 Well, hello, and welcome to Blue Table Talk. I'm your host, Celia Mastar, and Candice Helder, and I'm joined today by a lovely group of experts. Today, we're going to have a conversation on preventing harmful behavior within the Air Force, and we're going to specifically take a look at how alcohol plays into that. This is often a conversation that is not usually discussed. However, we have seen an uptake in harmful behaviors across our Air Force, specifically as it relates to alcohol, so we're going to go ahead and have that conversation. I want to begin with a recent change to our administrative discharge process regarding civilian conditions. Major Campbell, can you talk about how this change affects airman convicted of a DUI? Absolutely. So in the context of alcohol-related incidents, one of our constant challenges is, how do we address the DUI problem? How do you address the DUI? It's something that is always kind of in the context when we're talking about alcohol-related incidents. So a recent change in the AFI for discharges is a mandatory discharge processing for airman convicted of DUI as caught face. Now, the AFI governs civilian convictions in general, but what gets roped up in there is DUI. So that has some serious career impact for airmen who are convicted. Now, before the change, commanders could initiate discharge for airman convicted of DUI, but in practice, that's not usually how it happened, especially for folks who it's maybe their first kind of incident of this conduct. But now, somebody is barely over the limit against that DUI conviction off the base. The commander has to initiate discharge processing. There is a waiver process, but typically what you're gonna see is it's an airman of their rank or their prior record, you're gonna see them facing the end of their career. I appreciate that. As we continue, Ms. Rose and Ms. Gonzalez. So as a Sarkin VA, do you believe there is a direct link between our sexual assault members and the air force in our culture around alcohol? Yes, so we believe that if members have military sexual trauma, then there are at increased risk for substance abuse disorders. So we know that a high percentage of our sexual assault incidents include drinking habits here. If you're talking with other side or do victims, then we know that a lot of those victims are drinking, whether that's the victim or the victim. If it is the victim, they kind of sometimes have to use alcohol as a coping mechanism. Once they tend to seek services, whatever kind of treatment that is, they tend to have three times more likelihood of a diagnosis for alcohol use disorder as a means of seeking treatment without a military sexual trauma system. We also have a few other implications here at Milne Hall. So the risk for sexual trauma and then DUIs is the same rank system. So it's gonna be those E-134. So those young airmen that are here at Milne Hall tend to be most at risk for sexual assaults and DUIs. Finally, so one of the last stats that I came across, there's a workplace and gender relation survey. And so what they found is 62% of sexual assaults for women and 49% of sexual assaults for male include alcohol used by the big more less vendor. Those stats are really high. No, those are really high stats. Those are also from the 2018 report because there's not staff in the 2021 report. So we're talking about the report that goes on the staffer.mil. They have not put that information for 2021, which I think looking at all the agencies here, we all know that all of us have an implication with alcohol, whether it's sexual assault, suicide, family violence. So I'd like to see those stats just to get a further idea of how we're continuing to see alcohol being stung as I can be with our women. Absolutely. And I think to circle back to your question, does the culture around drinking is it related to sexual violence? They kind of like Lisa touched on, it absolutely is. We know when we look at the culture of the military, and I'm gonna speak in kind of like big terms, it's a hyper masculine organization, right? And so what does it mean to be masculine? It means you use aggression when you need to. It means maybe it's more mainly to be able to have a lot of sex, to be able to hold your liquor to some of these toxic masculinity traits. And even though we're working on more gender equality and healthier views of gender, we still have some of the residual effects of old, really dichotomous ideas about what it needs to be a man or a woman. I think it's important to note that alcohol does not cause sexual assault, just like I know Mr. Nelson will touch on domestic violence as well, but it is a risk factor. And so like Lisa said, over half of women who are sexually assaulted are under the influence of alcohol and about half of men are under the influence of alcohol. And while these numbers are concerning, they're actually probably really low estimates. There's a lot of reason why people don't report, and I'm specifically speaking for women because that's what their research is on. Women, some of them are not gonna be supported and that's actually confirmed by research that if they are intoxicated, will this language be, why do they drink so much? Will it be, why did he go home with him being so impaired? And these questions really, I think support drinking culture, right? You should be able to handle your alcohol. When we think about how we address victims, I think what we're trying to switch the conversation to is more perpetrator-centric. Not why did you drink so much, why was she wearing that? But we also know perpetrators are at risk to engage in violence