What are the underlying causes for these problems? Why are we confronting these problems?

Yeah, so that's a great question.

So one of the things I noticed and really kind of inspired some of the work or presentations I do, I noticed that there was this a little bit of a misconception in the mental health field, especially and probably in the general population, that if a veteran is struggling with some kind of mental health challenges or substance challenges after service, that it must be tied back to some kind of trauma that they experienced in the service, whether on the battlefield or military sexual trauma or maybe a training mishap or something that they experienced that was a catalyst for the suffering or the way that they experienced struggle to re-engage in life after military service.

So as a population, veterans are more than 200% more likely to struggle with mental health challenges or suffer with addiction.

One in five post-9-11 or GWAT veterans is expected to experience or be diagnosed with PTSD.

And sadly, many more than 20% will experience some pretty severe symptoms of PTSD.

So what I have found is that regardless of what a veteran experiences while they're in the military, that transition from military service itself can be traumatic.

How does that work?