Stress and substance use among military women and men

This paper examines the relationship between perceived stress (at work, in family or personal life, and from being a woman in the military) and substa nce use (heavy drinking, illicit drug use, cigarette smoking) among active- duty military women and men. Data were drawn from over 16,000 respondents t o the 1995 Department of Defense Survey of Health Related Behaviors Among M ilitary Personnel. Findings indicated substantial substance use and perceiv ed high stress in the armed forces. Further, the relation between substance use and stress varied by gender. Military women reported substantially low er rates of heavy drinking than men, but had similar rates of illicit drug use and cigarette smoking. Both military women and men were more likely to describe their military duties as more stressful than their family or perso nal lives; for women, the stress associated with bring a woman in the milit ary was second to stress at work. Stress at work or in the family was an im portant predictor of substance use among military men, but not among milita ry women. For military women, stress associated with being a woman in the m ilitary was predictive of illicit drug use and cigarette use. These finding s suggest that more effective stress management strategies may need to be i mplemented for military men to reduce the link between stress and heavy alc ohol use, illicit drug use, and smoking.