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The Medicine Wheel & Recovery
Recovery isn't a linear process . . . In
fact the idea of linear is about black and white thinking, which is addictive thinking, about moving from problem to solution. The Medicine
Wheel asks that we think in circles, cycles, and options. . . It's about understanding the consequences of the choices we make.
Jamie Martin worked as a licensed addiction counselor with pre-release prisoners in
Butte. Eighty percent of his clients are male. Most of them are white. What's different
about Jamie's approach to treatment for drug and alcohol recovery is that he teaches
clients to work with the Medicine Wheel, a Native American symbol used to represent
the cycles of nature and the flow of life, a model of holistic living that Martin describes
as having to do with "the balance between all things, the interconnections, the overlap."
The Medicine Wheel is generally represented as a flat circle marked in quarters relating
to each of the four directions, but the wheel isn't flat. It's a globe that embraces
seven directions, including Sky, Earth, and Center.
Martin's particular approach to working with the Medicine Wheel draws from Cheyenne,
Crow and Lakota Sioux traditions. Many of the men who developed it are serving life
sentences in the Montana State Penitentiary at Deer Lodge. With Chippewa-Cree
heritage and roots in the Rocky Boy reservation, Martin stresses that his use of the
Medicine Wheel "by no means speaks for all tribes. Caucasians tend to lump Indians
together but each tribe has its own thing."
Medicine Wheel Sunset, Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming
Jenna Caplette � 2005
In Martin's work, the Medicine Wheel offers a basis for
a personal assessment based on developing a solid
relationship with the 7th direction, the center of the
globe, or circle. This is the direction where a person's
values and beliefs are held.
Usually, treatment centers use a shame-based model for drug and alcohol abuse
recovery, but Martin says that these days "kids are not holding the same kinds of
shame." Things like pre-marital sex don't have the stigma that they did even a
generation ago. The Medicine Wheel asks people to look at their entire belief system.
"It's good for a disenfranchised population," Martin says. "They already feel out of
center." But you don't have to be disenfranchised for this model to work. "I had a
client who was a police officer. He loved it."
Other Medicine Wheel-based models for recovery have been developed specifically for
Native Americans. The system Martin uses is for all peoples. It goes beyond re-working
the twelve steps of Alcoholic Anonymous, though it does interact with the 12 steps,
and it formalizes the 10th step of AA that asks for a daily check in.
"Recovery isn't a linear process," Martin says. "In fact the idea of linear is about black
and white thinking, which is addictive thinking, about moving from problem to solution.
The Medicine Wheel asks that we think in circles, cycles, and options. The wheel is
constantly turning whether we want it to or not. We're all born. We will all die. It's
about understanding the consequences of the choices we make."
The Wheel Martin teaches names seven aspects of living that are to be honor in order
to live in a healthy way and maintain sobriety. These seven aspects of living begin in
the East with the Emotional. The South holds the Mental; the West, the Physical as it
relates to our bodies. Martin describes the North as spiritual, and as "anything that
takes us outside of ourselves the relationship between us and other people. Addiction
is all about selfishness."
The Sky represents our relationship with a Higher Power, with Spirit. Below is Mother
Earth, the things that tie us to the earth, the physical things that need to be done.
"The 7th direction," Martin says, "is the hardest one to measure. It's the exact center
of the circle.
Acting in is the active part of recovery. You start paying attention in advance,
noticing when you're on your way out of the circle. You become aware of your
relationship with each aspect of the wheel, every day.
Initially, drugs and alcohol are the quickest way to the center. Sex takes us there, so
do power and control and anger. When we move outside the circle we do dumb stuff
like overeating, misusing sex, kicking the dog. You can cause a lot of damage without
drinking. It's not good enough today just to not use. Working the medicine wheel is a
self-defined program. It's consecutive. Each piece that pulls you further from center
builds on others. |
"You learn to let go of the idea of being out of balance.
You're just further from the center."
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"You learn to let go of the idea of being out of balance. You're just further from the
center. If one aspect is out of balance, each balances with it. It's like a fish bowl,
you can't just fill, or drain, one side or the other.
"So if one dimension can pull me out of the center, one dimension can pull me back in.
Something like taking good care of the physical, cleaning house, doing mundane
chores. According to the Medicine Wheel, if you do the things you're supposed to do,
step by step, you will do better. Doing the little things moves you back in the right
direction."
Martin teaches addicts to measure their degrees of separation from the center by
using a charted wheel. "These hard-assed guys write incredibly insightful things about
themselves and what they do. I hear people in my treatment groups saying, "I was
outside my circle. Acting out is doing something that will take us away from the
center. The core belief here is, 'If it feels good, do it.'
"Acting in is the active part of recovery. You start paying attention in advance,
noticing when you're on your way out of the circle. You become aware of your
relationship with each aspect of the wheel, every day.
Martin believes, "Clients are getting beat up more by their belief systems, thoughts
and values, than anything else. Many people get stuck in a circle between the
emotional and mental. They keep going back and forth between the two and never
progress to Spirit. Addiction," Martin says, "is less about alcohol and drugs and more
about the obsession. Until we get that fixed, we get stuck on the wheel."
He adds, "We need to develop a sense of being, the fact that 'we are' is more
important than what we do. An addict's history will tell them that it's best for them
to shut down; to live the life of the walking dead. The Medicine Wheel gives intuitive
and fundamental respect to the individual. No matter where you are on the circle you
can learn to give, Martin believes. And the Medicine Wheel, as he sees it, never stops
moving, like a clock-face where the movement of the second hand is quick, and that
of the minute hand is slower.
"This isn't just about dealing with an addiction problem. It's about dealing with every
day living problems."
Martin ends his treatment classes by teaching the meaning of the Lakota word,
Hoka Hey- It's a good day to die. "That means, I can go and leave nothing amiss. I
don't have any fear. I've done what I'm supposed to do at this point."
That's what living life from the center is all about.
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Jenna Caplette
is the Prevention Writer for Alcohol and Drug Services & a Certified BodyTalk Practitioner working locally and
long-distance via email; Skype; or over the phone.. |
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Alcohol and Drug Services of Gallatin County
(406) 586-5943
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Web-work� 2004-12. Webmaster: [email protected]
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