if they're intoxicated as well. And there's some different data on why this is. Do perpetrators seek out alcohol to have an excuse down the road as to why they perpetrated or does the alcohol disinhibit them to engage in violent behavior? And again, we need more research and more data on that. We know that the most likely scenario, both victim and perpetrator are drinking alcohol. And part of that is because in social contexts where one is drinking, the other probably drinking too. And so when we think about the Air Force and we think about social situations where sexual violence or violence occurs, there's a lot of drinking that occurs across the Air Force. We have some units with bars in the units. We have the Grog Bowl, our Air Force balls. We have alcohol. Oftentimes it's normal to go to the club and drink after work. And so this is going to be a highly likely opportunity for both perpetrator and victim to both be drinking. And just kind of one last thing I want to touch on. If you do have people in the community who want to engage in violence, oftentimes they don't even have to go out and drug their victim or feed their victim alcohol. This is happening kind of in our normal social context across the Air Force as a whole. Thank you for that. It's interesting, I'm thinking of a book by Malcolm Gladwell talking to strangers and where they talk about the alcohol culture. Well, they talk about the alcohol culture within the college community and how we get after having that discussion about how alcohol has its effects. No one would blame alcohol or humanized alcohol, but how do you get after knowing that these things correlate to these type of things? Yeah, that's such a good point because I think awareness is a huge piece in how we behave. And I'm sure, you know, Kat and we'll talk about this, but it impairs us, it's a drug. And so if you're a man, and I'm using some gender-specific language, but if you're a man who's initiating sex, which is normal in our culture for the men to initiate and the female or woman to say yes or no, if you're under the influence of a substance, it's actually more likely that you could misperceive that person's interest in you. And then let's say that person rejects you. If that person rejects you, if you're impaired, you don't have the same capability to rectify the situation and know how to handle that. So you may pursue that sexual contact still or be so embarrassed that violence may still occur, but we know that it is a mind-altering substance. So I think that that's a really good point. Thank you. Mr. Nelson and Ms. Moses, at the DAVA, can you speak to negative impacts of alcohol that you see in the family advocacy program in case it's not needed? So as Ms. Abbey mentioned, I'm a big proponent in saying people, alcohol is not a reason why you commit physical assault such as a partner or your family, right? For me, when we see alcohol, we look at it as, can you compare someone's judgment with your decision-making, right? And when we see in our families, it is domestic violence that's an incredible amount. And when somebody drinks alcohol, just take that trigger to increase that risk, whether it's starts from emotional and then something happens when you drink the drinks and then it's escalates to physical violence or sexual assault. As Abbey mentioned, those lines and sometimes the other negative moment where someone perceives their advances in the court. So that's what we tend to see. Yeah, I see a lot of families coming out of the therapy side who are doing it. They weren't like, oh, it's just the alcohol side of it, but when we did a little deeper and we talk about the history of the relationship, oftentimes there's that difference. But because they're not on the standpoint, they don't say the things that are sometimes on their mind. They don't do what they, maybe want to do, but because alcohol is explaining what's in its role, they let loose in regard to those standards and the filter is no longer there. And so that's when we really have a lot of work in the new acknowledging that it's not just at all the project, there are other things that we're not in that court order. A lot of families are under a lot of financial stress. Military, T.Y.S., and deployment for a really big community. So there's a lot of stress. So young children as well, that's why I'm happy to see we have two extra nursing martinis that are very specifically for those individuals because of that high stress. Yeah, I think something that I also saw that you just dug my memory on is, obviously reiterating alcohol is not the cause of violence. When you look at sexual perpetrators of appointments, sexual assault, oftentimes they come from violent homes. And I believe it's the same from a family advocacy standpoint. It's sort of, if someone's engaging in violence, it's what they saw, what was modeled for them because they don't have the coping or relationship skills and then alcohol at least inhibits them in those moments. Well, a lot of people go back to what they're used to and what they know, especially in our high stress time. And for a lot of families, using alcohol to cope is acceptable, right? Like that drink after dinner or maybe another, maybe a few on weekends. So it's really acceptable. And when you have so much stress and you're feeling so much pressure for a lot of families who are over a year, you don't have that. And you know, a lot of spouses come in and tell me, all day long, if I go to my business school, I'm home by myself. So yeah, I might have a glass of wine when I think about that word. And so it causes this whole idea that, I