Sandra – Gadens Stemmer

My story is a veteran’s story. It is more than 30 years since I was deployed, and it was only 2 years ago that the trauma and PTSD I have lived with ever since were addressed.

For those 30 years, my life was a slow suicide, as I ran away from myself—first through work and later through alcohol.

What do I talk about? How do you carry on when the war doesn’t stop just because you come home—and how do you find your footing again after literally having been dead from drinking?