HOLDING HOPE SERIES | How Osage Culture Saved A Patient from Addiction
Tiffany Watkins was deep in her addiction when she sought treatment at the Nation’s Primary Residential Treatment Center and rediscovered who she is as an Osage woman
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Growing up, Tiffany Watkins was removed from her Osage heritage. As an adult, however, it has helped save her from a debilitating addiction to methamphetamines.
Watkins, who has spent two stints as a client at the Osage Nation’s Primary Residential Treatment Center and now works for the Center, said she learned to feel empowered and proud of her Osage heritage through the counseling and support she received at PRT, a 60-day program for men and women suffering from substance abuse. This program was developed to encourage and prepare Native Americans for a drug- and alcohol-free lifestyle.
PRT focuses on comprehensive services specific to men and women and their unique problems which include assistance with legal problems, medical care, social services, financial training, mental health counseling, cultural diversity, social support, housing assistance, literacy training, and education needs as well as alcohol and drug treatment. Family counseling is offered to assist clients in re-establishing relationships with their family members and to teach clients coping mechanisms in order to maintain these relationships. Once the client leaves treatment, they are referred to an aftercare program to assist them in maintaining sobriety.
“I didn’t grow up in my culture,” Watkins said. “I’m finding myself as an Osage woman, as a Native American woman. I feel like that was a huge puzzle piece that was missing, so I wanted to soak up as much of my culture and heritage and gain that knowledge.”
While undergoing treatment at PRT, Watkins said she enjoyed going to the Wahzhazhe Cultural Center to learn how to make necklaces, shawls and other regalia. On Wednesdays, they would head to the sweat lodge, a bonding experience for Watkins that became a favorite activity for her.
“That is a part of my program that I still do to this day,” she said, adding that there are other means to overcome addiction as well, including 12 Step meetings. But she has found the sweat lodge as a welcoming and instrumental piece to her recovery process. “I can go in there and I can let it all out,” she said.
For Watkins, a mother of four kids, her culture is what keeps her sober, she said.
“It's the thing that keeps me going week to week to week to today,” she said. “My tribe is supporting me and helping me. I'm still there. I work there. I have that around me all the time. I have all of that support, and then I still get to go to the sweat lodge.”
Watkins’ journey to sobriety started after many years of addiction. She said she was around 15 years old when she started using methamphetamine.
“By the time I was 17 or 18, I probably considered myself an addict,” she said.
About a decade ago, the now 43-year-old lost her three youngest children to the Department of Human Services, setting in motion what she describes as a “tailspin.”
“I couldn't get myself back on solid ground,” Watkins said. “I didn't have anything to work for, a place to live and lost my kids. It got really, really bad. And I became an IV drug user in 2015. After that, it was pretty much daily use.”
She attended another program in another part of the state, and reached 17 months of sobriety. Still, though, she was unable to get her kids back. She’s proud to say she recently reached 18 months of sobriety through the skills and education she received at PRT.
Her first stint at PRT, which typically lasts 60 days, lasted 92 days, she said, because she wanted that extra time to focus on herself and getting better. Eleven days after graduating, however, she relapsed, turning back to old habits.
“I wasn’t ready,” she said.
In January 2021, she returned to PRT after experiencing some episodes of psychosis from the drug use.
“I couldn't differentiate the real from the unreal, and it was the scariest thing,” she said. “That was my breaking point. It took me 10 days to come out of the psychosis. I went to stay with a friend and she called PRT on my behalf. And they talked to me and asked me if I wanted to come back, and I said yes because I knew I needed the help.”
In addition to the cultural experiences and knowledge she gained, Watkins said the counseling she received at PRT helped tremendously. She learned a lot about codependency and anger management.
“Being able to pinpoint my mental health situation, and have someone there who was supportive and could talk me through it was instrumental for me, because I was finally able to be like, ‘OK, I'm not the only one who feels like this, and I'm not broken,’” she added.
She graduated for the second time in March 2021, and she was quickly able to obtain a position with PRT as a night monitor. She’s able to help others through their journeys now.
“That's my main goal: to be a light in their darkness,” she said. "I hope my story can give them hope that they can do it. If I can do it, they can do it.”
The Osage Nation is currently preparing to develop a transitional living facility and residential center for both adolescent and adult individuals. It will also include administrative and counseling offices.
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