know there's a lot more to it than just now, but now, I know who's what and really like why and who's great. Sometimes a bigger situation than what put it in if you come in early and got some support from the financial side or the child care side. Thank you all for those important perspectives. I do want to switch the conversation over to a violence prevention place, Mr. Durey, for I believe you've been doing violence prevention for a while now. A few years. All right, so from a violence prevention lens, what are you focused on when looking at our folks around the world? Well, personally, thank you for taking time to allow us to be part of the new paper talk tomorrow. What I'm thinking about is, how do we keep conversation going? And I think it's so important, not only at this level, we're professionals, but how do we get individuals out in the community? How do we get individuals out in the field to be able to have this exact same conversation where it resonates in an individual's minds and makes them ask that question, what do I need to ensure we get to a place in time where we can change the culture? Where do I need to be where I can boldly say, not on what is not going to take place tomorrow? I'm constantly thinking about suicide prevention. I'm constantly thinking about sexual assault prevention. I'm always thinking about what's going on in the back lane in the back world. I'm thinking about primary prevention overall. I'm thinking about what does the community really look like, where we don't have to have the conversation 10 years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. Clearly, we are not unique, just because we're a military community. This could be the same conversation that we take in place somewhere in the United States that is the community that's not affiliated with what we do at all. This is what we're dealing with in society. So not only are we talking about trying to change the culture in our world, we're trying to change the culture in society, period. I think you said the word demonize and Adam said the word demonize also. We don't want to demonize our culture. That's not what we're trying to do. So we're not saying alcohol is bad. What we're saying is we want to get to a place where we can better take care of ourselves. We can teach and talk about better taking care of our community members, whether they wear your uniform or whether they wear my uniform or whether they're not attached to this period and how do we do that? And I think a farther question, what steps do we need to start taking to ensure we are at a place a few years from now or 10 years from now, maybe where the culture is a community focused on responsible alcohol drinking? And that's deep. I mean, if you want to be honest, I feel that statement out there, but what does that really look like? I think there's a lot of different lanes there. I know me and you have got to deep discussion about this, but there's a lot of different lanes there on things that I think we can do proactively in order to give us to what we need to be. Responsible cell practices. Now, that's one that people may shake when you say that, but even in our own community, are we making alcohol to really live at all times? Something that we need to look at. What does effective bi-center intervention do at home? We talk about that all the time. And I think we have some great bi-center intervention programs that will look at effective bi-center intervention at home. It's going to get us to a place where we can realize. And are you talking about some of the spectrum of bartending? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be one, you know what I mean? We do a lot of different bi-center intervention training on the entertainment and our community stuff, but later than just 20 minutes, I mean, walk away and I'll see you again next January. Are we serious about what we really have in conversations where if I was a bartender, I would really know what my responsibility should be. When and if I see something, that makes the hairs in the back of my head. Yeah. But at the end of the day, I think it all starts over a couple of companies, a couple of tea, and we just have these real-world conversations and then we move on. That's what I'm talking about. I want to just sort of jump on what you said, Ron, because the bi-standard piece is really important, especially the sexual assault prevention. Oftentimes we can't barge into a house or a bedroom or a living room and pull people apart and prevent assault. What we are asking people to do is stop the little stuff. And so really the little stuff on the continuum of harm, it's not little, it's just less acute. But for us, gendered language, maybe even casual language about getting drunk, that type of stuff, if we stop it and we start to shift conversations, that is what prevents more acute stuff from happening in our units. And so it feels like a big ask, preventing sexual assault, preventing suicide. But when we're out there training, I know Lisa and I like to reiterate, try to notice the stuff that's on the continuum of harm that's less acute. That's your opportunity for prevention right there. And because you brought up proactive, there were approaches of reactive. And oftentimes I think because we've been in such a reactive state, right, some of the things that we do, we may believe that they're proactive, but it's really us reacting still. So it's almost, how can we look at, or how can we see things coming down the line and start to put in preventative measure before they can do that? I want to talk about gender intervention during the initiative, right? So