NAIGSO’s Vision of AA Service to Native Americans
Our
early mission statement stated, “To provide a vision of service by the Native
American Indian General Service Office (NAIGSO-AA) to the more than 500 sovereign
Indian Nations in North America recognized by state governments and the Federal
Government. The structure of the fellowship is in a form as to become
attractive to the alcoholic Native American Indian. NAIGSO-AA recognizes the
need for each Nation, tribe, and band to honor their spiritual customs and
traditions and to base recovery on those living principles. The form of these
spiritual customs and traditions cannot be separated from the social aspects of
daily living and thus it cannot be separated from the structure and form of AA.
This applies to individuals in recovery, to the AA group, and to NAIGSO-AA as a
whole.
It is our vision to make all of the social aspects of our
natural gatherings available for AA meetings and fellowship. This includes but
is not limited to pot luck dinner meetings, pow wows,
camp meetings, encampments, conventions, and conferences. Each group is free in
the tradition of AA to incorporate their own traditional ways into the format
of their meetings. At these gatherings, representatives assigned, elected, or
appointed by their AA group will meet and exchange information which may then
be communicated to the NAIGSO-AA.
The diagram shown in the link is a design of the structure of the AA
fellowship for the Native American Indian. The outer circle represents the
universe of the Indian Nations of North America. NAIGSO-AA is available to and
has sent communications introducing itself to almost all Indian Nations at this
time. This configuration is a dynamic representation of all the entities that
are moving and interacting with each other through the meetings, pow wows, conventions, conferences, gatherings, etc.
Although the NAIGSO-AA is shown at the center of the circle, it is always in
touch and available to all individuals and groups. It is expected that
NAIGSO-AA representatives will be available at these events.
In his vision Earl saw the need of Indian peoples to have representation at the World Service level of Alcoholics Anonymous. So he suggested and supported the formation of the Native American Indian General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous. Earl and several others formed the original board of directors. Earl was then kicked off the AA convention committee; he originally formed, because of his involvement in NAIGSO- AA. But Earl continued to follow his vision despite the feelings of those committee members. Because Earl stood steadfast to that vision, NAIGSO-AA, the National-International Native American AA convention, and the Wellbriety movement (formed by another Indian AA member who understands the needs of Indian peoples and whose ideas are also rejected by New York AA GSO) have all came about as legacies of Earl’s vision and are three of the legs (directions) holding up the stool (circle) of recovery for Native Americans.
Recovery from alcoholism
through Native American traditions and customs and the principals of Alcoholics
Anonymous are not only alive and well, but thriving in Indian Country. These
facts were recently documented in an article in Box 459, volume 62, Spring 2016, an AA GSO publication. This was a history
making action by New York GSO, the written documentation of the validity of
Earl’s vision and Indian peoples’ need to seek and find sobriety through their
own customs and traditions. But as is the way of AA, it is slow to change and
much work still needs to be done. Thus NAIGSO-AA still functions to provide AA
service to Native Americans.
After many decades of
struggle and misunderstanding between New York AA GSO and NAIGSO-AA it was
decided to follow the wisdom of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Nation and we
have chosen to “fight no more” for recognition in the AA World Service
structure. Today, we function strictly as an AA service entity to Native
Americans and all alcoholics who find the connection they need to get and stay
sober through the spiritual principals embodied in Indian culture and
tradition, maintaining a database of Native American AA groups, a Loners’
directory, a Calendar of Indian AA events, and to publish and distribute the
meditations manuscript, “Daily Readings From the AA Lodge.”
The printing, free-of-charge
distribution, and approval of this manuscript by AA, as a whole, have become
the very heart of the NAIGSO-AA vision. The wisdom of our elders and the
principals of Alcoholics Anonymous have been brought together in a way that
speaks deeply to Indian peoples seeking sobriety. It has become the fourth leg
(fourth direction) of Earl’s vision. It has broken through one of the major
hurtles in carrying the AA message to Native Americans- “AA is a Whiteman’s
program.” Over the last decade we have sent out over one thousand manuscripts.
They are being sent out to AA members around the world seeking approval and to
carry the AA message. This leg of Earl’s vision is being paid for by the many
faithful financial contributions of AA members from all around the world. It is the instrument that has truly made us
an AA World Service entity and is the fourth leg or direction of the Indian AA
recovery circle or stool. A stool will stand on three legs but can be a little
wobbly. When you add the fourth leg the circle is complete and the stool is
very hard to tip over.
No stool or circle is complete or effective without a seat or center. The seat of the Native American recovery circle is made up of all the sober folks carrying the AA recovery message to the Native Nations. This is true whether the AA message is being carried in a formal AA meeting or at a pow-wow, around a Spirit Fire, during a sweatlodge, through a sacred pipe or any other Native American spiritual ceremony or gathering. The real center of the AA program is one drunk talking to another drunk. It does not matter where or how, provided it is done only “to stay sober and to help another alcoholic achieve sobriety.”
