CAROLINE COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — An addiction treatment center located in Central Virginia is seeing more female veterans walk through its doors. Warrior’s Heart has a location in Texas, and it just opened one in Virginia last September.
They say female warriors sometimes have a harder time coming forward and accepting help.
“We treat the addiction and we also treat the underlying causes, which can be PTSD, depression and moral injury, anxiety, all the invisible wounds of war that you can’t really see,” said Warrior’s Heart co-founder Lisa Lannon.
Warriors Heart Virginia is a 60-bed healing facility located on 550 acres in the middle of rural Caroline County. Eight warriors moved into the facility during the first week it opened last September, and dozens more have been in their care since then, including many female warriors.
“We hear things in the in the world like, ‘I can’t believe she would leave her kids for weeks at a time,'” said counselor Stacia Hood Lankford. “Gosh, you know, to leave your children for a few weeks is so difficult, but also so important if you want to be healthy.”
Lankford said because they’re in a facility that’s predominantly male, sometimes it can be difficult to get the women to open up.
“I was in a group one day when a woman, a really tiny woman, shared her story,” Lankford said, “and the way that the other warriors who were men were looking at her and the way they were just so in awe of her story, it was like suddenly she really knew she belonged there.”
Lannon said about 300 female clients have gone through their facilities between Virginia and Texas. She said when serving on the front lines, their struggles may be similar to male clients, but they’re seeing more instances of sexual trauma among women.
“When it comes to women, you know, that may be one of the challenges in treatment. Am I going to be able to talk about this when I’m coming to a facility that’s 80% male?” said Lankford.
They’re also seeing more women coming in without a place to go home to. In 2023, more than 25,000 female veterans were served by the VA’s homelessness programs.
Lankford said she’s noticed female vets seem to get fewer chances to get healthy and hopes to see that change.
“People tend to say, ‘well, we’ve already done this with you, we’re done,'” Lankford said. “If a woman comes to us and she’s homeless, she is no longer homeless because she is home.”
Lankford said there’s also sober living housing if needed.
“We don’t just have the 42 days,” Lankford said. “We also have our sober living, and if a woman walked in the door and said, ‘I don’t have any place to go when I leave,’ our answer is, ‘yes, you do. You can go to sober living and you can stay there as long as you need to stay there.”
These women said there are also a lot of female admissions advocates trained in helping warriors get started with treatment. They said a phone call isn’t a commitment, but could be a gateway to recovery. For more on the admissions process, click here.
“Our whole goal is to help get rid of that stigma,” Lankford said. “It’s OK to pick up that … phone and make that call and say, ‘I’m struggling. I need help.’ It’s a sign of courage to come forward and say, ‘I need help, I’m struggling and I can be a better mom, I can be a better daughter, I can be a better wife if I work on the issues I’m struggling with.”
