Wellbriety means to be both sober and well. It’s a word translating a term from the language of the Passamaquoddy Nation of Maine as given by an elder in the mid 1990s. It describes a natural evolution of the recovery process. The Wellbriety Movement among Native Americans is a direct descendent of the modern Native sobriety movement that began in the 1950s and continues to change and grow even today.

American Indian and Alaska Native elders have said that alcohol problems for Native Americans got worse after Indian people came home from World War II. In the early 1950s they were faced with the Federal policies of Relocation and Termination that transplanted people from the reservations to major cities to find work and also terminated the existence of over 100 tribes (Utter, 1993). Ozzie Williamson, Blackfeet Nation, is a Wellbriety elder who remembers those times. He puts an exact date on the escalation of alcohol problems for Native Americans.

“From July 1, 1953, up to the late 60s and 70s were probably some of the worst times for Indian people and their alcoholism. Can anybody tell me why I picked those dates? July 1, 1953, is when we became full citizens of this United States. That was the day that they allowed us to walk in a bar and drink like a white man. I never did learn how. I saw a lot of destruction from that time on my reservation because bars came into existence. There were people I knew who had never taken a drink in their life who started going to the bars. Some just seemed to stay there. I think that was one of the worst times for most Indian people, especially families” — Ozzie Williamson, Blackfeet Nation (Wellbriety!, 2005)

With the rise of alcohol problems for Native people after World War II also came the birth of the Indian sobriety movement. For the first time, Native Americans began to attend Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings as well as the Native American or Peyote Church (NAC) to seek healing from the effects of alcohol. By the early 1980s the Native sobriety movement was on the brink of bringing cultural ways into the 12-Step meetings that had been gradually helping Indian people from the 1950s onward. Theda Newbreast is another Blackfeet elder who remembers those times.

Many Native sobriety and Wellbriety activities today begin with the smudging ceremony. In this practice, herbs such as sage, sweetgrass, or cedar are burned to begin the healing event. All those present share the smoke in cleansing and purification. The early 1980s were very important in Native healing and recovery from alcohol because the “well” part of Wellbriety includes re-embracing the Native American cultural ways of one’s own particular tribal heritage. For Native Americans, Wellbriety means a return to some of the cultural principles, laws and values their people lived by. These ways were disrupted by the oppression of European colonization that began in the Western hemisphere in 1492.

“I went to a sobriety meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the early 1980s and there was a guy named Harold Belmont there who had a smudge. I was going, ‘What is this? What is this?’ It was controversial because it was very early sobriety for Indian people and there were sober people present. And this man gets up and lights a smudge and says, ‘I think we should pray also in our Indian ways.’ It was the first time I saw our Indian ways and 12 Steps AA start to be linked together. But it still disjolted some people” — Theda Newbreast, Blackfeet Nation (Wellbriety!, 2005).

Such a return to some of the principles of the “old ways” for Indian people in recovery today does not mean a return to the physical living conditions that we have all seen depicted in the media. Many (but not all) Native Americans seek to be vibrant bi- and multi-cultural people. Their healing and wellness includes participation in the life of contemporary mainstream North America while also adhering to the healthy values and worldviews of their own indigenous traditions and the other ethnicities they may share. Indians on the Wellbriety journey today are doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, builders, artists, educators, office workers, and every other profession, while also following their own traditions. They are committed to their careers and work as well as to their families, communities and cultures.

By the late 1980s the outlines of the Wellbriety Movement were becoming visible. By that time, Native people in recovery were beginning to realize that sobriety and wellness for them were an inclusive, holistic way of life involving the family and the community as well as the individual. The National Association of Native American Children of Alcoholics (NANACOA) was formed in the late 1980s so that children of alcoholics could find their own healing from the alcohol problems that touched almost every Native American family in one way or another. The first NANACOA gathering in 1987 hosted almost 1,000 individuals who were committed to including their families, communities and cultures in healing and recovery (Wellbriety!, 2005).