In 1954 Bernard Smith, late
chairman of AA’s General Service Board, addressed the question:
Why Do We Need a Conference?
“We may not need a General Service Conference to
ensure our own recovery. We do need it to ensure the recovery of the alcoholic
who still stumbles in the darkness one short block from this room. We need it
to ensure the recovery of a child being born tonight, destined for alcoholism.
We need it to provide, in keeping with our Twelfth Step, a permanent haven for
all alcoholics who, in the ages ahead, can find in A.A. that rebirth that
brought us back to life.
“We need it because we, more than others, are
conscious of the devastating effect of the human urge for power and prestige,
which we must endure, can never invade A.A. We need it to ensure A.A. against
government, while insulating it against anarchy; we need it to protect A.A.
against disintegration while preventing overintegration.
We need it so that Alcoholics Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous alone, is the
ultimate repository of its Twelve Steps, its Twelve Traditions, and all of its
services.
“We need it to ensure that changes within A.A. come
only as a response to the needs and the wants of all A.A., and not of any few.
We need it to ensure that the doors of the halls of A.A. never have locks on
them, so that all people for all time who have an alcoholic problem may enter
these halls unasked and feel welcome. We need it to ensure that Alcoholics
Anonymous never asks of anyone who needs us what his or her race is, what his
or her creed is, what his or her social position is.” (AA Service Manual, page S19, 1999-2000 edition)
Despite Bernard’s bold words
there exists a need in AA for more understanding of the barriers of carrying
the AA message, as presented in AA’s conference-approved literature, to many
Native peoples. There is a need to add new dimensions and dynamics to the AA
message in order to reach a people who have had their identities stripped from
them by invaders, their homes destroyed and then locked up on reservations
(insert “prison camps”,)
peoples who have been punished for speaking their own language
and forbidden to practice their spiritual customs and traditions. Native
Americans suffer a rate of alcoholism 10 times higher than mainstream American
society. AA seems to flourish worldwide, yet, struggles to carry its message to
Native Americans. Perhaps this because AA clings too tightly to its own words, "the tremendous fact for every one of us is that
we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can
absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious
action." (Alcoholics
Anonymous, page 17) Or perhaps, maybe it is because they don’t cling
tightly enough?
So Earl was given a vision to
begin the process of “Bridging the Gap.” Earl’s vision is growing and Bernard’s
bold words are beginning to be take root in Native American communities.
However, alcoholism, abuse and other manifestations of spiritual disease are
still destroying Native Americans every day. Some will say that AA must stick
to its “singleness of purpose,” yet in its own literature it speaks of “bottles
being a symbol of much deeper problems” and “the need to get down to causes and
conditions.”
In “The Doctor’s Opinion,”
found in the front of AA’s basic text, “Alcoholics Anonymous,” Dr. William D Silkworth speaks about the different types of alcoholics,
the psychopaths, those unwilling to admit they cannot take even one drink,
those who are entirely normal folk except in the effect alcohol has upon them,
and the manic-depressive type about whom a whole chapter could be written. In
the Indian world perhaps there are also several types. Maybe there is the
full-blood traditional Indian, who experiences the world in a way so that he is
unable to understand the Euro-Christian terms used in AA literature, the type
who has chosen to stay in the poverty, abuse and desolation found on many
reservations because he was raised to believe tribe and family come first, the
mixed blood that is not accepted by full-bloods or whites, the urban Indian who
has become bi-cultural, has found sobriety in the Whiteman’s AA program and
does not understand why the other types aren’t getting sober that way. And
maybe there is another type who was raised in the Whiteman’s world and does not
know he suffers from the same spiritual darkness many Indians do, perhaps he is
a descendent of an ancestor who was abused in a Boarding School then adopted
out to a white family. Perhaps a whole chapter needs to be written about him too?
Well, just maybe, a whole
chapter has been written about all types of Indian alcoholics. And maybe, all
alcoholics can find a rebirth in AA and the halls of AA will become unlocked so
anyone with an alcohol problem may enter unasked and feel welcome. And maybe,
in the Indian way, it was written as a result of the vision given to a Paiute
Indian called Earl Lent, Jr.
And maybe, one day at a time,
AA is slowly accepting the message found in its own literature, “Our book is
meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little. God will
constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask Him in your morning meditation
what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come,
if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you
haven’t got. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great
events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact
for us.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 164)
At the 2000 International AA
Convention a Native American elder was allowed to carry the Eagle Staff in the
Parade of Flags opening ceremony, another first in AA history. Today, NAIGSO-AA
still supports Earl’s vision of AA service, the AA circle of love continues to
expand and the “language of the heart” is still being spoken in Alcoholics
Anonymous and all four legs (directions) of Earl’s vision of AA service are
functioning to provide AA service to Native Americans.