Alcohol Abuse Less Common Among Soldier's who have Killed in Combat

A recent study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence shows that soldiers in combat who've killed others are less likely to resort to alcoholism as a form of self-medication.

"We were very surprised by the findings. Most previous research supported the prediction that more traumatic experiences would lead to more negative health outcomes, such as alcohol abuse," said lead study author Cristel Russel, an assistant professor at American University's Kogod School of Business, in a news release. "We found the opposite -that the most traumatic experiences of killing in combat actually led to a decrease in alcohol abuse post-deployment."

In the study, researchers discovered that the act of killing other soldiers actually creates an increased sense of mortality and vulnerability for some of these individuals. Furthermore, this may reduce their likelihood to engage in certain risk activities related to substance abuse.

"We reason that a possible explanation may be that soldiers who experience killing during combat become more aware of their own vulnerability to death. Mortality salience is known to have effects on decisions that people make including, in our case, the decision to not take risks and abuse alcohol, presumably to live longer," said Russell, via the news release. "This is a post hoc explanation and our future research is going to try and explore this intriguing explanation further."

"It is important for healthcare providers and researchers to better understand and account for the fact that traumatic events do not necessarily result in a negative outcome and that positive outcomes can in fact be born from traumatic events," Russell concluded. "Building on these findings, future research should take into account the degree to which individuals are equipped to deal with stressful situations and assess how coping strategies may affect their behavioral response to potentially traumatic events. There may be ways to promote coping pre- or post-traumatic experiences."