to heroin.
This news was spread in America and everyonewas stunned. Then, president RichardNixon promised to make a new office called The Special Action Office of DrugAbuse Prevention for rehabilitation from addiction.All theaddicted soldiers were not allowed to leave Vietnamunless they clear they drug addiction. They did not expect that soldiers willrecover so fast. Lee Robins was the main the psychiatricresearcher. Her studiesshowed that when soldiers came back to U.
S. 95 percent of them were clean andwithout addiction. Only 5 percent ofthem were re-addicted to the heroin.The normalpattern of heroin addiction is- they get clean from the clinics or rehab centers but as soon as they go to their homethey get re-addicted but Vietnam soldiers were different. The habits weretriggered in certain situations and under certain conditions and it was temporary. How did addiction start in war?The war is a stressed situation and they were in contactwith fellow soldiers who were addicted to heroin.
The influencing factor was surrounding environment. For example- if you’resingle person who doesn’t consume heroin andall your fellows are consuming in front of you, then they convince you to justtry a little bit. But ones you’re involvedthen it’s getting difficult to get awayfrom it, especially in a war situation. Weget pushed away in situations. But oncethey return to home- a place withoutstress and where there is no fellow heroin useris the suitable condition.
In war, there were no family and no one to stop themfrom using heroin. But at home, you aresurrounded by your loving family, friends and you don’t think about consuminganything. So the absence of any externalstimuli also triggered the addiction. What can you learn from Vietnam soldiers?External stimuliand supports play the important role in changing human behavior. Don’t takeor make any decisions under stressed situations. If yourfriend or any relative is addicted to any drug abuse, then be supportive andhelp them to get out of it.
Motivation, emotions is necessary to recover fromdrug abuse.War is astressed situation; it’s not easy to live alone without family, many soldiersreturn from war with post-traumaticconditions. The environment isthe important factor, for example, if youwant to learn something new then surround yourself with the things related tothat.
