Ben Rollins was self-destructing. Every night, after work, he and a few fellow Marines would get together to polish off a 30-pack of beer and a fifth of hard liquor. On one night, heading home from a night of hard drinking at a California bar, he was pulled over and arrested for drunken driving.

On another night, when Rollins was awoken by a family member, he began screaming and scrambling for his gun.

All around him, Marines who had served alongside him in Iraq were taking their own lives. "One guy walked out into traffic on Interstate 5," Rollins, now living in Sandy, recalled. "Another guy hung himself in his room."

But Rollins still wasn't convinced that he needed help. "I'm fine," he told himself. "There's nothing wrong with me."

He wasn't fine. And he wasn't alone.

Veterans Affairs researchers say that many veterans who submit to weekly treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can reduce their symptoms to "sub-diagnostic" levels within a few short months. But fewer than one in 10 veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder completes a recommended regimen of treatments within four months -- and only about 30 percent complete the treatment regimen within one year of their diagnosis, according to a recent study in the Journal of Traumatic Stress .

The study's authors cite several reasons for the low rate of treatment completion, but they believe the paramount reason may be veterans' own resistance to care.

Rollins understands. It wasn't until he had returned home to Utah and his sister, an Air Force medical officer, begged him to seek help that he found his way to a mental health clinic for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rollins credits that conversation with helping save his life. Now, whenever he runs into the Marines with whom he served in Iraq, he is the one asking if they've sought and received help.

Studies show that 20 to 30 percent of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress, which can be attributed to a single incident -- the roadside bombing of Rollins' truck in Iraq, for instance -- or a series of threatening, violent or terrifying events.

Why the resistance to life-changing -- if not lifesaving -- help? Veterans Affairs psychologist Steve Allen believes many veterans, especially younger ones, have a hard time navigating the complexities of the VA's health care system. And since young vets often have "a lot of competing issues," he said, many just don't bother.

"They're balancing employment, education and family," Allen said. "And so they tend to look at treatment as discretionary."

But Allen believes that quick and early intervention is extremely important.

"PTSD is a very treatable condition," he said. "Of course, the trauma that they have experienced never goes away, but with treatment, the distress that they feel -- the symptoms -- can be reduced to sub-diagnostic levels often in a short amount of time."

Milo Quiroz can vouch for that. The Iraq war veteran said he knew what he was getting into when he joined the Army, "but no one really tells you what it will be like once you get out."

Quiroz said he suffered from paranoia when he returned from Iraq. "If I didn't have a gun or a knife on me, I felt naked," he said.

Quiroz said he was fortunate to have a VA clinic close to his home in Southern California. "If it had been farther away, it probably would have been more difficult to find the motivation to go," he said. He now works for the VA in Salt Lake City.

Federal officials have long known that those who live within close proximity to a VA hospital or clinic are more likely to use those health care services. And that's prompted a building boom, during the past few years, of scores of new community-based outpatient clinics to serve the needs of veterans returning from the nation's ongoing wars.

Several have been built in Utah -- most recently in West Valley City, where a clinic intended to serve up to 9,000 patients was built last year.

"We know that there are all kinds of barriers to getting these veterans the help they need," said VA counselor Dan Murchie. "The easier we can make it for them to access services, the better."

mlaplante@sltrib.com / blogs.sltrib.com/military