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Psyhical Trauma and Abuse of Drugs Among Croatian Combat Soldiers
Marin Dešković
Abstract
The paper considers the use of drugs as a means to alleviate the war trauma for those who took part in the war. Much attention has been paid to group of soldiers who started using drugs before they joined the Army (some used soft drugs some heroin). Due to war trauma they started to feel greater need up to the point of addiction. Since the data on the relationship between toxicological addiction and war trauma can mainly be found in the literature concerning Vietnam war veterans (their prevailing characteristic is that they started using drugs in the fie/d) we could say that thIS group, with its pre-war drugs experience, is the specific of the war in Croatia. After the war operations terminated the members of this group did not change their environment (due to defensive character of the war). Thoey remained a part of the narco-scene. This is why the problems connected with their addiction are completely different from the problems of US veterans who went through Vietnam war
Keywords
heroin; addiction; war trauma; comorbidity; self-medication
Hrčak ID:
202488
URI
Publication date:
22.12.1998.
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