(This article by Fran Dancing Feather appeared in the July issue of the AA Grapevine)
Today is the potluck to celebrate all the AA birthdays for the month.
We have a big cake and tons of food and really great fellowship. There is no place I would rather be then right here. There is no one else I would rather be then me and no other fellowship on the planet that speaks higher about the gifts of healing then this little AA gathering way out in the back country of Central Arizona. It’s the Red Road meeting and we are just upriver from the local Indian Reservation.
The outer face smiles as I watch my brother take a cake for one year of sobriety but the inner face cries for my sister in the hospital being treated for alcoholism. Bitter sweet, this sobriety. According to Indian Health Services, ninety-seven percent of Native Americans will die, either directly or indirectly, from the disease of alcoholism. I am powerless. I never have to pick up a drink one day at a time for the rest of my life and by that I am empowered by my Higher Power. Don C has a vision that one of these days, there will be Red Road AA meetings on one hundred Indian reservations around the country. I feel called by my Creator to be responsible for helping that dream come true.
Doing the same tasks my sponsor taught me when I was in my first thirty days, still works well for me. I wash ash trays and coffee cups and sweep the floor at the meeting hall. I drink the last 4 cups of coffee left in the pot at the end of the meeting because I hate to throw it out. I used to be very poor on the reservation and we never threw anything out but now I wonder why I cannot sleep through the night. I am a work in progress. A friend suggested that if I go around and fill up everyone’s cup near the end of the meeting, I won’t have to drink all the extra coffee and then maybe I can sleep better. What a concept!
What can I say to my sister? I love you? I hate this disease? I can help you or maybe I cannot help you because I am powerless over you. Please don’t die! Get up and feed yourself, comb your hair and come to the meeting. Maybe together, we can change the number to only 96% percent of our race dying of this thing. For my brother, I can give him a hug and listen with all my heart as he prays in the native language, giving thanks for that year of sobriety. Big medicine! Happy Birthday!
The Indian word “Haudenosaunee” means, “People building a longhouse”. The longhouse is home to the entire clan, where they live, work, pray and share their lives as people with common goals and spirituality. Sometimes I look around the AA meetinghouse, and see the things on the walls like the steps, traditions, picture of the first 12-step call and other symbols of our goals and spirituality in recovery. It reminds me of the longhouse because the walls there also contain things that represent the inhabitants and the lifestyle. For me the AA meetinghouse feels safe like a good home and the people who share it also share similar spirituality and goals. Of course, like any large family or clan, we have our differences but the diversity of our separate uniqueness makes us very interesting.
Just like in the longhouse we are learning how to grow up and become happy productive adults. We learn more about our Creator by learning about each other and studying the ways that worked to make our elders strong sober people. For native people, sobriety is traditional, just like for sober alcoholics. Our AA founders are like the great old chiefs of our people in recovery. The old timers are like the elders in Indian country. They know what works and what doesn’t work and the closer we listen to their stories and take direction from them, the stronger and more spiritual our recovery will become.
When I first got sober, my family seemed a long time gone from my life. It was me who had wondered off from the beautiful traditional teachings of my childhood, not my elders. After about twenty-five years of hard drinking, I finally got sober and went back to see the older people and make amends. They were kind and it was good to be around people who looked like me and really knew how to make me laugh and love. They had aged. Some of their hands were a bit shaky and their faces were lined with the great journey of the passing of many years. Their brown eyes still sparkled though, and shined when I listened to the stories of our family and our beliefs. Grandpa said that when you give an old man or woman a small gift and ask them to teach you, you make an esteemed elder out of them and the ancient ways of wisdom come back to life in them.
An old timer in AA once told me, “You can choose whether you want to be part of the problem or part of the solution.” There will always be problems in AA groups just like there will always be problems in Indian communities. Every day we are given the opportunity to decide which side we are on. Will I complain if someone shares too long or if I think they are not sober as long as they say? Would I leave a meeting because all the good seats are taken or because someone I don’t happen to like is there? I can also ask, would I walk out of my longhouse because someone in my family is suffering or acting out? Would I give up on my Indian people or my sober people just because they aren’t doing it my way?
