Stephen is the President and Founder of Veterans Alternative Healing,Inc. a 501(c)(3) focused on helping vets with alternative healing, with less or without opioids. His effective and dynamic grassroots activism has lead to relationships with community leaders, senators, government officials and entities, business leaders, local and national organizations.

Using his highly tuned and specialized people skills derived from extensive U.S. Army Training, Military Police training, Military leadership training, and wartime deployment as a Non-Commissioned Officer, Stephen has become a champion in the fight to end the opioid crisis. By using his personal journey of addiction and recovery from opioids with cannabis, he is able to focus on ending stigma and saving lives, to create a pathway to an improved quality of life.

After scoring first, on the civil service exam rankings for Firefighters and Police Officers, future dreams of serving his community were ripped away as a result of the injuries sustained while serving in the Iraq War and a subsequent opioid addiction wholly supported by the VA and their endless supply of pills. But Stephen persevered and continues to serve.

Though wartime injuries left him with a 100% disability rating, Stephen continues working on eliminating stigma and saving lives all day, every day, for as many hours as it takes because he knows the pain of having opioids suck the life out of you .