White Bison, Inc., an American Indian non-profit organization, was formed in 1988 to address the problems of alcohol in Native American communities. White Bison’s founder and current President Don Coyhis, Mohican Nation, wanted to see if his own 12-Step healing experience could include cultural ways, thereby reaching his own people much more effectively than the mainstream 12-Step AA approach alone. He knew that many Native people still regarded AA and the 12 Steps as a “white man’s thing” but he saw how it benefited him. How could he create a bridge to Indian cultures?

The first step took place when a Native elder spoke to Coyhis of four community change principles that Indian people would recognize because they could bring the family, the community and the tribal nation into an individual’s recovery process. These Four Laws of Change would become one of the deep roots of the Wellbriety Movement. They are an unseen part of every Wellbriety resource, program or event taking place today.

The Four Laws of Change
• Change is from within.
• In order for development to occur it must be preceded by a vision.
• A great learning must occur.
• You must create a healing forest.

The Four Laws of Change suggest an inclusive or integral approach to wellness for individuals, families, communities and entire nations. This eagle’s view or big picture approach is another quality of indigenous peoples, and is expressed by the American Indian Medicine Wheel. Strictly speaking, the Medicine Wheel and its teachings are part of Plains Indian cultures; but in fact, most tribal peoples recognize the intent of the teachings of the Medicine Wheel because their own tribal ways have something similar. By the early 1990s, Don Coyhis had combined some of the Medicine Wheel teachings with the 12 Steps of AA for himself and was starting to share the new approach with anyone who seemed interested.

This new culture-friendly approach to the 12 Steps of AA was first introduced to a group of incarcerated Native American men in an Idaho prison in the early 1990s. It made a big difference. The new approach allowed the power and effectiveness of the 12 Steps to find a home with people who needed to hear some of the 12-Step ways expressed in a manner that was culturally familiar to them. They also needed to pray and meditate in the Indian way as they worked the 12 Steps. When they did that—it worked!

The Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps program was born from a videotape made at that presentation in Idaho, and has been the mainstay of the Wellbriety Movement recovery approach ever since. The Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps for Men program (MW-12) came out of this prison experience in the early 1990s. The Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps for Women program was born in an Idaho prison for women in a similar way in the late 1990s. The entire set of teachings is tied together in a book, The Red Road to Wellbriety: In the Native American Way (White Bison, 2002). This innovative book presents the 12 Steps in a manner that would now be called “culturally competent” because cultural issues are part of the presentation. The book contains recovery stories specific to Indian people, including chapters on codependence, family healing, and workplace issues that had not been treated together before.

The Fourth Law of Change speaks of a healing forest and gives rise to the Healing Forest Model for community healing and change, which is another deep root of the Wellbriety Movement. The basic idea is this: the entire community needs to be part of the healing process from alcohol and drug problems so that the community itself may recover and individuals may become well persons. What a tall order! But it’s one that the Wellbriety Movement programs and approaches strive for at every turn.

One of the first tests of the Healing Forest Model came in a community change program implemented by the Passama-quoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point, Maine, in conjunction with White Bison in the mid 1990s (Simonelli, 1995). During the community’s two- to three-year experience, the tribe itself tailored the Four Laws of Change, the Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps, and the Healing Forest Model to fit their own cultural needs. The Passama-quoddy community group participating in this change program named themselves the Healing Wind. It was a truly prophetic name. Now, the Wellbriety Movement was fully underway and a healing wind was indeed beginning to blow across all of North America.

