First Responders and Addictions – we don’t often put these two together, yet the reality of what it’s like for police officers, firefighters, EMTs, ER nurses or soldiers (and those who love them) day in and day out makes today’s guest post by Dan Willis a must read. Addictions develop (a person is not born an addict.)  Addictions start with substance misuse or repeatedly practicing unhealthy behaviors. Understanding this and reading Dan’s guidebook can help a person avoid developing an addiction, as well.

Dan Willis is a police captain with the La Mesa Police Department near San Diego and is the author of an emotional survival guidebook titled Bulletproof Spirit: The First Responders Essential Resource for Protecting and Healing Mind and Heart (New World Library, Sept. 2014). Captain Willis is a former homicide detective and SWAT Commander who developed and coordinated his agency’s wellness program. He can be reached via email at dwillis1121@yahoo.com.

First Responders and Addictions – Emotional Wellness Strategies to Protect, Heal, and Nurture the Spirit – by Dan Willis

First responders comprising our police, fire personnel, paramedics, the military, hospital nurses and trauma workers, tend to suffer immeasurably from the inherent acute stress and trauma of their professions. Consistently being immersed in violence, tragedies, danger, and suffering can often scar their spirits, leading to self-destructive behaviors that devastate their families and their own well-being.

Nearly 25% of first responders suffer from various addictions ranging from alcoholism, prescription drug and other substance abuse, gambling, sex, and others. They have twice the rate of alcoholism as the general population. Every year suicide is the number one cause of death for police and nearly 120,000 officers are working with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

However, becoming “victimized” by their beloved professions is not inevitable. There are effective proactive emotional survival and wellness strategies that can help prevent self-destructive behaviors while helping to protect, heal, and nurture the spirits of those who serve. These wellness strategies are also just as effective for not only loved ones of first responders, but anyone suffering from debilitating stress or addictions.

Why First Responders Suffer from Addictions

The nature of the work of first responders in addition to their compassionate spirit can leave them susceptible to suffering, and if left unchecked, self-destructive behaviors. Constantly being immersed in the middle of heartaches can become toxic and eventually debilitating—where untrained first responders unwittingly try to relieve their emotional pain, or try to forget, through addictive behaviors. Such maladaptive coping behavior prevents the first responder from positively processing stress and trauma in a constructive manner.

Tragically, seeking professional help can still be looked upon as a weakness within these professions, leaving these heroes on their own to try the best way they are able to cope with all those terrible things that no person should ever have to experience. First responders are human—they suffer, fear, and bleed like everyone else. Yet they receive little, if any training on how to become resilient and keep their spirit healthy, well, and at peace.

Warning Signs of Being Susceptible to Addictions

There are several warning signs that a first responder, or anyone for that matter, is suffering from a damaged spirit and susceptible toward self-destructive behaviors and addictions:

1. Isolation: First responders tend to come home and isolate themselves, so that they can unwind and get ready for the next shift. They become disengaged and indifferent. This creates distance and frustration in relationships.

2. Anger: The first responder will tend to become increasingly angry at things that never used to bother them. Family members walk on egg shells fearing another angry outburst that they don’t understand.

3. Sleep problems: 40% of first responders have serious sleeping disorders, and only get about 4-5 hours each night—when 8-9 hours are needed for their emotional, physical, and mental well-being.

4. Depression: Left unattended, the negative aspects of their jobs can leave them feeling not only exhausted all the time, but depressed, moody, and agitated.

5. Drinking as a perceived need: Drinking as a need in order to relax, fall asleep, or to forget, is a significant warning sign that your spirit has not been processing stress and trauma.

6. Becoming emotionally dead: As a way to cope with being able to do their job while in the midst of heartache and helplessness, first responders develop the natural reaction of shutting down emotional feelings. Over time this tends to make them unable to feel—being emotionally dead inside, detached from everyone, and indifferent to everything. This, of course, becomes devastating to personal relationships.

7. Lack of Communication: As an officer increasingly withdraws, they will tend to make the serious mistake of keeping everything inside. This becomes serious because, as their communication skills diminish, they will refuse to talk about how work is affecting them. Feelings of depression, anxiety, helplessness, anger, fear, and other negative emotions will then tend to intensify.

8. Cynicism, Distrust, and Loss of Work Satisfaction: If any of these warning signs are not addressed, the officer will likely become highly dissatisfied at work, extremely cynical, and distrustful of most everyone. This cynicism and negative outlook can send them into a downward spiral that eventually could affect every aspect of their quality of life.

It is essential to treat, protect, and train all components that make us human, our mind, body, and especially our spirit. It is our spirit that is so critically important. It is our spirit that enables us to cope with stress, overcome trauma, and serve with compassion. Our spirit is the reservoir of our motivation to be committed to public service and helping others, to be inspired, and to be hopeful. Our spirit is the foundation for our mental, emotional, and physical health. We neglect our spirit at the expense of our own well-being.