it's really active and so if we can shift that, I wish that I started to mention proactive, but I don't know. Do, for the changes for legal, sort of, did they see this coming, that DUIs would be effective and is it part of culture change? No, so I mean, this is one of the things that's really just playing out now. I mean, there's a lot of, taking a lot of measures to get out there to commander's calls and, but we're really seeing like the first kind of wave of folks were getting discharged from the UI. So more to come to see how this might impact, but as far as real world consequences, this is a big one. So we'll see if they have a deterrence value for that kind of behavior. I think a community has a nice to protect themselves, but in our community, we have a lot of supervisors. First of all, the superintendent, who will we be? We want to protect the member and once it protects them, it's in, not getting in trouble, protecting them. Take care, right? In their own kind of way. We have a lot of resources on community, sometimes we're not being needed. And we have to kind of figure out why that is. Why is a supervisor or a leader so afraid to go to somebody and say, hey, I left this individual here then, I can deal with it. And I think it's cultural, cultural thing. I know when I was at Virginia, if I had somebody who was in trouble, I would kind of get there. In my own way, however I saw fit. I didn't necessarily say, go, hey, let's put it down there, let's go, sorry, I wouldn't do that. So I think you have to kind of shift that a little bit. We have all these resources in the community that's utilizing them. They're there to help. Not to be seen as creating or taking control. Awesome. Thank you all for the fruitful dialogue thus far. Captain Murray Robinson. There was a recent discussion at our community action board and the importance of connections was highlighted. Connection, as we know, is a protective factor for suicide prevention. How does connections play a role in reducing the number of alcohol-related incidents in our community? I mean, I think this brings in a really good job at playing now, right? Yeah, right. One of the biggest issues that we have when it comes to alcohol use is mental health concerns. It's the structures, it's the finance issues, it's the family stuff that's going on. And when we have those issues, we tend to focus on the level, right? And that's what's been considered maybe socially acceptable to a certain level. Kind of that like, that male, you know, piece that you were speaking about, right? We focus it with alcohol, we don't go to mental health. We're just chatting about that, right? There's a stigma associated with mental health. There's a stigma about, you know, the advocacy demo, certainly it's a stigma for EDAP, right? So these resources are being very much underutilized. Then you've got that we're here in England, you know? So anyone that was in support for us at home is no longer, not only are they not here physically, but now you've got a five, six, seven hour difference with your family members. And so even that normal thing in mental health, they say like, what social supports do you have? Who can contact? And they're like, there's nobody here and my family works. And when they're getting off of work, it's when I'm going to bed, right? So those types of things really impact the way that they go. So when it comes to connectivity, you know, it's really important that we are the family, right? With the Air Force is a really cool unique, you know, opportunity to take those people who don't feel like they have family, whether they never felt like they had family or feel like they don't have somebody here and create those connections and really help mold and shape the airmen. And so what I'm looking for is that our leadership is there to support our airmen. So they're recognizing, for example, early intervention, provincial stuff. New to the unit, you start to see, you know, your airmen isolated, that's a really good opportunity to reach out to them. Our leadership also is really connected with knowing what the resources are, but it's about that utilization that we're talking about, you know, helping to decrease the stigma associated with movement of health and hate act. And then we also talk a lot about the drinking culture, right? So there's a pretty significant drinking culture and we have to take into account that some of these airmen might come from, you know, environments where alcohol was very much a drink culture, right? So they haven't learned anything else and that's just, you know, normal to them. You know, it's our opportunity as leaders and as peers to help kind of curb that and say, hey, listen, you know, we can do activities without alcohol on it. Or like you said, we're not here to say that alcohol is a bad thing necessarily, but we want to be able to drink in moderation, right? So being able to model those healthy behaviors as well, you know, as a leader showing like, having just one or two or maybe just, you know, one in a glass of water or something like that, teaching these airmen of how to conduct responsibilities. So the more we have a pulse on our airmen, the better we can help create that environment. But as peers, we also have that responsibility as well, you know, I'm gonna learn best for my peers, right? Leadership is fantastic, but my peers are really kind of the benchmark for me. And when I am accountable to my peers, and I feel like I can be a good role model and that they are helping to role model those behaviors, I more want to do those, right? So our peers really help us to create