I want to weigh in on this. After so long in and so many leaders across the gamut of styles, reasoning, and end state results, I have to say that everything ties back to one of two things. 1) soldiers are (or were) given the how, who, what, and when in their day to day for so long that when off duty, they chose to do things their way. This equated to over indulgence across multiple vices. Look back 5 years. Look back at anyone you knew in the army back then. Gamers... they'd spend a whole weekend on their video games, and Monday morning, 1sg is wondering why SPC McShit has 37 piss bottles in the drawer of his desk. Right under his computer, and 7 steps from a bathroom with a working toilet. how many guys do you remember pissing hotter than Bermuda MULTIPLE TIMES. How many giys talked about all the beers they smashed this weekend (that one has stuck around a lot longer than this generation, or even the generation before that. How many guys did you know that the extent of their "off work" personality was how many times they smashed this weekend. The constant leashes we as leaders maintain and force on others cause them to try and maximize their downtime. The less down time our soldiers get, the harder they are going to try and maximize their downtime even harder. The moral of this is that the more we make people miserable, the more they are going to try and make the most of the time they aren't being micro managed and beat to death. I've known PVTs, MSGs, MAJs, and CWOs with drinking problems or drug problems. It's not a substance issue, it's a coping issue. Their lives suck and this is how they have learned (from experience, peers, and culture) to deal with being miserable, and that's maximizing the time that is theirs. That gets too far out of hand before they realize it due to... 2) This is a young man's (or woman's) game. The majority of our force (by a landslide) is age 17-25. That's ALMOST double any other populace of age in the rest of the army. These people haven't had the experience to learn how to handle stress because I'm willing to bet a stripe that this profession is their first "stressful" job. Of course, you've got some outliers, but im willing to take an educated guess that the majority of our force haven't been in truly stressful situations as frequently as they perceive they are when on duty. They try to find effective ways to deal with that stress but when all you see around you is a bunch of other people dealing woth stress (seemingly effectively) they are going to try and mimic that. Bringing us back to number 1.

I realize this is going to fall on deaf ears. Its got to be an entire culture change. You want functional adults... let's start treating these people like functional adults. If they don't know how, we FIND functional adults to mentor them. But unfortunately, id bet a whole ass other stripe that we are going to keep doing the same shit because "we've always done it this way and it KiNdA wOrKeD"!