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.

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness that Native clients who suffer from substance abuse often face challenges that are distinct from those experienced by the mainstream population. For a number of years, I have been involved in research involving Native alcoholism and I have recently published a book on the subject titled The Path of Handsome Lake: A Model of Recovery for Native People. My book argues that many different Native cultures (in America and elsewhere) face similar challenges and disruptions because their cultures are often under great stress and/or because people are alienated from their heritage. The dyfunctional responses of many different Native people are similar because they are subjected to similar pressures. In a nutshell, due to contact with the outside world, Native cultures often experience disruptive transitions, and (in some instances) entire cultures or ways of life may face extinction. Under such circumstances, the culture loses the ability to support people and help them cope with the pressures of life. Cultural decline itself often causes additional trauma. Combined, these pressures can trigger dysfunction within the Native community. The obvious antidote for such maladies is to help Native substance abusers to reconnect with their heritage in positive and constructive ways. My earlier book and this one are inspired by the life and work of nineteenth century Iroquois leader Handsome Lake who developed a method to help Native people embrace their heritage as they recovered from substance abuse. Because my earlier book was scholarly and not focused on practitioner issues, using it within a therapeutic context may be difficult. Here, I adapt my ideas so they can be applied to therapy in a systematic and productive manner. The total program of therapy is presented in three volumes. The first is a short overview of the program that has been written at about a 10th-grade reading level. My goal is to provide a wide range of clients (as well as those who pursue self-help work) with an easily understood description of the program. The second document is a consumable workbook designed to be used with the reader. The workbook can be used both within the context of therapy and by those seeking strategies of self-help. The volume you are reading is a guide for therapists to consult when using this method to help Native clients. It is hoped that all three of these texts will play a significant role in the therapy and recovery of Native substance abusers.

"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.

Biblical scholarship, like many other disciplines, has become increasingly isolated. As a result, the field has not borrowed as much from other areas of scholarship as it could have and has exerted a smaller impact upon the larger intellectual community. A significant portion of Pagans and Practitioners deals with how the New Testament can be read as a rebuttal of Pagan rivals. In doing so, greater linkages with other disciplines are reestablished. Discussion of how the tools developed by Biblical criticism can serve other, secular disciplines are provided. Collectively, this book explores how Biblical criticism can exert a greater impact upon the intellectual world.

A rare and inspiring guide to the health and well-being of Aboriginal women and their communities. The process of “digging up medicines” - of rediscovering the stories of the past - serves as a powerful healing force in the decolonization and recovery of Aboriginal communities. In Life Stages and Native Women, Kim Anderson shares the teachings of fourteen elders from the Canadian prairies and Ontario to illustrate how different life stages were experienced by Metis, Cree, and Anishinaabe girls and women during the mid-twentieth century. These elders relate stories about their own lives, the experiences of girls and women of their childhood communities, and customs related to pregnancy, birth, post-natal care, infant and child care, puberty rites, gender and age-specific work roles, the distinct roles of post-menopausal women, and women’s roles in managing death. Through these teachings, we learn how evolving responsibilities from infancy to adulthood shaped women’s identities and place within Indigenous society, and were integral to the health and well-being of their communities. By understanding how healthy communities were created in the past, Anderson explains how this traditional knowledge can be applied toward rebuilding healthy Indigenous communities today.

Dr. John E. Sarno's groundbreaking research on TMS (Tension Myoneural Syndrome) reveals how stress and other psychological factors can cause back pain-and how you can be pain free without drugs, exercise, or surgery. Dr. Sarno's program has helped thousands of patients find relief from chronic back conditions. In this New York Times bestseller, Dr. Sarno teaches you how to identify stress and other psychological factors that cause back pain and demonstrates how to heal yourself--without drugs, surgery or exercise. Find out: Why self-motivated and successful people are prone to Tension Myoneural Syndrome (TMS) How anxiety and repressed anger trigger muscle spasms How people condition themselves to accept back pain as inevitable With case histories and the results of in-depth mind-body research, Dr. Sarno reveals how you can recognize the emotional roots of your TMS and sever the connections between mental and physical pain...and start recovering from back pain today.

If you've ever suffered from an eating disorder-or cared for someone who is anorexic or bulimic-you may think you understand these illnesses. But do you really understand why they occur? Do you know what it takes to fully recover? Do you know how eating disorders affect life after recovery? Now, nearly three decades after she detailed her first battle with anorexia in Solitaire, Aimee Liu presents an emotionally powerful and poignant sequel that digs deep into the causes, cures, and consequences of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Aimee Liu believed she had conquered anorexia in her twenties. Then in her forties, when her life once again began spiraling out of control, she stopped eating. Liu realized the same forces that had caused her original eating disorder were still in play. She also noticed that other women she knew with histories of anorexia and bulimia seemed to share many of her personality traits and habits under stress-even decades after "recovery." Intrigued and concerned, Liu set out to learn who is susceptible to these disorders and why, and what it takes to overcome them once and for all. With GAINING, Liu shatters commonly held beliefs about eating disorders while assembling a puzzle that is as complex and fascinating as human identity itself. Through cutting-edge research and the stories of more than forty interview subjects, readers will discover that the tendency to develop anorexia or bulimia has little to do with culture, class, gender-or weight. Genetics, however, play a key role. So does temperament. So do anxiety, depression, and shame. Clearly, curing eating disorders involves more than good nutrition. Candidly recalling her own struggles, triumphs, and defeats, Aimee explores an array of promising and innovative new treatments, offers vital insights to anyone who has ever had an eating disorder, and shows parents how to help protect their children from ever developing one. Her book is sure to change the way we talk and think about eating disorders for years to come.