Newsbrief:
US
Troops
Go
from
Iraq
Combat
to
Scottish
Drug
Treatment
1/14/05
A Scottish hospital famed for its drug and alcohol treatment of patients from the British National Health Service is now treating US service men and women traumatized by their deployments in Iraq, the London Sunday Herald reported this week. The US Department of Defense has granted a treatment contract to the Castle Craig rehabilitation center in West Linton, Peebleshire. According to the Sunday Herald, Castle Craig is treating four US troops at a time, up to a maximum of 40 of the hardest cases each year. It is best known for the treatment of alcoholics and heroin addicts, including artist Peter Howson, who enrolled in 2000 to kick booze, but, according to the British newspaper, it is now seen as a "preferred provider" by US military leaders "who are flying in addicts from American bases across Europe." "We have been getting US troops in dribs and drabs," said Castle Craig chairman Peter McCann, "but there have been more coming over recently. I think they are being sent to all corners of Iraq and falling to pieces when they get back to base." Troops were coming from US bases in England, Germany, and Turkey to undergo four weeks of intensive, Alcoholics Anonymous-style drug treatment, he told the Sunday Herald. Castle Craig bills the US military's Tricare Insurance $2,625 a week for the soldiers' standard four-week stay, or slightly more than $10,000 per soldier. For British citizens, the program typically lasts six weeks, so, McCann said, US troops don't make it all the way through the AA 12-step program. Instead, they only complete the first five steps, which include "admitting their wrongs" in confidence to another. "We can have up to about four [US soldiers] at any one time, but there's a continuous stream coming in. There has been a step up in the numbers since Iraq." The US military's resort to the tender ministrations of Castle Craig may be a harbinger of more to come. According to an Army study released last month, military doctors expect up to 100,000 US Iraq veterans to return home suffering from mental or emotional disturbances. About 17 percent of Iraq veterans will suffer major depression, serious anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder, and will be especially susceptible to drug and/or alcohol abuse, the study predicted.
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