“I am sorry about our initial meeting Traan, on how short the appointment was, I  hadn’t realized it was only a half hour. Personally I think we should work better in one hour increments, it allows for us to do a deeper dive. So let’s pick up where we left off. Tell me about your father.” Minh led in.

Traan had a feeling with his references to his dad in their last meeting would prompt a question like this. “Yeah…so he was a drunk…an insatiable one at that….I told you before how he did defending Betazed from the opening wave of the Dominion assualt as an XO on a Andorian cruiser…but what I didnt tell you is why he was only an XO at the age of 55….he was hopeless alcoholic veteran.” He shrugged.

“Being an XO at any age is nothing to scoff at Traan, some people move through Starfleet at different rates, it is not a race. The Dominion war, specifically the battle of Betazed was tough. I know a lot of personnel are still fighting the trauma. You may want to talk to Nico, he was there. Let’s talk more about this. How old were you when the Dominion War was happening?”

“17, 18. I dropped out of the High Guard Academy and walked straight into the Starfleet Recruiting office and joined as an enlisted crewman apprentice 4 days after Dad died.” Traan recalled.

“Why?” Minh asked the only question he had missed.

“Because it was a war for our survival. And sitting another year and a half in classes at the academy, or waiting for them to call out all cadets for active duty didnt seem right. Walking into that recruitment centre, atleast I could chose which branch I’d get to serve with…” Traan stumbled upon a notion in his own head as he spoke.

His alcoholic tendencies came from his genes partially, he knew that. But why did his lapses in obsessive compulsive drinking only rear their head when he got promoted or transfered to a new position? He could pinpoint the 4 other times in his life when he had tried to ‘crawl into the bottom of a bottle’, and yeah, all of them came right after major rank or positional promotions. He had never had his drinking cause any professional or disciplinary issues for him, it was a personal struggle that he always dealt with off duty.

But just being here, chatting with the Doc had him recognizing it for the first time. He only starting drinking heavily at times when he was puting pressure on himself to perform well. Maybe being recently promoted to and becoming a member of the officer ranks. like his broher and father had been. had helped give him this new perspective. Traan was constantly seeing personality traits and character defects in his subordinates far more clearly and through a different lens since he had taken over leading Alpha shift in the Shipyard. Perhaps now he was finally using that perspective to look inward.