The Sacred Hoop
The next seminal event for the Wellbriety Movement came with the appearance of a vision to White Bison’s Founder/President, Don Coyhis. In 1994 Coyhis had the vision of a Hoop of 100 Eagle Feathers that would become a key spiritual element of the Wellbriety Movement. But how would the Hoop actually be built? The Eagle feathers began to arrive one by one from all over Indian country and the Hoop was assembled in a ceremonial manner in 1995. In June of that year the Hoop was brought to a gathering of multicultural elders convened in Janesville, Wis. The next great underpinning of the new Wellbriety Movement took place at this gathering. The elders spiritually placed into the Hoop four sacred gifts or intentions to be carried by the Hoop wherever it went on its journey of healing in both Native and non-Native communities alike. These are the four Gifts of the Sacred Hoop:

Eastern Direction: Healing
Southern Direction: Hope
Western Direction: Unity
Northern Direction: The Power to Forgive the Unforgivable

The “toolbox” of the Wellbriety Movement was growing as healing began to take place in different communities around Turtle Island, the Native name for North America. First, in late-1995 there was a gathering of Native American Women, followed by a gathering of Native American Men in 1996. Each gathering was dedicated to sobriety, recovery, healing and Wellbriety for those who wished to take the journey. These events were followed up by four great Journeys of the Sacred Hoop, which took place across North America in 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2003 (Wellbriety, 2003). These continental journeys spread the word to Native American communities and neighborhoods — that healing from drugs and alcohol, as well as from domestic violence and the other problems of wounded individuals and communities, was indeed possible.

The journeys got the word out that there were culturally competent videos, books, programs and other resources available that could help in one’s own healing journey. They allowed people to pray at the Hoop in moving ceremonies that made the four gifts of the Sacred Hoop available to anyone seeking them. Many different presentations took place in local communities on the four Hoop Journeys. These presentations offered teachings from the Wellbriety movement, and perhaps equally important, they offered an opportunity for local community leaders and medicine people to present their own healing teachings in a manner familiar to the local people.

The Firestarters program was introduced on the 1999 Hoop Journey, becoming a mainstay for grassroots recovery. Firestarters participate in a three-day training session that teaches them how work the Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps approach in a cultural way. They watch the MW-12 Videos and use the workbooks and The Red Road to Wellbriety book in their personal recovery. They learn how to participate in talking circles and how to perform basic cultural ceremonies, such as smudging. They bring ceremonies from their own regions or tribes into the Firestarter Circles. They make a commitment to continue with the program for four years. Firestarters attend circles as much as once a week and often go on to facilitate Circles in their own communities once they feel confident and are far enough along in their own recovery.

Youth wellbriety programs
Daughters of Tradition and Sons of Tradition are two Wellbriety Movement prevention programs aimed at Native American Youth. Both programs reinforce the cultural grounding that is part of their own traditions, teach safe and well conduct, and allow young people to stay clear of gangs, drugs, and other dangerous behavior. The Wellbriety for Youth program facilitated by Jeri Brunoe Samson, Warm Springs Nation, also offers many different teachings, activities and learning experiences for youth.

Blaine Wood, Cherokee, facilitates the Wellbriety for Prisons Program that takes the Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps approach into state and federal prisons nationwide for the benefit of incarcerated Native Americans. The basic MW-12 program is often modified in prison environments to include topics such as criminal thinking and thinking errors, which are especially helpful to recovering men and women in prison. The prison program also offers incarcerated Native Americans access to a set of 54 audio cassette speaker tapes that contain AA and Al-Anon talks given by Native Americans in recovery since the 1950s. Listening to these tapes helps these incarcerated natives work the program in prison.

Two of the most popular Wellbriety Movement programs offered to American Indian and Alaska Native communities today are the 7 Trainings and the Coalition Building series. The 7 Trainings are designed to appeal to seven different interest groups in a community. In each case the core Medicine Wheel and the 12-Step program is modified to meet the needs of these seven diverse groups so there is something for the whole community. There are seven simultaneous tracks from which a participant in the 7 Trainings event may choose:
• Firestarters (The Medicine Wheel and 12 Steps) for Men
• Firestarters (The Medicine Wheel and 12 Steps) for Women
• Firestarters (The Medicine Wheel and 12 Steps) for Al-Anon
• Sons of Tradition (Addictions prevention and wellness for Native American boys ages 13 to 17)
• Daughters of Tradition I & II (Addictions prevention and wellness for Native American girls ages 8 to 17)
• Strengthening our Families (for family healing)
• Children of alcoholics (for youth whose families are affected by alcohol abuse)

The Coalition Building program teaches communities in healing how to band together as coalitions in order to be more effective in accessing healing resources for their communities. It teaches them how to act in unity for the benefit of all.