I think maybe Haudenosaunee means more to me then just a specific Tribe or culture. It means people doing unselfish things for each other, building together, praying and sharing and teaching and learning about our Creator’s will for us. Haudenosaunee is an ideal, just as much as it is a specific group or nation. AA is an ideal too. It’s the combination of many things working together like meetings, reading the Big Book, answering 12-step calls and making a great pot of coffee. It’s a legacy for the next generation of suffering alcoholics just like the teachings of the longhouse are a legacy for the next seven generations of Native Americans.
We have pow wows in Indian Country and AA conventions for sober people. They are celebrations of life and gratitude. The first time I danced sober in the Indian pow wow I felt proud to be who I am and humbled that these ancient dances and celebrations had survived so much difficult history. The first time I held hands and said the Lord’s Prayer at the Sunday spiritual meeting at an AA convention I got tears in my eyes. I had stayed sober long enough to passionately feel the gift of gratitude for my recovery.
American Indian people are the First Nations of this great and beautiful land and have suffered a long and brutal history of genocide, boarding schools and being confined behind barbwire boundaries on reservations. Alcoholics have suffered a brutal history too. Perhaps we can blame many things for the brokenness we feel. We can blame our history or we can rise above it! We may be heartbroken as we become aware of all we have lost and all that has been taken from us or we can rebuild our lives. We can build a longhouse or a meetinghouse if we work together to overcome our fears and shortcomings. If we step outside the blame game long enough to take responsibility for our today, we can do great things for our future and our earth and all our relations.
The ceremony of gratitude begins in the center of this very second, right now today. Most of us will not make huge impressive contributions, nor will our names go down in history as the greatest thinkers of all time. We are just a few humble contributors to the greater good. When we stay sober one day at a time, we help others just by sharing at meetings and answering the phone. We can be part of the solution to the troubles of humankind.
I have no power over the actions of others or how anyone uses alcohol to solve their problems. I am powerless. Without my Creator my life becomes unmanageable in the space of a heartbeat. It’s my responsibility to remember to turn my will and life back over to God as often as it slips back into my control. If I feel broken and shamed by history, I can say all I want about that in my fourth step. That’s what inventory is for, the venting of the ugly part of my soul and what I have become as the result. If I am honest in my reading of my fourth and willing to have God take away the parts of me that no longer serve me, I will find myself humbly on my knees in step seven. Little had I known that my resentments had harmed those around me and it was time to write their names down and make direct amends.
Steps ten, eleven and twelve when taken daily, enable me to heal from the brokenness of my drinking. No matter what may be wrong today, I am not in jail or the nut house and I am no longer homeless or hungry or in despair. My Creator was and still is generously kind to me, by allowing me to reclaim my body, mind and spirit and stay sober. My tenth step keeps score of my wrongs and rights and step eleven allows me to explore the awesomeness of my Creator and my culture. Step twelve reminds me every day, that I never have to go back to the lonely dark life of my drinking.
I make a lot of mistakes but I try to balance it out with good stuff. For me, that means I have to give a little extra, try a bit harder and stand a little taller then I think I can. A lot of times I just need to keep my mouth shut. Alcoholics already feel pretty bad about themselves. I don’t need to make anyone feel worse. My job is to help them feel better about themselves. I need to thank God more and complain less. This means I have to step outside my “comfort zone” just a little more often then I feel like it.
I have a special love, respect an honor for my native ancestry because of my sobriety. I thank my family for that and I see our human dignity, strength and beauty in my dark eyed children. Today we talk about the Good Red Road of Recovery. That is the road by which we choose sobriety and the journey home to love and care for our own people. Native people open Red Road meetings inside and outside Indian communities all over the country. Together we carry the message of the twelve steps to our brothers and sisters and thank them for joining us on this journey that has embraced every Native American Nation and Tribe in the land. We are not extinct! We are alive and well and thriving in recovery because of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Today I thank my Creator along with all of you who share your experience, strength and hope with me. You are my heroes! Today I have a gratitude list and I read it to God every morning. I work steps with my sponsor and answer the phone when an alcoholic wants to talk. You have taught me well. I owe you BIG. Please keep coming back because I love you, even if I sometimes have a hard time proving it.
