|
Sobriety History
 |
 |
The Last
NANACOA Conference
Took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in December, 1998.
Here is the Sam English art announcing the conference.
Warriors for Children of
Alcoholics is forming-up
to provide some of the support that NANACOA offered
during its ten-year run. Contact White Bison for
more information. |
Native American resistance to
alcohol since first European contact, and sobriety
history were strong focuses at the Fifth Annual White
Bison Wellbriety Conference in Denver in 2005. Here
are three remembrance talks given at the Conference.
Ozzie Williamson (Blackfeet) remembers the earliest
programs coming out of the Johnson Great Society era.
Theda New Breast (Blackfeet) and Gary Newmann (Salish/Kootenai)
talk about their involvement with NANACOA (National
Association of Native American Children of Alcoholics).
But these talks are not all about the old days. They
are also an invitation to see where the NANACOA vision
can go with the new Warriors for Children of Alcoholics
activity under development by White Bison. You, the
reader, can be a part of these stories by getting in
touch to see how you can help with this new extension
of NANACOA.
A remembrance by Ozzie Williamson at the Fifth Annual
White Bison Wellbriety Conference in Denver, Colorado
on April 21, 2005
I was asked to talk about the history
of some of the government programs that started about
the time that I got sober in the early 1970’s.
I look back to July 1, 1953 and up to the late sixties
and seventies as probably some of the worst times
for Indian people and their alcoholism. Can anybody
tell me why I picked those dates? July 1, 1953 was
when we became full citizens of this United States
(Eisenhower Administration legislation). That was
the day they allowed us to walk in a bar and drink
like a white man. I never did learn how.
From that time on I saw a lot of destruction on my
reservation because bars came into existence. There
were people there I knew had never taken a drink in
their life who started going to the bars, and some
just seemed to stay there. I think that was one of
the worst times for most Indian people, and especially
for families. I think families really suffered during
that time.
When I came into the Program in
the early seventies there were a couple of programs
that were funded by the government. One was the OEO
(Office of Equal Opportunity). The other one was
what was called the CAP Program, the Community Action
Program. Those were the first two programs I knew
that existed and tried to do something about alcoholism.
But there wasn’t much being
done because most of the people who were hired to run
the programs were still drinking. I know a couple of
people who had to be carried off the plane when they
went to a conference. Another ended up in jail at the
conference. Those were some of our alcoholism leaders.
But because of those two programs I think the eyes
of some of the people in Washington, DC were opened.
They started taking a look at what was happening. There
was another organization called NIAAA, the National
Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. One of the
first things NIAAA did was to create a new desk or
position called the Indian Desk. They hired a gentleman
who had been trying to work in alcoholism for several
years by the name of Burt Eader. They called him the
chief of the Indian Desk. That was the title for that
position.
In the early seventies there was
a freeze on all alcoholism programs. Some communities
that were funded by OEO and CAP submitted proposals
in Washington, DC but they were sitting on a shelf
back there because of that freeze. When the freeze
was lifted, Burt Eader was at the Indian Desk and
he shipped all of the Indian programs back to the
people who wrote them with the funding attached.
Some of them were funded at a very low level, some
were poorly written, but that’s
how a lot of the programs started––through
Burt Eader and the Indian Desk.
After Burt started, some other
people out in the communities were working in their
own areas. Other organizations started forming. One
of the first national organizations that became funded
was the American Indian Commission on Alcohol and
Drug Abuse. At the same time, NIBADA, the National
Indian Board on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, started forming.
That was a typical Indian program. Some of the guys
who were trying to form NIBADA didn’t
like some of the guys who were with the American Indian
Commission. The organizations were therefore separate
entities, which was good because there was a lot of
progress at that time.
I don’t remember the dates
too well, but between 1972 and 1978 I think is probably
when the most progress was made in Indian Alcoholism.
The American Indian Commission became an advocate
for the funded programs in Washington, DC. I joined
the American Indian Commission in 1973 and we traveled
all over the country to the various programs to offer
them help. If a program was having trouble or they
needed some training or something, we were there
to try to provide whatever we could for them. NIBADA
was still working nationally. They had a charter
and were doing some great things. They had a conference
every year.
In 1977 there were 177 community
Indian programs funded under NIAAA. Out of those
177 programs, there was not a drinking Director.
That was one of the things that the American Indian
Commission had the power to do. If we went into a
program and found a Director who was drinking, we
would tell the Tribal Council they either had to
replace that person or do something about the drinking.
As time went on, there wasn’t a
drinking Director on Staff. To me, that was one of
the greatest things that happened.
 |
| Theda New Breast and Ozzie Williamson are co-presenters
at the Conference |
There was another
big change in 1978. Some of the NIAAA programs that
were funded for six years, called mature programs,
were being transferred to IHS or Indian Health Service.
