HUFFINGTON
09.22.13
INVISIBLE CASUALTIES
He later denied to doctors that
he tried to die by suicide. But
that night, May 28, he took a
Xanax and washed it down with
three shots of whiskey. In a fog,
he called Don. “Dad, I’m not doing well at all. I have an addiction.
I want to stop but I can’t,” Don
later recalled him saying.
Don didn’t know about the
whiskey, but he was deeply worried. “Are you high now?” he
asked. “Yes,” Joshua admitted.
Don knew that reading Joshua the
riot act now was not the best way
to handle the situation, a lesson
he’d learned in dealing with his
wife’s addictions. “Is there someone there with you?” he asked.”
“Yes.” “Put him on the phone,”
Don ordered, and asked the friend
— whose name he does not recall
— to get Joshua to Portsmouth
naval hospital’s emergency room.
From there, he was put into
the Navy detox unit in Portsmouth’s Ward 5. His records
show he was diagnosed with depression, thoughts of suicide,
addiction to benzodiazepines
and opiates, and panic attacks.
Don and Emily came to see him
during the 11 days he was in detox. “I wanted to make sure he
was there and safe,” Don said. But
First Lady
Michelle
Obama and
Dr. Jill Biden
advocate
for military
suicide
prevention in
an exclusive
video for The
Huffington
Post’s
“Invisible
Casualties”
series.