5 minute read
Sarah Stenuf's New Mission
BY HEATHER DEROSE
Sarah Stenuf is leading the way for veterans to have a place to find community and heal through traditional and nontraditional therapy options for veterans, first responders, and their families. After serving 4 honorable years in the United States Army, Sarah was medically retired for epilepsy and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She suffered a head injury at basic training and another at advanced individual training and then began having seizures. After discovering she was having seizures, she hid her condition until her commander found out. She was able to get stabilized on medication and deployed. During deployment in Afghanistan, she found herself running out of her anti-seizure medication. She tried but couldn’t get it, and knew she needed to lower her dose to make it last until she finished her mission. She says one night they had incoming, and she ended up outside after suffering a seizure. The next day she suffered another seizure in Afghanistan, with only 2 months left in her 12 month deployment. She was medically evacuated to Germany and continued having seizures, so she was put into a medically-induced coma. When she was stabilized on medications they sent her to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, where she had another seizure. She said, “I saw more death at the Warrior Transition Unit, than I did overseas. That place was disgusting. In the WTU, I saw veterans in there on every type of drug, on every type of benzoid and opioid you can think of. There were drug and alcohol overdoses. It was a horrible place when I got back.” Her command worked to get her returned to her unit in Afghanistan to get out of the WTU conditions until she was discharged. She became a severe alcoholic and says she was on a bag of medications during that time. She tried taking her life twice and went into two different inpatient programs for dual diagnosis of TBI and PTSD, as well as substance abuse. She said that when she got out of the military she felt, “completely hopeless.” She began getting into trouble with law enforcement. She finally got to the point where she told her wife, “I can’t live like this, I’m on a tackle box of medications, living with a pill every hour, sleeping for 15 to 16 hours a day.” At that point she felt like such a burden to her wife and toddler son, she was contemplating taking her own life again. Then, she said, it clicked, “I didn’t have a purpose. I didn’t have a mission.” With no place to go but up, she thought back to a time when she was consuming cannabis with another veteran and felt more happy and calm. “After I got home and hit this rock bottom stage in my life, my wife and I contacted a few buddies, and they came over, and we smoked cannabis together. The next thing you know, I’m getting out of the house and thought ‘this feels good. Maybe I should do some research as to why this is happening.’ So I learned about endogenous cannabinoids within our bodies and phytocannabinoids in the cannabis plant, what happens after trauma, what happens when you get a TBI, what happens to the receptor sites in your head, where the trauma goes, and where it’s being stored. How are the plants able to help slow things down, so I can see clearly and process it better and maybe learn to forget it? I learned the overall process so that I can forget it, so I can learn from it, and so I can grow from it. I thought, wow, cannabis is working, and I got down to the science of it and wondered if I was the only other person crazy enough to think this plant is working!” Sarah created an online social media alias and was talking about cannabis and teaching others how to cultivate medicine. It was then that High Times reached out to her and asked her to speak on a panel. After connecting with the community, she realized there was an opportunity to create more progress, especially within the veteran community. She says, “After I started speaking and getting to know people, I realized there’s a lot of black holes and black holes are running parallel even though we’re in different demographics or parts of the US.” She wondered, “Why is there nothing being done? Why is it obviously clear about these issues with veterans needing alternative care and veterans needing access to public and private healthcare. We need soldier’s choice. What about female veterans with military sexual trauma PTSD? We need better benefits for older veterans, and we need to bridge these gaps.”
Sarah spent a lot of time researching, going back to World War 2 and the Civil War when they had retreats for veterans, and she looked at what was effective. She initially got laughed at when discussing other treatment options 5 years ago, but then the VA passed the flagship program. Designed to shift from a health-care system focused primarily on treating disease, to one guided by a personalized health plan that considers the physical, mental, spiritual, and environmental needs of Veterans. All the services the people were fighting for were now getting accepted by insurance, but veterans couldn’t find them anywhere. “I turned to my wife and said let’s start up a farm. Let’s create all the services that the VA and the senior homes and all were laughing at me for wanting to start up and put in this all-inclusive, amazing area that would take private and public healthcare and unify it. They don’t want to do it, let’s do it. Let’s get our own doctors, let’s get our own LMSW’s [licensed master social worker], let’s get our own peer support team and let’s figure it out.” Sarah created her new mission and founded Veterans Ananda, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which consists of veteran villages for retreats and healing for the community. Sarah’s goal is to have a chapter in every state in order to help veterans all across our nation. She also created Ananda Farms. Her 22 acre hemp farm employs many veterans and grows hemp, while also serving as a training and development center for veterans living at Veterans Ananda villages. Sarah takes corporate social responsibility seriously and it’s Ananda Farms’ goal to donate at least a kilo of product to veterans in need every year. She’s setting the bar and wants to see other companies who are serious about corporate social responsibility donate a kilo or more to veterans who need plant medicine every year. Being the change she wanted to see for the community, she decided it was time to implement change and add value. Sarah is now seizure free and off all 13 prescription medications. Her own transformation to changing her life with plant medicine and connecting with the community charged her drive to create a place for other veterans to learn about different options for their health care. We are so grateful Sarah overcame so much and is sharing education and her story to help veterans and their families to help find a better quality of life. With 22 veterans a day taking their life, it’s leaders like Sarah, that were able to overcome suicide and share her knowledge that’s giving others hope. “By establishing that strong narrative behind the brand to let people know we are here to practice corporate social responsibility. We are here to show you positive philanthropy. We are here to show you corporate citizenship and show how we’re going to change the norms and the stigmas, while giving back and adding value. We’re not just adding value because we’re in a time of need or in time of crisis, but we’re adding value because it’s the right freakin’ thing to do!”
