National security served up by a dry drunk

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks to U.S. service members at the Defense Personnel Accounting Agency on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, U.S. March 25, 2025. DOD/U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Madelyn Keech/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY

I grew up with a raving alcoholic. To call his behavior erratic is to engage in understatement for dramatic effect.

My dad was in the Navy, assigned to one of the submarines of the Pacific Fleet in Oahu Hawaii, which meant long periods of welcomed absence. But whenever the submarine was docked, he was home, where he vacillated between two states of drunk: wet drunk and dry.

If given a choice between the two, I’d have chosen wet.

Dry drunk behavior is universal

Our prized family possession was a wooden cuckoo clock. Hand-carved to look like a bird house, it was dark stained, complete with gable roof and hanging metal weights shaped like pine cones. It hung in the center of our living room, high up, and every hour, on the hour, little green shutters would draw back to let a beautiful blue bird pop out, chirping.

My dad hated that bird.

I could always tell whether it was a wet drunk or dry drunk week by what he did at the top of the hour. If he merely yelled obscenities at the chirping bird, it was a wet drunk, Pabst-soaked week and the ugly exchanges would end when the bird went back inside. But if my dad threw something at the bird, it was a dry drunk week, which meant the safest place to be was anywhere else.

I’ve learned since then that when he wasn’t actually drunk, my dad was what’s known as a ‘dry drunk.’ October Road, a publication about substance use, says that dry drunks, despite their sobriety, typically continue to behave in destructive ways if they “have not fully embraced recovery.” Dry drunk doesn’t necessarily imply relapse, but it suggests “a lack of personal growth and mental or emotional recovery.”

Pete Hegseth’s seething anger feels familiar

“Angry lack of personal growth” should be tattooed on dry drunk Pete Hegseth’s forehead. Following the Signal fiasco, when Hegseth got off the plane at the Pearl Harbor-Hickam base in Honolulu, (coincidentally where my dad was stationed), a reporter asked him about the Signal breach, specifically, how an editor from The Atlantic was on an unsecure chat about attacking Houthis in Yemen.

Hegseth spewed outsize rage in response, as if concern for servicemembers whose lives he’d just put at risk infringed his right to breathe.

He jacked up and down on his heels, leered forward and scrunched his face, going in: “So you’re talking about a deceitful, and highly discredited, so-called journalist, who (has) made a profession of pedaling hoaxes, time and time again.” He looked away from the cameras, looked back, and flexed like a boxer in the ring with, “(The editor of The Atlantic) is a guy who peddles in garbage. This is what he does.”

After a few more slanders, Hegseth segued into victimhood: “You see, we’ve been dealing with four years of deferred maintenance (from Biden).” He left unsaid that the attacks failed to achieve their only goal: deterring the terrorist group, which means Houthis are still launching near-daily missiles at Israel, and most shipping traffic is still being redirected.

Hegseth closed with an adamant declaration, disproved when the chat transcript was released, that, “NOBODY was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say.” With that, he turned and walked away from his own version of my father’s personal hell: a flock of blue birds chirping with microphones, cell phones extended.

Hegseth needs treatment, not command of the world’s most lethal force

To his credit, Hegseth has never denied being an alcoholic. It’s hard to see how he could, given the litany of colleagues who said they’d seen him drunk to the point of passing out.

Before he was confirmed, Hegseth was a talking head on Fox and Friends, where colleagues reported smelling alcohol on him before he went on air. Those same people said he did Fox’s version of “news” while he was hungover. They told NBC News that when they smelled alcohol on him in the studio, “Everyone would be talking about it behind the scenes before he went on air.”

Another group reported that during Hegseth’s service as president of Concerned Veterans for America (2013 to 2016), he was repeatedly intoxicated even while acting in his official capacity. Witnesses there said he frequently drank to the point of “needing to be carried out of the organization’s events.”

I know from experience that dry drunks are angry, aggressive and dangerous

Among his many reckless acts of revenge against America, Trump put Hegseth in charge of the world’s most lethal military force. During his confirmation, after proof of his alcoholism surfaced, Hegseth vowed to quit drinking if he was confirmed. His reflexive dry drunk anger over having to answer questions about Signalgate suggests, at least to me, that he’s keeping his vow.

But passing-out drunk is a serious problem, and, as any child of an alcoholic can tell you, the problem doesn’t go away just because you stop drinking. Emotional and psychological symptoms, including irritability, dishonesty, aggression, blaming others, mood swings and self-pity can remain for years--sometimes for life-- if the person does not fully engage in recovery. These are the traits we’ve already seen whenever Hegseth is questioned by a non-fawning journalist.

Trump and his cabinet of clownishly unqualified hacks may be cosplaying in their roles, but wars are real. Combat fatality is real. Undisciplined ignorance and aggression in command of the military is a grave threat to the members of that military.

Here’s hoping, for US service members, democracy itself, and all the singing bluebirds of the world, that Hegseth gets some professional help.

Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1^st and 14^th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.