The most recent Wellbriety Movement program, still in development, is called Warrior Down. This community-based initiative focuses on Native people who return to the reservation or to their urban neighborhoods after spending time either in prison or in chemical dependency treatment programs. This relapse prevention activity creates and trains a network of healthy people to support their brothers and sisters coming home.

Each year Wellbriety Movement supporters keep in touch by attending the National Conference. National Wellbriety Conferences are a time when new topics in healing and addictions recovery for Native Americans receive top billing. National conferences offer keynote addresses, special presentations, 12-Step meetings, talking circles, workshops, Hoop ceremonies, the Wellbriety powwow, a banquet, and enjoyable visits between old friends. Conferences have been held in Colorado Springs, Col.; Rapid City, S.D.; Billings, Mon.; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Denver, Col. The Wellbriety Movement also keeps in touch through the White Bison website, www.whitebison.org, as well as through Wellbriety! Online Magazine, located on that same website.

Wellbriety participants are now enjoying an exciting and brand new resource that promises to bring hope and understanding to Native Americans in recovery. It also promises to find a home in the non-Native recovery community and in the history and American Indian studies communities in secondary and higher education, as well. The new book is entitled Alcohol Problems in Native America: The Untold Story of Resistance and Recovery–“The Truth About the Lie,” by Don Coyhis and Bill White. This new book demonstrates through rigorous research, that American Indians and Alaska Native communities have resisted the debilitating effects of alcohol for over 250 years. It creates a listing of myths about Indians and alcohol, contrasting them with the actual facts, and helping to set the record straight about alcohol stereotypes in Indian country. Alcohol Problems in Native America clearly shows that the Wellbriety Movement described in this article is a direct descendent of that tradition of resistance as it has come down through hundreds of years. It will continue vibrantly into the future.

Information about any of the Wellbriety Movement resources and programs mentioned in the article, and others not described, may be obtained from the White Bison, Inc. website www.whitebison.org or by calling White Bison, Inc. at 719-548-1000 or toll-free, 1-877-871-1495.

References
Utter, J. (1993). American Indians — Answers to Today’s Questions. Lake Ann, MI: National Woodlands.
Wellbriety! Online Magazine. (2005). Volume 6, No. 8, available at www.whitebison.org
White Bison, Inc. (2002), The Red Road to Wellbriety: In the Native American Way, Colorado Springs, Colorado, White Bison, Inc.
Simonelli, R. (1995). The Healing Wind, Winds of Change, 10(3).
Wellbriety! Online Magazine. (2003) Sacred Hoop Journey III, Sacred Hoop Journey IV, available at www.whitebison.org
Coyhis, Don & White, William. (2006). Alcohol Problems in Native America: The Untold Story of Resistance and Recovery-“The Truth About the Lie.” Colorado Springs, CO, White Bison, Inc.

Don Coyhis ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is the President and co-founder of White Bison, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO, and a member of the Mohican Nation from the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation in Wisconsin.

Richard Simonelli, MS, free-lance writer and editor, is the communication and media specialist for White Bison, Inc. of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, August 2006, v.7, n.4, pp.12-17.

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Paul du Buf   |82.2.169.xxx |2007-11-18 08:57:02 Very inspiring to hear about the qualities of wellbriety and it's positive call for change in individuals and communities. Reply 0   0

Rose Isaac   |66.223.198.xxx |2007-10-05 14:48:44 This is very interesting. I had the book and loan it to someone else. I would like to buy the book for women and the tapes. Can you tell me where I can get them? I understand that the book is out of print? Reply 0   0

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