that growth, that sense of security. They're also probably the ones we're gonna go to emotionally, right? So less likely to our leadership or more to our peers to say, hey, I'm struggling, you know? And it's like you said, the suicide prevention, being able to ask those questions, are you struggling with alcohol? I noticed that you've been drinking a lot, you know? Being able to talk to community people, you know, making an effective strategy to reduce alcohol and take a walk. I'm glad you brought that point out because, you know, we often talk, even when it comes to suicide, how many of us may struggle to even ask someone, are you thinking of hurting yourself? And that could be a barrier as well that I had not considered, you know, if people have an issue asking someone, you know, are you coping with alcohol? Do you struggle in that, like, thank you for bringing that up? Those are hard questions to ask. They are. They're hard to get, and you feel a responsibility to do something about it. Right, absolutely. And that's the high part is like, okay, now I know the answer, now what do I do, right? Benefit here. Yeah, knowing the resources. Knowing the resources and connect them to the right organization, right? Thank you for that. Okay, well, so as a DEIA practitioner, right, one of the things that I'm keen on is ensuring equity for everyone. So I recently read a ran study article that spoke to immense specific strategy that has successfully targeted problematic drinking in the civilian community, excuse me. They hypothesize that the more alcohol-free activities the environment provides and the more amateurs who participate in activities that do not revolve around the party and culture, then they may be less susceptible to a harmful behavior. Do you feel that this is an effective approach or strategy within the military and with this approach level, the playing field for non-alcohol, non-drinkers within the community? Absolutely, I think it'd be a good place to start. I'd be curious with the groups thoughts are, but from an equity perspective, Lisa talked about our most at-risk, for sexual violence. Alcohol is definitely involved in that, but it's going to be your E1 to E4 females at their first duty station and Caucasian. That's our highest numbers and the women of color are even further more marginalized when you look at actual prevalence rates. Do these women have the same equity and safety when they're going out and they're participating in social events for the military? I would say no. And do non-drinkers have a space? Captain Murray Robinson mentioning our peer influence on us. That's what young people are doing, right? They're drinking and there's not opportunities to go to non-alcohol-related events. Do you have the same opportunity to feel safe and socializing? I know Rand contributes a lot to sexual assault data and so we look at a lot of their research and they have compared military to what the community has done from harm reduction and what the community does is look at sort of index events like St. Patrick's Day or even like a 21st birthday celebration for the military at the Air Force Hall, promotion parties and they create a celebratory space that's alcohol free. And so people who don't drink can participate and then also you're not creating an environment for perpetrators to go and find impaired individuals. You're not creating an environment that makes somebody at risk to misinterpret somebody's sexual intent at the end of the night. So I don't think there's enough to say, yes, it will be effective but I think there's enough for us to say, well, let's try and let's see what the data shows down the road to see if it's effective in reducing alcohol-related violence, whether that be suicide, sexual assault or aggression toward one another. I think it also gives the opportunity to give some confidence to people that they can have a good time without applauding a lot of it, right? So sometimes we have so much alcohol at all days events that we kind of use it as our crutch because we feel like we can be more social and more close with our peers. But if we have more events that don't rely on alcohol and it kind of forces us to just kind of have those interactions, it helps us to get more motivated, more confident in our decisions, don't align that we can go to these events and not bring them to have a good time. Thank you for those two perspectives. I'll ask that you join us back for part two as we continue the discussion on preventing alcohol behaviors. Welcome back to the blue table. So, so far we have been discussing preventing alcohol behaviors with a specific focus on alcohol. What I would want to ask to you all with me right now, again, are, do you all think that we are equipped enough and are we doing enough to educate our Aberdeen guardians on what a healthy relationship with alcohol works like? So, I'll stop. Okay. So, I think we do it again. Okay. So, and I can only speak for R.E.F. mill, I can't speak for the entire airport, but I think that Air Force has put great construction tools into bottom prevention integrators and the two mental health and two SAPRA, our training I think is pretty good. So, we do talk about this. Do we talk about it often enough is the question. So, for example, you know, if you're a brand new Aberdeen, you present yourself to R.E.F. mill hall, you at a minimum within your first eight weeks here, you probably gonna get a good six to eight hours to F-TAC gear up, one-on-one training to SAPRA, whether you come to FAPR, eight apple, what are you gonna get, you gonna get flooded with a lot of stuff. Now, that's the