Ben Iobst: "The Warrior Culture Is Waking Up"Ben Iobst: "The Warrior Culture Is Waking Up"
Struggle Well Podcast
Former soldier and police officer Ben Iobst talks about how combat, policing, alcohol and anxiety collided in his life, and how community support shifted his path. He describes building wellness programmes and Struggle Well‑inspired groups that help veterans and first responders move from silent suffering to shared growth.
39:59•21 May 2026
From Combat and Booze to Community: Ben Iobst on Warriors Learning to Struggle Well
Episode Overview
- Heavy off‑duty drinking and untreated trauma can turn routine work into a major source of anxiety, even for highly trained professionals.
- Recovery rarely happens alone; family, colleagues and structured programmes may need to apply pressure and provide options before change begins.
- Peer‑led wellness and regional support teams can close critical gaps in care for police, fire and EMS, especially when formal services are limited.
- Short, accessible post‑traumatic growth groups offer a practical way for veterans and first responders to keep their mental fitness in "fighting shape".
- Sharing healthy practices with family, friends and colleagues helps create a wider community where warriors can thrive rather than simply endure.
“"If I take one individual person and I put them out in a desert, chances are very high they are not going to survive. But if I take a hundred people and I put them out in the desert, they're going to build a village."”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head‑on against addiction? This conversation with former infantryman and police officer Ben Iobst offers a raw look at booze, trauma, and what happens when the "warrior" identity collides with anxiety and burnout. Hosted by Britt Myers, the episode follows Ben from enlisting after 9/11, through fierce combat in Iraq and high‑crime policing, into a spiral of generational alcoholism and mounting mental strain.
He talks frankly about picking up heavy drinking in the military, then watching his mind unravel as a cop: shootouts felt manageable, but "now driving down the street at work is causing anxiety" while he was quietly "poisoning" himself off‑duty. Instead of a neat Hollywood turnaround, Ben stresses that he didn’t fix himself alone. Work, his partner, his parents and colleagues all closed in with hard truths and consequences until he decided to listen.
The core message is clear: "trying to struggle by myself, deadly. Working together, we can support each other in that struggle." From there, you’ll hear how sobriety was only the start. Ben shifted from door‑kicking tactics to crisis negotiation, studied criminal behaviour, and helped build regional officer wellness teams and peer support for police, fire and EMS. When Covid and political unrest strained services, he went back to university for organisational psychology and eventually connected with the Struggle Well programme.
Ben explains why Struggle Well’s five‑day training clicked for a "warrior brain", how he helped bring it to Pennsylvania, and how one‑hour post‑traumatic growth meetings now give veterans and first responders a practical, low‑barrier way to work on their mental fitness together. If you’re in recovery or supporting someone in uniform, you’ll get a candid look at how culture is changing, why community is essential, and how warriors are learning to struggle well instead of silently coming apart.
Who could you be building your "village" with?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.
Related Episodes
Similar episodes from other shows in the catalogue.