The Way of Our People: Weekly Inspiration for American Indians in Recovery

By Donald Richard Wright

These inspirational meditations, prayers, and stories are written by an Ojibwe Elder and alcohol and drug counselor to speak with clarity, wisdom, and care about the everyday experience of recovery. The author combines Ojibwe and Twelve Step spiritual principles and practices with stories from Indians at all stages of recovery to help readers navigate the challenges and rewards of living sober.

Each of this book’s 52 meditations includes a short reflection, a related story "from the rooms" of AA, and seven prayers—one for every day of the week. Grounded in reliance on the Creator, the wisdom of Elders, and the support of the sober community, this unique collection is intended to provide daily strength and hope for the recovery journey and counteract the harsh realities of poverty, violence, and broken relationships that are too often fueled by alcohol and other drug use.

Readers will recognize the value of spiritual laws like Honesty, Sharing, Kindness, and Strength as well as the power of traditional rituals such as offering tobacco with prayers. Whatever our culture, we can apply this book’s wisdom to our recovery and life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hazelden Publishing
• Release date: Jun 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781616494544

Donald Richard Wright

Donald Richard Wright (Wii-sug) is an Elder of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. A longtime alcohol and drug counselor, he works with Indian youth in Minneapolis.

Book preview

Healing from Cultural Trauma

Ask an American Indian why they drink so much alcohol, and often the answer is rooted in shame. Sometimes, when this person is acting out of shame, anger prevails, an anger unchecked largely because they have not been taught how to manage their emotions.

Over the years, I have asked many of my Indian brothers and sisters this very same question, and the answers have astounded me. They show the emotional struggles being played out in Indian AA meetings all over the country, struggles that are reflected in the stories from the rooms that you will find throughout this book. I sat in these meetings all over the United States, from the West Coast to the East Coast, from Canada to down south on the Mexican line. No matter where I was, the stories had a commonality. They all told of extreme shame and poverty, leading to the drinking of alcohol, which led to the alcoholism that drove them to further shame and poverty as they took advantage of their friends and families in order to get the next drink. Often entire families drank together—parents, uncles and aunts, grandmas and grandpas, even children. Adults tell of waiting in cars outside bars when they were kids, while parents drank inside, and they might speak fondly of the soda and candy brought to pacify them as they waited.

We can’t understand why the American Indian has suffered through so much alcoholism without understanding the traumatic history of American Indians in the United States. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they opened a period of brutal colonization that lasted for centuries. Millions of Indian people were robbed of their land, which was often signed away with little more than an X on complex land sale documents.

Our spirituality and culture are tied to the land, not as property, but as the natural world we share with other creatures, plants, rivers, mountains, and lakes that we hold sacred as Earth. Loss of land meant loss of culture and religion. And the alcohol that was often used for barter poured more poison on our spiritual wounds.

Further damage was caused all across the country by the U.S. government’s ill-conceived attempts to un-savage American Indian children by placing them in boarding schools. Children as young as five, a critical time in their development, were often taken from their families and sent to live in faraway schools run by the U.S. government or by Catholic missions. These children had their hair cut, lived in barracks, and were prevented from speaking their language or practicing any of their tribal customs. Besides the cultural and emotional abuse, they were often physically abused as well.

One man, now a priest himself, told me a story about an experience he had growing up in a boarding school that was typical for the era. He was eight years old, playing in the barracks with a little girl, and they were messing up their beds and littering the floor in the process. A nun arrived and immediately screamed, You filthy, filthy kids! The boy crouched in fear, expecting the worst. The little girl stood her ground and yelled back, You can’t treat us this way! The nun walked over to her and slapped her across the face. This priest told me, If you want to know where the anger comes from, we were taught it at age eight when we were told our thoughts and feelings weren’t valid. Even today, you hear our mothers calling out to their children who are upset, Stop your crying. If you want to cry, I’ll give you something to really cry about.

One of the main messages of this book is that we no longer have to live in the shadow of our past. We can own our emotions and take back our culture. Through our own example, we can teach our children about our traditions, represented in this book by the Ojibwe philosophical laws of life. These laws have come down through each tribe’s history, language, and spiritual practices. For alcoholics, they are also represented in the AA Twelve Step program. This is how the alcohol and other drug addiction, which feeds our shame and robs us of our sanity and dignity, will be healed for generations to come.

