This book is written in the belief that many Native substance abusers suffer because their cultural heritage is being swept away or because they have lost contact with it. While Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous provide wonderful leadership to millions of people, they do not deal with the pain that can arise when cultures weaken and die or when people are cut off from their heritage. While not seeking to replace tools of recovery, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, this book deals with the fact that people often lose the ability to cope when their cultures are under attack. The resulting pain can lead to substance abusers. If strengthened, however, the traditions of a people can help people regain their sobriety. The example of Handsome Lake, a Native leader who lived many years ago, demonstrates the power of tradition. Handsome Lake was an alcoholic near death who, at the last possible moment, regained his sobriety and invented a method that helped the Iroquois people overcome their alcoholism and restore their culture. This strategy was made up of two parts (1) reaffirming and strengthening the culture and (2) living a sober life while undoing past wrongs. This book is written to how how Handsome Lake’s inspirational example can help today's Native people who seek recovery from substance abuse.

This workbook is designed to be used with Recovery the Native Way, a short book in this series that deals with the impact that your Native heritage might have on your substance abuse as well as how your traditions might contribute to a fruitful and positive recovery. A person’s culture and its importance to emotional health are emphasized. When their way of life is weakened or when people lose touch with it, pain can result. This suffering may lead to substance abuse. If, on the other hand, people have a good relationship with their culture, it can be a source of comfort and strength that can help them to cope and recover. The goal of Recovery the Native Way and this workbook is to deal with how cultural issues can lead both to substance abuse and recovery. The ideas presented largely reflect the experiences of Handsome Lake, the nineteenth century leader who overcame alcoholism and helped his tribe to do the same. Because this book is inspired by the experiences of actual Native people who have successful overcame addiction, I hope it will ring true and help you. By using this workbook when reading Recovery the Native Way, you can better understand yourself and your behavior. This is a key to recovery. Specific exercises in this workbook correspond to chapters in Recovery the Native Way. You will read a chapter from the book and then use the workbook to clarify your personal feelings. There are no right or wrong answers as long as you are honest and true to yourself. If you respond truthfully and carefully, the effort can be a very useful tool of your recovery. Most basically, the workbook will help you better understand your Native heritage, the mainstream culture, and the relationship between the two. Work hard and good luck.

"Time and again our Elders have said that the 12 Steps of AA are just the same as the principles that our ancestors lived by, with only one change. When we place the 12 Steps in a circle then they come into alignment with the circle teachings that we know from many of our tribal ways. When we think of them in a circle and use them a little differently, then the words will be more familiar to us. This book is about a Red Road, Medicine Wheel Journey to Wellbriety--to become sober and well in a Native American cultural way."--Back cover.

Literary critics frequently portray early Native American writers either as individuals caught between two worlds or as subjects who, even as they defied the colonial world, struggled to exist within it. In striking counterpoint to these analyses, Lisa Brooks demonstrates the ways in which Native leadersa including Samson Occom, Joseph Brant, Hendrick Aupaumut, and William Apessa adopted writing as a tool to reclaim rights and land in the Native networks of what is now the northeastern United States.

The Native American Medicine Wheel is a philosophy that addresses the four elements of the human condition and helps the individual create and find balance that ensures healthy recovery from the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual struggles we encounter in an oftentimes confusing and hostile world. The book has numerous spiritual quotes in the Seneca tribal language of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people. The full color photos of the animals that depict the cardinal directions, the moons, and the various insightful gifts one receives from following this spiritual, logical, and philosophical path, are vibrant and alive. The love of her traditions and dedication of the author is evident on every page and in every word.

"Illuminating the complex relationships between tribal informants and twentieth-century anthropologists such as Boas, Parker, and Fenton, who came to their communities to collect stories and artifacts"--Provided by publisher.

Decolonizing Wealth is a provocative analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance. Award-winning philanthropy executive Edgar Villanueva draws from the traditions from the Native way to prescribe the medicine for restoring balance and healing our divides. Though it seems counterintuitive, the philanthropic industry has evolved to mirror colonial structures and reproduces hierarchy, ultimately doing more harm than good. After 14 years in philanthropy, Edgar Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade, and into its shadows: the old boy networks, the savior complexes, and the internalized oppression among the “house slaves,” and those select few people of color who gain access. All these funders reflect and perpetuate the same underlying dynamics that divide Us from Them and the haves from have-nots. In equal measure, he denounces the reproduction of systems of oppression while also advocating for an orientation towards justice to open the floodgates for a rising tide that lifts all boats. In the third and final section, Villanueva offers radical provocations to funders and outlines his Seven Steps for Healing. With great compassion—because the Native way is to bring the oppressor into the circle of healing—Villanueva is able to both diagnose the fatal flaws in philanthropy and provide thoughtful solutions to these systemic imbalances. Decolonizing Wealth is a timely and critical book that preaches for mutually assured liberation in which we are all inter-connected.