To be very honest, there was a lot of regression
when the Indian Health Service took over. The same
old Indian politics went on at a lot of the reservations.
The Tribal Councils had control of the money. They
started hiring their relatives who were still drinking,
and a lot of regression in our progress took place
at that time. Before these changes, Indian Health,
NIAAA, and BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) in Washington,
DC had a joint meeting. BIA said they didn’t
want those programs. Indian Health said we don’t
want that monster, either. But it turned out that Indian
Health had to take those programs, the mature ones
from NIAAA. So they started taking control of them.
I remember one incident. We were back in Washington,
DC one night, meeting with some of the people who they
hired to run the Indian Health Service. I was active
with the NIBADA board at that time, and we were having
a meeting with them at a hotel room because we didn’t
have an office or any other place to meet. The guy
who was representing the Indian Health Service got
so mad during the meeting that he walked into a closet
instead of going out the door.
The American Indian Commission
was phased out in 1978 when the Indian Health Service
took over the program. But in the early eighties
another powerful organization sprang up. I’m
going to have my buddy Theda New Breast talk about
that one. (Please see the remembrance by Theda New
Breast in this issue)
Looking back, when one of these
programs would phase out it seemed like another one
would start up. NANACOA had their last meeting in
Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1998. It wasn’t long after that another great organization
began to do the Hoop Journeys, and that’s the
one we are with here tonight, White Bison. When the
early programs started in the sixties and seventies,
like OEO and CAP, they were more or less community
programs. Then, starting in the early seventies, we
had the national programs, which were mostly service
programs. They just tried to help the community programs––they
didn’t do much directly with alcoholics. But
in the eighties when NANACOA started they started looking
at families. I think what we all missed in the early
times of Indian sobriety was looking at families. I
think we totally missed that because when I came in
we used to concentrate on the hard core alcoholics
who were sleeping in old car bodies and the like. The
government was telling us, you get them guys sober
and they will go back to their families and be fine.
Some got sober, but when they went back to mama, and
mama let them in, a week later they were out again.
One of the things I saw in my time when I worked in
the inpatient area is worth remembering. If a mother
came in, and got sober, and went back home, almost
every family member came in behind her. That showed
me how important mothers are. We, as Indian people,
talk about Mother Earth and the respect for all mothers.
I think mothers are the most important to all of us.
When NANACOA phased out, the White
Bison Hoop Journeys started and the Wellbriety Movement
began. I met a gentleman back in the 1980’s. He was out there
working in the corporate world. But there was something
missing in his life. Every time we would meet he would
tell me about some of the visions he was having and
some of the things that were happening. One day he
flew into Billings where I used to live and we sat
for about eight hours talking. He told me of some of
the visions he was having about something like this,
like what this Conference is about. But he was a little
reluctant to try to start it because he didn’t
know what was going to happen. That was Don, Don Coyhis.
He left a well-paying job to do something like this
to help us. I think it takes a lot of courage and a
lot of guts to make this organization become a reality.
And to do the things that he is doing for all of us.
 |
A remembrance by
Theda New Breast
at the Fifth Annual White Bison Wellbriety
Conference in Denver, Colorado on April 21, 2005
I was raised by the people who began
the sobriety movement in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
I feel humbled to even share some of my remembrances
with you. I was thinking of two people, Harold Belmont
and Thelma Rides At The Door. I always like listening
to their stories because they said they were just pitiful
in Seattle in those days so they started their own
Indian AA group. I think both of them have 35 years
of sobriety now. It was just pitiful they said. They
held onto each other so much in those 12 Steps. They
guided each other. Thelma still lives at home in Montana.
She tells those stories. But Ozzie wanted me to share
with you something of what happened with NANACOA.
I had started going to meetings
but I wasn’t
sober yet. In 1979 and 1980 I went to the American
Indian Training Institute with Dave Vallo. You know
how we are as Indians, we sit in the back to check
it out before we even say anything? You know!! I went
to a meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico and everybody
was whispering because there was some guy in there
named Harold Belmont and he had a smudge. It was controversial
because it was early sobriety and there were sober
people present. This man gets up and lights a smudge
and says, “I think we should also pray in our
Indian ways.” It was the first time I saw our
Indian ways and 12 Step AA start to come together.
But it still disjolted some people.
The year 1964 was a very important
time in our history. It was a time of Civil Rights.
It was a time when African American people started
to say that they were black and proud. It was also
the time when Indian people stopped being shameful
and came out with their pride. Wanda Frogg was one
of my mentors. She would say to me that she had to
go to those Indian Commission meetings and they were
all men. She was the only woman invited. She said
they would all be in their suits but one brave Indian
would wear a beaded medallion. It was 1972. Indian
people in the early 60’s stopped being
ashamed and started being proud. We started seeking
out our Elders, who never stopped being proud.
