Washing Away The Pain Ceremonies, Bonds Make Sobriety Camp Successful
Tears mixed with sweat stream down their faces.
By the light of a campfire, 10 women crawl out of the sweat lodge before splashing into the cool, dark waters of the Columbia River. One by one, they leave the sweltering, tent-like abode where many pray, cry and share their secrets.
This is how they ease the pain.
Thousands of people from all over the country come every year to Sobriety Camp, a weeklong gathering in the woods on the banks of the river. They celebrate their recovery from alcohol abuse by turning to nature and centuries-old American Indian traditions: they sweat, do beadwork and dance to the steady beat of a drum.
“Mother Earth and the water are the real medicine,” said Pierre Louie, a Lakes band member of the Colville Confederated Tribes who started the camp.
Years of grief and alcohol abuse have taken their toll on these tired, worn faces - each wrinkle harkens back to days when they couldn’t get out of bed or stop shaking without a drink.
They’re sober now, they say, but the pain will never go away. That’s why they’re here.
The free event attracts Indians and non-Indians from as far away as New Zealand. While most are recovering alcoholics, some come to mourn the death of a loved one, the end of a marriage or the loss of a friend.
“We gather to share our tradition and culture,” says Lila Robinette, a member of the Sanpoil band. “The (Indian) way of life is based on loving, caring and sharing. … This is about healing, learning to live life in a better way and feeling free.”
Sobriety Camp is one of the few reservation gatherings where more than 70 percent of the participants are non-Indians. They play drums, chant and dance in regalia during the powwow. Children, no matter what race, are instructed to serve the elders at every meal.
“People want to learn and walk the red road, the Native American way,” says Jerry Curran of Clatskanie, Ore. “They’re searching for something. I’ve been to every church in the world and I didn’t find what I was looking for. But I found it here.”
The atmosphere at camp is simple and rustic: Surrounded by hills and water, people set up tents and tepees amid the smell of freshly cut woodchips, barbecued meat and smoke. It’s a quiet, sacred place, people say. Only the drumming can drown out the splash of water lapping against the riverbank or the distant rumble of the ferryboat crossing from Gifford to Inchelium.
Participants include a youth counselor, an airline pilot and a piano tuner from Germany. They mingle among former Hells Angels, Vietnam vets, long-haired women who don’t shave their armpits.
Most are on journeys, they say, spiritual quests for freedom from the years of alcohol abuse.
People often look to books or other people for advice, says a Springdale resident who asked for anonymity. But the answer isn’t “up here,” he says, pointing to his head. “It’s here,” he continues, his hand pressing gently against his gut.
“This is about being simple. For some people, that’s really hard to do.”
A dream ‘To gather my people’
Sobriety Camp started with a dream.
In 1978, Louie had just left an alcohol treatment facility in Portland when he received a vision: “The dream was to gather my people,” he says in his deep, almost monotone voice.
He organized a dinner in his hometown of Inchelium and 25 people came. That was the beginning of Sobriety Camp, the first of its kind in the western United States. Now, more than 3,000 people come to the annual event, which receives funding from state and national substance abuse programs.
“People are looking for something and the answer is here,” Louie says, pointing to the trees, the river and the campground. “The place has become sacred.”
At 64, Louis is considered the patriarch of this gathering. He is a powerful figure with a gentle demeanor - a muscular man with long, silver hair and bluish tattoos that cover his tanned arms and fingers. Everyone recognizes him and his red pickup, a weathered truck with a horn he honks loudly each morning.
But like others at this camp, Louie’s brown, leathery face expresses years of struggle and growth.
The son of alcoholics, Louie started drinking at 12. When he was 16, he was caught robbing someone at gunpoint. Released from the state penitentiary in Walla Walla after 11 years, he immediately headed to a tavern.
“I didn’t know who I was,” he says, recalling the day he woke up in a jail cell one day after hitting a state trooper’s vehicle. “I had so much hate and anger. I was afraid of myself.”
It’s a feeling that many here can relate to, but very few can express.
“If you haven’t been there, you don’t really know,” said Amanda Peele, a Tsimpshean and Haida Indian who flew in from Sitka, Alaska. “It’s a disease. It’s like cancer. It eats you up.”
Every act a commitment
Non-natives at Sobriety Camp dress themselves in buckskin, feathers and moccasins. They offer gifts of sage or sweetgrass. Some walk around with pieces of animal bones dangling from their necks or walking sticks decorated with bells and and fancy carving.
They’re not “wannabe Indians,” insists Tom Louie of the Lakes band, who leads most of the drumming and talking circles.
“At one time they were, but now they’re not,” he says. “They’re doing, not pretending.”
The native traditions also become part of the healing. Everything that’s done at camp - whether it’s a step in a war dance or stitching a bead to make a dream catcher - becomes a commitment to sobriety, said Priscilla Peele, a Tsimpshena from Sitka who teaches beginners about the sweat lodge.
By sweating, one purifies the body and mind, she explains. One learns to let go of pain, anger and other bad feelings.
At the center of camp is an arbor with a light green cargo parachute for a roof. Shaped like an arena with its wooden benches toward the middle, the arbor is home to the “sacred fire,” a large campfire that burns for the entire week. A symbol for “the heart of Mother Earth,” people continuously feed the fire with logs and scraps of food from each meal.
The fire, the sweats, the native traditions are all ways to break down barriers between races and to teach people about Indian traditions, many say.
“We must share our culture with our brothers and sisters,” says Robinette. “We must all live together in this world.”
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