Proactive Wellness Methods to Protect, Heal, and Nurture the Spirit

The first step for a first responder to “bulletproof” their spirit is to learn to become more self-aware of not only how the job may be adversely affecting them, but what emotional survival methods may be effective to maintain their wellness. They should periodically be asking themselves questions, such as “What can I do to more constructively process stress and feelings of frustration?” “What can I do to be more engaged with my family and loved ones?” “What can I do to better promote my health and wellness?”

Following are several emotional-survival and wellness principles that officers should be trained in as part of a proactive wellness program. All of them can help improve coping ability, mitigate stress, prepare an officer to more effectively process trauma, and enhance their overall wellness.

1. Serve with Compassion: Search for ways to express and demonstrate service with compassion. The virtue of service is fundamental in making an officer feel alive and useful. The most meaningful things in life cannot be seen or touched, but are felt with the heart. A compassionate way of life and serving helps an officer become less self-centered and more useful to others. The more they learn to selflessly give of themselves in kindness, caring, and compassionate service, the more meaning, purpose, and joy they will experience in their lives and work. A police officer with a vibrant spirit is driven by the heart to solve problems, help those in need, and make the world, home, community, and work better places to be. It is important to their spirit to learn to focus on what their spouse, children, community, work colleagues, and others need from them rather than what they want from others.

2. Remain Active with Life-affirming Interests: First responders need to remain involved in activities they found fun and interesting before becoming a first responder. Any activity away from work that breathes life into their spirit needs to be maintained.

3. Establish a Support System: Develop a trusted support system made up of family and friends. Officers should discuss with them what to expect, how they are likely to behave after a critical incident, and how they can best support and most effectively help the officer. Officers’ physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being, as well as the quality of their life, all depend on their level of preparedness and the development of an effective support system who will remain nurturing and caring.

4. Get an Annual Emotional-Survival-and-Wellness Checkup: As a form of prevention and wellness maintenance, officers should consult with a psychologist specializing in treating emergency first responders and trauma to determine if they are being adversely affected by past trauma and to gain insight into how to deal with trauma and stress more effectively.

5. Questions to Discover a Path toward Healing and Wellness: First responders should look deep within themselves to determine the following:

1. What gives meaning and purpose to their professional and personal lives?
2. What provides hope, comfort, and happiness?
3. What are their ethics and character values and how can they be improved?
4. How do they maintain perspective and keep in touch with the most important people in their life?
5. In what ways do they work to improve the quality of their relationships?
6. In what ways do they harm those relationships?
7. In what ways do they show the most meaningful people in their life how much they are valued?
8. In what ways do they nurture their spirit?

6. Get More Consistent, Good Sleep: A study by the Harvard Medical School found that 40 percent of peace officers have sleeping disorders. In addition, this study showed that 86 percent slept only four to six hours each night. Lack of good sleep will worsen an officer’s mood, decrease their alertness, interfere with their decision-making ability, impair their task performance, cause serious emotional and physical problems, and reduce their ability to concentrate and generally think.

7. Exercise as a Way of Life: Maintaining a consistent exercise activity level is essential, because it will significantly reduce a first responder’s stress level, reduce their chances of getting injured, and enhance their coping abilities. Consistent exercise will reduce their chances of getting a heart attack or acquiring type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. It will also significantly reduce tension while they’re off duty and enable them to get more consistent sleep.

8. Always Have Goals: First responders should learn to develop professional and personal goals that are reasonable and attainable which consist of short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals that they can work toward every day. This will help keep work and life moving in a positive direction.

9. Practice Letting Go: First responders need to learn to be aware of how much they identify with negative thoughts and emotions, while learning to let them go. Every time they become aware of feeling a negative emotion, they should work to replace it with a more positive one. Every negative emotion, including anger, sadness, jealousy, envy, hurt feelings, revenge, and being unforgiving, acts as a heavy weight on their spirit and significantly depletes energy.

10. Think Positively: Positive, optimistic thinking is a proactive approach to improving a first responder’s mind-set and life by practicing a more positive and constructive attitude. The consistent practice of positive thinking has an innate power to reduce stress, improve coping skills after trauma, reduce the intensity and duration of depression, and even improve overall health. A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health, success, improved opportunities, and favorable results.

Conclusion

A career as a first responder involves sacrifice, a giving of oneself, and a selfless devotion to protect and give life to others. Inherent in these noble professions is a continual assault upon their spirit. Combating the evil actions of others while trying not to suffer with their victims makes it a daily struggle to emotionally survive—often leaving the first responder susceptible to depression, substance abuse, and addictions.

It is not inevitable that first responders will suffer and become a victim of their profession. The consistent practice of proactive emotional survival and wellness principles can enable first responders not only to emotionally survive but to thrive throughout their career. It is imperative for them to work at “bulletproofing” their spirit because the protection of their community, the quality of their personal and professional life, the happiness of their family, and the wellness of their spirit all depend upon it.