A former elite soldier with the Canadian Forces says post-traumatic stress disorder caused him to descend into what he describes as his "train wreck years."
Steve Lively says he ballooned to 240 pounds, grew his hair down to his lower back and suffered from severe alcohol and drug addiction.
"It was self-medication to deal with what I was going through," said Lively, 46, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving on a number of tours, including to the Congo, Uganda and Rwanda.
He keeps a picture of himself from that time on the wall of his office: it's a reminder of a low he never wants to descend back into.
His PTSD became worse with each deployment and eventually Lively left the military. He now works for National Defence and speaks to soldiers about PTSD.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/06/14/ptsd-soldiers-redeploy.html?ref=rss
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