Programs Help Spokane Indians -- Native Americans Fighting To End Cycles Of Alcohol Abuse And Poverty

SPOKANE - She grew up on a bar stool, survived her mother's death from alcoholism, beat three generations of booze and mastered her own drinking problem.

"But just when I thought I had this thing beat, it got my boy," says the 35-year-old Native American who recently put her 13-year-old son in a treatment program.

Battered for 100 years as an underclass in Spokane County, American Indians are struggling to free themselves from cycles of alcoholism and poverty.

Despite statistics that seem shocking, many say a cultural renaissance is beginning to restore their dignity and health throughout the country and is taking root in Spokane County.

The proof is in rediscovered traditions, in language and culture classes, weekend meetings and an increase in culturally based social services.

"Even if we never overcome the economic poverty, we are recovering a cultural richness," says Dave Brown Eagle, a Spokane Indian who works at Gonzaga University.

"Every time my grandmother talked about the past, it was like she was opening an old cedar basket. There are a lot of answers in that cedar basket."

At the three-year-old NATIVE Project in Spokane, Toni Lodge's voice breaks as she talks about the most recent numbers:

The highest dropout rate of any racial minority in the county. The lowest average income. The highest substance-abuse rate. Teenage suicide. Death.

"It seemed like every category we looked at, Indians were on the

bottom," Lodge says.

"At first, it makes you sad. But I think it also is stirring something within the community. We can help ourselves."

More than 70 percent of Washington's Native Americans live in cities off of reservations. In Spokane alone, there are descendants of dozens of tribes, often cut off from their culture and the reservation social programs set up to help them.

"When I was in school, you couldn't even have hair over your ears," says Andre Picard, a Nez Perce from Spokane. "They take away who you are."

The loss of land, tradition, language and religion created holes that many Native Americans tried to fill with alcohol. With a suspected genetic predisposition toward alcoholism, their addictions were passed on like heirlooms.

Despite years of attention on substance abuse, an April 1993 study by the U.S. General Accounting Office found a continuing need for Native American treatment programs.

Nationally, the alcoholism mortality rate of Indians is 6.5 times that of other Americans. Although falling, alcoholism rates still are twice that of any other minority.

"Now adults are beginning to realize that alcohol isn't part of our culture," Brown Eagle says. "The next step is bringing our children to the point that it's uncool to drink."

For more than 20 years, Indian writers and researchers have suggested ways to use Native American culture as part of the solution to social problems like alcohol abuse.

Mainstream social-service programs have been forced to become "culturally competent," and some have begun providing specific programs for racial minorities.

More specialized programs have surfaced with some success.

"Native Americans are more comfortable coming here than they would going to some government office," says Danielle Finley of the American Indian Community Center. "Trust is so important."

The community center provides everything from a food bank to high-school classes, parenting classes and job training. Another program, Indian Health Service's Pathfinders, provides drug and alcohol treatment for adults and works with street people. Both provide cultural help.

A youth-oriented program, the NATIVE Project, provides leadership training, family counseling, culture classes and a host of other programs.

In just three years, it has received national attention as one of the most successful programs of its kind - founded, staffed and supervised by Indians.

"I think, in a lot of ways, the old system has failed Native Americans, as well as other minorities," says Lodge, who recently was named director of the NATIVE Project.

"We are not blaming anyone. We are taking responsibility and saying, `Give us the money and let us try.' And that is beginning to happen."