Hi 30, Welcome to SR. I'm also a recovering alcoholic with about 3 years. I had put up to 5 years together in the past. My PTSD untreated always brought me back to not drinking but, self medication. I'm glad you are seeking help. My PTSD was from Vietnam and childhood physical and sexual abuse. I have been getting counseling at the V A Hospital here in Bedford Mass. Isuggest you check the V A out. I found talking to fellow Veterans a big help. As I'm sure you know, there is a bond among Veterans.
My heart goes out to you. Seperating duty in our minds is very difficult. Not sure this will help but, I can try. In my case my mind had trouble accepting killing for whatever reason. Morning Glory explained it to me awhile back. There is a Don W that wouldn't harm anyone. Killing isn't part of my make up. The other part is Don W the serviceman.
Because of duty I had to take part in killing. MG helped me understand that my mind was confused by this. The part of my mind that believes killing is wrong, was much stonger than the duty part. When I saw the results of my actions, a little girl running with clothes and skinn burned off from Napom, for years her face was emblazoned in my mind. The fact that I work in a Children's Hospital made it worse. For years I felt like I was responsible. Also, returning from Vietnam, we were called baby killers by war protesters. Many of us felt we were and they validated. The use of woman and children by Viet Cong required us to kill them. Like I have worked at, you need to find a way to change the perspective. You see, with PTSD, the way we remember things aren't always the way it happened. Our minds will protect itself. It will change and remove information in order to make sense of our actions. Example, my mind knew I loaded the napom bombs, it new I was there and it saw the picture on the Newsweek or Time. My perspective was I burned her. My perspective now is that all the facts are the same, I don't really know I filled the bomb that hurt her. Most of all, I was a 19 or 20 year old kid. I was following orders and the fact that woman and children were used to kill Americans caused the need to do this. Our minds don't know the difference at times. This is why they've discovered that you can get PTSD from a knife wound or a doctors scapal. Your mind only knows it was attacked. This is painful because you must revisit these events and collect facts. For years we tried to avoid or go aroun and move on. I made progress by going through the event in my mind, and learning about it again. This changed my perspective. Hope this helps. Either way, keep talking about it. Don W