Fort Belknap Meth Symposium

The problem of meth use on Fort Belknap Indian Reservation and the efforts to tackle it were the subject Thursday of the second annual Gathering Our Nation's Methamphetamine Symposium in the Sitting High Cultural Center at Aaniiih Nakoda College.

Throughout the day those in attendance heard presentations from several speakers who work with addicts in recovery, advocates for abused women and the three people who make up the Aaniiih Nakoda Anti-Drug Movement.

Miranda Crasco-Kirk and Charmayne Healy, directors of the Aaniiih Nakoda Anti-Drug Movement, an organization founded last year to educate the public about the dangers of substance abuse; helped organize the event and were among the speakers.

Crasco-Kirk and Charmayne Healy started the organization last January after Fort Belknap Indian Community Council declared a state of emergency against meth. The organization has sought to help combat the problem of substance abuse through education, assisting recovering addicts and promoting wellness.

"When we started, we were doing everything out of our own pocket and lobbied for awareness about the issues we were seeing, for us in the rest of the community," Crasco-Kirk said.

The tribal council then proposed Crasco-Kirk and Healy start a pilot program to combat meth use through early education, healing, intervention and helping those in recovery.

The council voted to provide Healey and Crasco-Kirk with $150,000 in seed money from the Island Mountain Development Group, an economic development group owned by the tribe.

Crasco-Kirk said that money has funded the Anti-Drug Movement's work throughout the past year.

She said that she hopes the organization will eventually become a nonprofit.

A total of 18 people have come to seek help from the group since last March, six people are still with the program. They have also hosted 17 events.

From the beginning, Crasco Kirk and Healy sought to develop service directory to help link addicts with the services they need, which include legal assistance, social services and workshops.

She said that resources to help addicts in recovery are in short supply on the reservation,and what little they have are often overburdened.

Though people often want to address the problem of drug use, she said, groups like Narcotics Anonymous are often started on the reservation but within a short time disband due to having so few people showing interest in utilizing them.

"We don't have sustainability and accountability," Crasco-Kirk said. "There are people who are passionate about it. They see one person and then they say 'well, if there is only one person showing up, that ain't enough to continue the group.'"

Crasco-Kirk said she went out into the community to talk with people she knows and to addicts, to see why they do not seek help from services such as the CDC on the reservation.

She said the common thread was that many felt they were being judged.

"They had a fear that every program they went into their kids were going to get taken away," she said. "They weren't getting the help they needed because they thought they didn't care. It was crap to them. Nobody really cared, damned if they do and damned if they don't."

Crasco-Kirk, her husband, Bryce Kirk, a former addict, and Healy also started a peer mentor program STAIR, or Self Transitional and Identity Recovery.

The program for STAIR was written by Crasco-Kirk.

"A lot of these people do not have the support system that a lot of us are blessed to have," she said.

Crasco-Kirk said a peer mentor is someone whose "education is their experience." The program seeks to use former addicts to help recovering addicts do what they can to stay clean and in recovery.

She said an addict is more likely to open up in a one-on-one relationship with someone who has personal experiencewith drugs than a substance abuse counselor.

Crasco-Kirk and her husband are now the only peer mentors so far.

Recovering addicts do a self assessment to determine what their barriers are to recovery.

"I don't tell you what your barriers are," Crasco-Kirk said. "You tell me what's keeping you from recovery, what is keeping you from sobriety, and we'll address that."

Other services available to clients include career workshops that show addicts in recovery key skills such as writing a resume, job interview skills and financial and time management skills.

Kirk has spoken at schools on Fort Belknap reservation and with a group of troubled youths at a high school in Dodson.

She said they reached out to other schools, but none had responded.

Crasco-Kirk said all four of the Dodson youth they have worked with had failed drug tests when they started working with them a month and a half ago. Now, she said, all but one have passed. She said the one who didn't passed has said he is trying to stay clean.

Crasko-Kirk and her husband have also partnered with the Salvation Army in Havre to take part in a discussion group of recovering addicts seeking to regain control of their lives.

Kirk said the group meets Wednesdays 2 to 4 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m.