Dustin Brockberg - End Your Covert Mission: Fighting the Battle Against Addiction and Pain

End Your Covert Mission

A Veterans Guide to Fighting Pain and Addiction

Dustin Brockberg, PhD

Kerry Brockberg, PhD

Finallyan important book centered in the veteran culture! End Your Covert Mission empowers the reader to draw on the strengths of the veteran experience while also acknowledging what needs to be left behind to best cope with pain in all its manifestations.

Carey E. Gleason, PhD, MS; Madison VA GRECC and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Veterans helping veterans! This is not another outsider or academic telling veterans how they should feel. This veteran couple has lived it and can help you end your covert mission!

Colonel Scott Jensen, U.S. Marine Corps (retired), president of Alpine Global Solutions

As a former Army nurse and CNP with the VA for 28 years, I think this book provides a practical guide for veterans suffering from chronic pain. Having worked in pain management for 18 years, recommendations in the book are on target with the proven multidisciplinary management of chronic pain and the psychological suffering that accompanies that pain.

Diane M. Budnick, clinical nurse practitioner

Written from a veterans perspective, End Your Covert Mission offers authentic insights and user-friendly strategies. A great resource for veterans and their loved ones wanting to live better with chronic pain.

Paul Heideman, PhD, LP, clinical psychologist

As an interventional pain physician, I tend to focus on the physical side of pain, but complex chronic pain is more than physical and involves psychosocial and emotional components that are equally important. I worked alongside Dr. Kerry Brockberg for several years in our multidisciplinary pain clinic where I watched her skillfully guide our patients through the maze of emotions and psychological consequences that often occur when people struggle with chronic pain. Her wonderful new book focuses on the unique circumstances of chronic pain after military service, and I believe it will help many veterans triumph over chronic pain and improve quality of life.

David M. Schultz, MD, founder and CEO, Nura Pain Clinics, Minneapolis, MN

Hazelden Publishing

Center City, Minnesota 55012

hazelden.org/bookstore

2022 by Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

All rights reserved. Published 2022.

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this publication, either print or electronic, may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement.

ISBN: 978-1-61649-988-4

ISBN-13: 978-1-6164-9989-1 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brockberg, Dustin, author. | Brockberg, Kerry, author.

Title: End your covert mission : a veterans guide to fighting pain and addiction / by Dustin Brockberg, PhD, LP, and Kerry Brockberg, PhD, LP.

Description: Center City, Minnesota : Hazelden Publishing, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: A guide for veterans on understanding and addressing pain-including physical, emotional, and social pain-and substance use and addictionProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022026051 (print) | LCCN 2022026052 (ebook) | ISBN 9781616499884 (paperback) | ISBN 9781616499891 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: VeteransMental health. | VeteransSubstance use. | VeteransHealth and hygiene. | PainTreatment.

Classification: LCC RC451.4.V48 B756 2022 (print) | LCC RC451.4.V48 (ebook) | DDC 616.890086/97dc23/eng/20220713

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026051

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026052

Editors note

All stories shared in this book were provided with the consent of each veteran. No clinical patients were used. The names, details, and circumstances may have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned in this publication.

This publication is not intended as a substitute for the advice of health care professionals.

Cover design: Terri Kinne

Interior design and typesetting: Percolator Graphic Design

Developmental editor: Marc Olson

Editorial project manager: Cathy Broberg

To Madison and Rylee

Many veterans continue to carry a ruck full of the same responses to pain that they used in the military. Its time to empty out that imaginary pack and upgrade your coping gear with tools and strategies that can help you feel and function better.

We met after Dustin got out of the Army. He served from 2004 to 2008 as a tank crewman or, in other words, a 19 Kilo or tanker. His service included a deployment to Iraq and a hardship tour to South Korea. In the years since we met, weve continued to learn how Dustins time in the military influences his life, his interactions with our friends and family, and our life together as a couple.

We value the strength the military experience has brought to our relationship. We also understand that this part of Dustins story includes pain and adds complexity to our lives. We have learned how powerful communication is for our relationship. We dont shy away from hard questions. We keep listening to each other, and we keep learning how to hear one another with empathy. This has made us closer. It has made us a team.

Along with our professional interests in pain management, rehabilitation psychology, and addiction (substance use disorder), our personal experience as a veteran couple is a big reason why we wrote this book and why we gave it the title it has. We know firsthand the value of empowering veterans to share their voice and their story, especially with pain and addiction. We believe that the mission of finding relief from pain and recovery from addiction shouldnt be covert or secret. Silence about these challenges among veterans is dangerousboth for veterans and for the people who love them. We hope our work will inspire and inform a new conversation about what pain and addiction are, how these things show up in veterans lives, and how to cope and recover in healthy and productive ways.

We have learned a lot from the amazing veterans weve worked with over the years. Helping people like you better understand and deal with the physical, emotional, and social pain they experienceas well as the ways these different types of pain interact with and compound each otheris what we do. The success weve had in helping veterans find tangible and practical ways to manage and cope with pain that dont involve addictive substances is what drives us.

Problems with pain and addiction are challenges that can be overcome. Finding solutions often comes naturally to people with military service in their backgrounds. Veterans have been trained to manage obstacles and break complex and daunting tasks into achievable objectives. As a veteran, you have inherent strengths of character, dependability, and honor. Youve accomplished more in your life already than many people ever do. These qualities and characteristics can be valuable assets in the mission of finding relief from pain and addiction.

Admitting that you have addiction problems or feel pain requires vulnerability and humility. However, mostly it requires simply being human with another person. Pain is natural. Its part of the human experience that unites us. We want veterans to know that they no longer need to hide their pain. Identifying sources of pain, sharing stories of pain, and getting help to manage pain are signs of strength and courage. The same is true when it comes to addictionto alcohol, other drugs, or behaviors. Recovery involves being brave enough to ask for and accept support.