I love the people who founded NANACOA.
In 1987 a lot of us would go to sobriety conferences
but there was a piece missing. We had a fear, we
had an awkwardness, we had fears of abandonment and
rejection. In 1987 some of my buddies were Anna Whiting
Sorel, JoAnn Kaufman, John Bird, Ed Barnhardt, Gary
Escavito, Anna Latimer, Kathleen Brook, and even
Claudia Black, who you probably know best for the
book, It Won’t Happen to Me.
They were part of the National movement (people of
every color) for children of alcoholics. Some of us
were so excited about what was happening that we said, “We
need an Indian organization like that!” So a
rumbling in the sobriety movement began about that.
In those days there were a lot
of people still hurting. They thought they were good
Alanons, good codependents, but they still hadn’t copped to their own sobriety.
They’d go to events but they would still be sneaking.
We knew it, but they would still be sneaking. But in
1988 in Missoula, Montana, we had our first NANACOA
conference. Gary Newmann was there (Please see Gary
Newmann’s remembrance in this issue). We said
maybe 200 people will come. We had a room in a hotel
kind of like this one. And 1000 Indian people showed
up. People hitchhiked, people packed themselves into
cars—you know how you can get 15 Indians into
one car? Everybody came. The hotel people got all excited.
You know, in Montana they said, “Indians are
coming, we’d better restock the bar.” They
got all excited, they got extra alcohol because 1000
Indians showed up. No one went to the bar. Get that!
No one went to the bar. They had to drink their alcohol
themselves. (Applause)
It gives me goose bumps to even speak about it. We
were in a room like this. We had skinny chairs. We
all had to sit narrow, like they tell you in the sweats.
A thousand of us all sitting narrow and a speaker would
come on and we would all just start crying together.
A thousand Indians would just start crying together.
Then another speaker would come on and we would all
laugh together. We were all just like little scared
children because someone was speaking the truth. Someone
was telling the truth. The pink elephant was out of
the closet.
NANACOA was very instrumental in
the sobriety movement at that moment. Now NANACOA
is entering into another phase. It is becoming Warriors
for Children of Alcoholics. That’s what you are part of today. What you’re
doing today is you are picking up the baton. Nothing
really leaves us. We have just got to step up as adults
and pick up that baton and carry on the ACOA (Adult
Children of Alcoholics) movement.
We’ve been talking about the shooting
incident on the Red Lake Indian reservation because
it impacts a lot of us. My young people at home and
my own daughter are asking what we should do, and what
is the solution. I have to say to all of you adults
in the room, the responsibility’s on us. I have
a friend at home who says she has two columns—the “M” column
and the “I” column. The “I” column
is for Immature, and the “M” column is
for Mature. When anyone is egotistic or “out
there” she goes, “I column.” Whenever
they are humbling themselves and working for the people
and don’t have to be up front she says, “M
column.”
I hope all of us can just step
into that “M” column
and continue the movement with NANACOA. You are the
7th Generation. Our young people are here so its time
we moved forward.
A remembrance
by Gary Newmann Given at the White Bison Wellbriety
Conference Denver, Colorado, September 22, 2005
I’m honored to be able to talk to
you about NANACOA. You heard some of the history about
NANACOA last night during Theda Newbreast’s portion
of the sobriety history talk (Please see the talk in
this issue). About two years ago at one of the White
Bison conferences, Don and I and several other people
were talking about what happened to NANACOA. Where is
it? What I remembered was that NANACOA was in a storage
locker in Seattle, Washington. Now all of the records
of NANACOA are in Don’s garage. We moved them two
years ago into his garage and he invited me to the conference
to talk about adult children of alcoholics. I also felt
the need to talk about my journey with NANACOA.
 |
| Gary Newmann |
My journey
began in 1987 on July 14 when I began my sobriety.
A month later I was hired by my tribe, the Confederated
Salish and Kootenai Tribe, to be an administrative
aide in their alcohol program. I didn’t know that
I was on a journey that was going to take me to some
truly incredible places. That journey has led me here
today.
One of the things I remember most
about the first conference with NANACOA was that there
was a group of about eight or nine-hundred Native Americans
in a hotel, like Theda said last night, and we were
talking about issues that were coming from our heart.
We weren’t talking
about programs, we weren’t talking about organizations,
we were talking about what brought us there and sharing
our pain with others. A unity emerged during the beginnings
of that journey. That unity is still going on today.
It doesn’t take NANACOA or an organization to keep
us as Native people moving forward.
