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United States National Guard members have been active in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan along with the rest of the US Military. Personnel have also shown rising trends in substance abuse, mental health disorders, and suicide. Alcohol and drug treatment must include services for all of the problems suffered by both active personnel and veterans.

Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began there has been a rise in prescription drug abuse and addiction among military personnel and veterans. The trend is mainly due to the use of these drugs to treat severe pain due to injury or mental disorders from combat trauma. The opiates and benzodiazepines used are highly addictive, and can easily be abused in severe circumstances.

Pain due to combat injuries needs to be treated in the short term with pain killers. In the long term, alternative treatments should be explored to prevent the negative effects that drug addiction can bring to the lives of individuals. And with combat injuries, physical pain is rarely the only issue that National Guard members suffer.

Mental and emotional trauma can cause many problems for combat and support personnel as well, even if they don’t suffer physical injuries. Prescription medications like Xanax and Valium may be used to calm anxiety. These are effective in the initial phases of treatment, but can cause serious long term effects if drug dependence takes hold.

If the underlying mental health issues are not properly treated with help from a psychological professional, individuals will become dependent on prescription drugs as the only solution. This makes drug treatment very difficult because the underlying fear of suffering takes priority over recovery from drug addiction to them. So the co-occurring mental health and substance abuse issues must both be treated as primary problems in treatment plans.

Tarzana Treatment Centers in Los Angeles is well equipped and staffed to treat all physical and emotional problems that National Guard members may suffer. We provide mental health treatment as part of our commitment to integrated behavioral healthcare in alcohol and drug treatment. If you or a loved one suffers from drug addiction or alcohol dependence, please call us now at 888-777-8565 or contact us here.

Southern California Locations for Alcohol and Drug Treatment
Tarzana Treatment Centers has locations all over Southern California in Los Angeles County. Other than our central location in Tarzana, we have facilities in Lancaster in the Antelope Valley, Long Beach, and in Northridge and Reseda in the San Fernando Valley.