interesting time of your career because you get flooded with everything else. So, I don't know how much that sucks in, you actually take with you. I think what we have to think about is how often do we revisit the conversation over an individual's period of in-spaces and facings. You know what I'm saying? I think we do a great job of talking about it initially is spread out because it's mandatory to do out individual's tour, but back to what I was saying in the first part of our conversation is how do we get individuals at the unit level to start talking about this? Because there's a individual like myself, or like you standing in front of the classroom of 30 people having a 45 minute conversation that hits different than if I were to be you. If you know me, we have a personal relationship and sending my starting hands held to sit down with Aaron Draper and has a real world conversation. I guess what we need to focus on, how do we get individuals to care about people that sit down and have real world conversations? That's where it's going to actually make a difference. Do you feel like they would have to be honest with themselves first? Ah, yes, totally different. I think it's totally different conversation. Okay. It's totally different conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I clearly don't want to say that it's only a problem of fact that brand of a session. Right. So we were talking about that, but this is not just individuals who have only been in the Air Force for a year. This is all of us. It's the culture. So yes, I don't think we can handle the exact same one. We don't need to look at a certain age level or a certain rank. How can all of us be bold enough to have conversations with each other, with each other about what we're seeing and how they can benefit from all of them in it, talking about your relationship with alcohol and what we need to do to ensure that we are part of the culture change. Yeah. Thank you, Sanyana, that too, that you can just talk or talk and walk along, right? So it's so important that you have that conversation with yourself first and recognize where do I use alcohol? Is it in a more healthy manner or is it to cope? And how much am I drinking? If I'm telling my airmen to limit their drinking levels, but I'm out at the bar, I don't understand. That's a difficult thing to really share. You know, when you're airmen, I feel like airmen know, right? Like, I feel like there's a total difference when you're coming from a place of understanding and that you're making that culture shift versus if you are just kind of outputting the information that you were told to share, right? So I think it is really important that you kind of start with your own relationship with alcohol. I think that's the geneogram, you know, like when you go counseling and you go with your partners, you do geneogram, you do geneogram with alcohol. Kind of look at what are your thoughts about it? Where have you seen it before? What's your current experience with alcohol? Is it really kind of like that? And I think what you're both saying, multiple points in your timeline and your chronology and military examining that because kind of similar to sexual violence, you may not even know you were sexually assaulted until something happens to you. Maybe you consult with somebody and it's like, oh my gosh, I was assaulted. You may not be drinking a lot when you're 20, but when you're 30 and have three kids under three and you're stressed out, re-examining those criteria can be really important once you're in it. Because sometimes people just tune us out if the material we're giving them is not relevant to their current space in life. Is that the zone number? I can't remember if we talked a little bit over the breaker in this, but we were just kind of addressing it that, when it comes to our relationships with alcohol, that starts before the military and starts in childhood, right? And so how we saw our family drink for our previous friends from before the military, what their beliefs about alcohol are, really had a significant impact on how we view alcohol. And so that genogram really going back to the very beginning to say, okay, where was a potential fault point that might have been watching mom and dad drink in an effective way, you know? And so it's hard to educate folks if they don't really understand where that belief came from. It's amazing what people think normal is. I can remember a client who was like, yeah, it was 10 drinks, but it was just beer. And it's like, well, that's actually the same thing as 10 shots or 10 glasses of wine. But if you don't know that, you come from a culture where beer is something that you can consume and drive that it's, we think it has less of an impact and that education piece can really help people become more aware of what healthy drink looks like. Well, you know, I appreciate the fruitful dialogue and I hope discussions like this continue, especially at the Blue Table Talk. And so I just wanna thank you all for being here with me today. I would like to present a challenge to the greater audience who will be viewing this. When you go back to your units, take inventory of how often we talk about alcohol. Perhaps you could even start a conversation to see if our assessments are in line with what we've discussed today, or maybe they're vastly different. Finally, take inventory of your relationship with alcohol to see if you contribute to a negative culture or one of a positive culture of healthy alcohol consumption. As the DOD educational campaign goes on your own limits. Thank you again, we'll see you next time.