In that conversation with Don and
others we talked about what NANACOA was going to be
when it came back. I was very humbled and honored to
become one of the new board members of NANACOA. That
holds a tremendous place in my heart. As a recovering
Native American I believe I have a responsibility in
my recovery to share my journey and to be of service
wherever I can. NANACOA took me a long way toward healing
a lot of hurts, a lot of pain. One of the most important
things NANACOA offered was safety. There was a room
where you could sit in a circle, not in chairs in rows
with tables in front of you, but in a circle with some
Medicine and share from your heart. As I shared, there
was someone else in the room that shared a little bit
of their pain. That circle kept going and I realized
I was not alone. I’m not the only
one to feel this way, as I had thought for many years.
I’m not the only one carrying this. I don’t
have to be the only one to heal from it. I can heal with
others.
We are talking about where NANACOA
is going to go now. I believe that NANACOA has two
options. The first is to continue to be that safe place
where individuals and family members coming into this
journey can get the healing opportunity to go forward
in their journey. But I think we are also at a point
as Native people where we are looking at some other
issues. We are looking at some very hard and painful
issues. In my community, one of the issues that we
know is still happening is sexual abuse––and no one’s
talking about it. When we remain silent, people get
hurt. Our children and our families get hurt.
I also felt that NANACOA kind of
kept me stuck. When you put a name to something it
can be a way of keeping you there and not allowing
you to move on. But at that very moment, Don suggested
the creation of a new effort called Warriors
for Children of Alcoholics. There was such a breath of freshness
to that. That’s movement.
That’s forward movement. In taking a look at the
four directions, one of the things I think NANACOA can
do in the future is to work on forgiveness. Forgiving
the unforgivable, forgiving yourself, and then forgiving
others. That’s a way of moving through the cycle.
I think NANACOA has a responsibility and an opportunity
to do that.
Some of the issues we talked about
needing to deal with now include intergenerational
trauma, sexual abuse and incest, grief work, and the
boarding schools. Those are things we carry. I didn’t realize why my grandmother
never spoke Salish. I had always heard that she spoke
Salish as her language after she was born. That’s
all she knew. As I got older I started to wonder why
she didn’t speak Salish anymore. About a month
before she passed I asked her. There was fear in her
eyes. I didn’t know what that meant until she said
she was taken away and sent to a boarding school. She
was the youngest of seventeen children at the school.
Eleven of those children were removed from their homes
and sent to boarding schools and her language was beaten
out of her. She was afraid to speak her language. So
afraid, that it never came up, year after year, after
year. At that moment I realized some of the things that
happened in my life were the result of that experience
my grandmother had. I was carrying some of that pain
also. When I went to NANACOA or to one of the other workshops
we were able to talk about that. There were people talking
about the boarding school experience. It was a sense
of relief. I think that important work is just beginning.
We want your thoughts, your direction
and your input about Warriors
for Children of Alcoholics because that’s
what NANACOA originally was. It wasn’t a group
of individuals who said this is what we are going to
do, it was a group of Native Americans who went to a
conference and sat in a room and said, “Let’s
do this journey together.” I think we need to continue
that journey. I’m honored to be a part of it in
any way that I can. It takes me back to responsibility.
I believe that in my recovery I have the responsibility
to share what I know, to be who I am, a proud Native
American, two-spirited grandfather.
Someone asked me why I was working
for an alcohol program. They asked whether it is to
close down all the bars on the reservation. I thought,
well that would be nice. No. I have seven grandchildren
and I’m honored
to say that every one of them was born into a celebration
in my family where we didn’t celebrate with alcohol.
That’s why I do this. So that my grandchildren
have more choices than I did, more knowledge than I did,
and someone who is there to be present in their lives.
I remember thinking that when I got sober everything
was going to be fine and everybody else was just going
to fall into place. I thought my son and my daughter
were going to learn automatically from me, that I’d
be a good role model, and they would be just fine. That’s
not true. They also carry pain. Pain that we have not
been able to talk about together. My daughter is going
through that now. I’m her father and I love her.
I know the pain that’s she’s in. Through
Medicine and through my support network I’m going
to be able to get through it so that I’ll be there
for her to offer more choices for her and her journey.
So that’s what I see NANACOA becoming and I’m
proud to be a part of it, and I’m honored to be
in a room with every one of you.
Before I got sober I used to remember
the bad things about people. If I saw someone again
I would always remember the bad. I don’t do that any more. When I see people
again I remember the good. I know something good about
everyone of you now and I’m going to carry that
with me. Thank you very much.
|
| Artist Sam English (Chippewa) has supported Native
sobriety and wellness over the years by painting
many original artworks for use by different Indian
organizations involved in healing, education and
other fields. Here is a poster done for NANACOA in
1996. Visit Sam’s website at www.samenglish.com to view and purchase his art. |
|