WEEK ONE

Indian thought for the week

Alcoholics Anonymous is the blessing we as Indian people have sought all of our lives. Here, in these meetings, is an opportunity to turn to the issue of healing. The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous will serve to aid and teach each of us in a method to heal. Many of the teachings that are in the Twelve Steps can be likened to the healing ceremonies we undergo as Indian people. The First Step, for example, can be likened to a rite of transition given to heal illness. As a person evaluates their life and decides there is a problem, that can be the first step to healing as well as experiencing the first of the Twelve Steps, where we admit we’re powerless over alcohol. Then the person seeks out the medicine people to help in the recovery. In treatment, counseling helps us to gather the medicines for continuous healing. An example of a medicine is the AA meeting. To heal, we must go there.

Stories from the rooms

I went out to celebrate the New Year in the bars when I was drinking or using drugs. My children spent the night at the babysitter’s. I started out drinking with my wife, and then she left the bar with some friends. I didn’t care. I didn’t care as long as I had a drink in front of me. One year, I found out she went out on me. I found out the guy’s name and went to look for him. I found him at the bar, and we had it out. Right after that, I left my wife and children and found someone else who would tolerate my drinking. My drinking and jealousy were more important than my children. That’s how powerful this disease is. I am grateful that I am sober now and am working my Twelve Step program so that I can find forgiveness and healing from my past harms.

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Honesty is a virtue that is often baffling. It can both get me into trouble and help me to stay out of trouble. I remember the time when I was new to sobriety and I ran into an old girlfriend. She was sober too, and we went out for something to eat. That night when I got home, I told my girlfriend who was living with me at the time about meeting an old girlfriend. I wanted to be open and honest in my relationship. She got mad at me and told me to get out. That was an experience with honesty that shows you can do the right thing but not necessarily have things turn out the way you want. I must still try to practice this spiritual principle and be willing to turn the outcome over to my Higher Power.

Indian prayers for each day of the week

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator that he will look upon me favorably today. I pray for gratefulness that I was sober last night. I pray that I have not hurt anyone during the day, and if I did, I will seek forgiveness from my Creator.

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator this day. Today I will remember the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator and thank him for giving us this value called respect for life. I will practice this value when I have the chance. I pray that when I offer help to others, I see them as brothers or sisters, not just as people who are drunk or sober.

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator to guide me in understanding my anger. I pray that I may treat people exactly as I want to be treated. I pray that I can help my relatives and others in my life to resolve anger through the use of prayer and offering Tobacco.

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator to help me to forgive those who have hurt me. I will do my best to turn the other cheek and become humble within myself. I pray for this great understanding because I know that there isn’t anything that I can do by myself to stop all unjust acts.

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator to help me to heal from the humiliating life experiences I had when I was drinking or using drugs. I know that as my sobriety grows, I will be healed when I can look at these same experiences, learn from them, and even laugh about them. I pray to my Creator in gratitude for giving us humor to heal our spirits.

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator for the gifts of children and family. I am grateful to them for taking me back into their lives after a drunk, for this unconditional love that seems to be inexhaustible. I pray for the STRENGTH to stay sober so that I may return this love to them.

WEEK TWO

Indian thought for the week

The first step in understanding our alcoholism or addiction to another drug is admitting we are powerless to do anything about it. If we had cancer, would we deny that this illness is ravaging our bodies? If you have pancreatitis, its pain is not something you can deny. As in cancer and pancreatitis, we must accept addiction as an illness. We cannot deny the toll it takes on our body. This is a cunning and baffling disease we have been infected with. It consumes our physical self, our mental self, and our soul. By working the Steps and practicing the spiritual principles I learn from my Elders as an Indian in recovery, I can find healing a day at a time.

Stories from the rooms

One time I was walking on the street with my friends and the cops pulled us over. They told me to take my hands out of my pockets. I guess I didn’t do it fast enough, and one of the cops got out of the car and hit me across the head with a nightstick. I came to when they threw me in a ditch down by the river. I had to walk back to where I lived, which was about four miles. I live in a poor neighborhood, but I am a human being too. I still find it hard to forgive that officer, but I also know I am not right to judge him because judgment will come in other ways, not through me. It says in the Big Book that to stay sober, we have to let go of our resentments. Sometimes this is harder than other times, but if I don’t want to relapse, I know I have to find a way to forgive without condoning the wrongs of others.

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We can all think back on our drinking or drugging days and recall all the humiliating experiences we set ourselves up for. These bad experiences are usually the result of being in the wrong crowd—like the time I got assaulted by two people in a bar. They took me out behind the bar, beat me up, and called the police. I ended up in detox that day. Alcohol does that to us, and I’m glad I’m sober today and can remember experiences like that every time I get the urge to drink.

Indian prayers for each day of the week

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator that he believes in me, as I believe in him. I pray for commitment to believe that the disease that I have is destroying me. I pray for guidance from the Creator that he wants me to stop destroying his likeness of himself in me.

I offer this Tobacco to my Creator for this day he has