Helping Native Americans with Sobriety

This suggests that Native Americans may be more successful in stopping or controlling their alcohol use if the treatment approach includes a family, group, or community component. For these men, traditional Elders and community members provided key social and community support. These men began drinking between the ages of 14 and 17, suggesting that targeting prevention and treatment efforts to adolescents in Native communities might be an effective strategy to reduce destructive drinking patterns.

Returning to the use of intergenerational talking circles in treatment settings for youth, as opposed to homogeneous age groups, could be beneficial for AI/AN youth as well. The present research examined whether the production of a narrative containing self-redemption (wherein the narrator describes a positive personality change following a negative experience) predicts positive behavioral change. In Study 1, we compared the narratives of alcoholics inspirational stories of sobriety who had maintained their sobriety for over 4 years with those of alcoholics who had been sober 6 months or less. When describing their last drink, the former were significantly more likely to produce a narrative containing self-redemption than the latter. In Study 2, we examined the relation between the profession of self-redemption and behavioral change using a longitudinal design, by following the newly sober alcoholics from Study 1 over time.

Stories on the Value of the Talking Circles

The participants represented three generations ranging from ages 30 to 68 with widely varying levels of formal education. Two of the men were Elders (men with traditional knowledge, status, and respect in the community) and the remaining seven had varying levels of formal education and cultural knowledge. In these conversations, the elders also relayed stories of the negative effects of excessive drinking—death, car accidents, and incarceration, as well as regret and shame for inappropriate behaviors. This is an important message as these negative effects continue to exist. During 2006–2010, the CDC reported that the median alcohol-attributed death rate for AI/AN (60.6 per 100,000) was twice as high as that for any other racial or ethnic group (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014).

Coyhis and White Bison have traveled with the hoop to visit tribal colleges, reservations, community centers and anywhere with Native American populations interested in helping Indigenous people embrace their culture and begin to break a cycle of trauma, violence and addiction. “We already identify ourselves as indigenous and what it means to be in our space. There’s like the sixth sense that we have as Indigenous people.” The Fort Berthold-based MHA Nation — members of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes — paid to build the residential recovery center and its transitional living facility, which use a culturally competent model that incorporates tradition and customs to help people heal. Most researchers working with Native Americans agree that research needs to begin with tribal or community-specific populations.

List of books about sobriety

And evidence was difficult to collect because the people involved are, “transient, they have mental health issues, they have substance abuse issues and are less and less likely to be easy to contact.” The program centers around discussion on recommitting to traditional cultural values, like the importance of familial relationships and relatives, and ways to work through mental barriers, like shame and denial. Although the Sacred Hoop is meant to inspire and give purpose and strength to all people, it holds special meaning to Native Americans.

• Many medical model treatments evolved in the contexts of Euro-American, middle-class value structures.
• The hardest part of 2012 was when a good friend of mine passed away at the age of 26 from heart failure.
• “In the last decade there’s a growing amount of research on the impact of good nutrition on suicide ideation, attempts, and completion,” said KayAnn Miller, co-executive director of the Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger in Bozeman, who is also involved with the BNFSI.
• When she first arrived, there wasn’t even a women’s bathroom anywhere near the courtroom.
• Noneof the original research questions referenced alcohol, but it was an overarching theme throughout the narratives and is highly symbolic.
• His drinking intensified when he and two buddies joined the U.S.

During a guided morning meditation in a dimly lit conference room, participants closed their eyes and focused on clearing their minds and deepening their breath. They burned sage, cedar and sweetgrass, and used their hands to pull the smoke over their bodies as an act of purification called smudging. “With recovery, clients seem to have a lot of internal turmoil. We’re hoping bringing some culture can help them be more comfortable in finding who they are and where they need to go from here.”

Why is UW-Madison launching the program?

“We already identify ourselves as indigenous and what it means to be in our space. There’s like the sixth sense that we have as indigenous people.” Searching for understanding, he turned to his Native American roots. During a five-day fast in the Colorado mountains, Coyhis saw a white bison rise from the ground – to him, a sign that his recovery would be incomplete without his culture. Coyhis founded a nonprofit offering native-focused recovery resources to communities across the country, and in turn, launched a movement called Wellbriety.

It wasn’t a hand-to-mouth existence, she wrote in an article for Montana State, but a “knowledge of a vast landscape, including an intimate understanding of animals, plants, season, and climate, passed down for millennia and retained as a matter of life and death.” Central to the effort, especially in Montana, are bison, also referred to as buffalo. Restoring bison to reservations, developing community food gardens with ancestral seeds, understanding and collecting wild fruits and vegetables, and learning how to cook tasty meals with traditional ingredients are all part of the movement.

Sobriety Stories: Brittany finally knows peace after years of despair

These included culturally specific terms and meanings used by the participants. Data included reflexive field notes of the researcher’s observations, reactions, and impressions taken during the interviews. During the interviews, participants were asked to clarify meanings and context if these were unclear. During the consent process, participants decided if they would permit the PI to contact them after the interview if data needed to be verified.

• Jazz, a descendant of the Hidatsa and Sioux tribes, sought treatment for drug addiction in Arizona and fought his way back.
• His honesty should change how we talk about sobriety and relapse, regardless of how he died.
• According to leading researchers, there is no universal, all encompassing, explanation for alcohol abuse among Native Americans (Thomason, 2000; Trimble, Padilla, & Bell, 1987).
• Rowland Dash, a police officer on the Navajo Nation, works in Tuba City in Arizona and noticed something strange when he came to work on a Monday morning in November 2021.

The talking circles provided a forum for the elders to share their wisdom in a way that the youth were not distracted and could focus their full attention on them. The youth also shared informally that they appreciated the stories because they felt like they were not being “preached at” but instead were participants with the elders. This speaks to the need for cross-generational communication and sharing of life experiences around alcohol and substance abuse.