{"id":2768,"date":"2024-05-15T10:03:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-15T10:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=2768"},"modified":"2024-05-15T10:03:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T10:03:08","slug":"tribal-nations-invest-opioid-settlement-funds-in-traditional-healing-to-treat-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=2768","title":{"rendered":"Tribal Nations Invest Opioid Settlement Funds in Traditional Healing to Treat Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Mi\u2019kmaq Nation spent about $50,000 of its opioid settlement funds to build a healing lodge it will use for traditional sweat ceremonies to help people recover from addiction. (Aneri Pattani\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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John Dennis leads sweat ceremonies focused on addiction and recovery in a new healing lodge that the Mi\u2019kmaq Nation\u2019s health department built with opioid settlement funds. Dennis has been in recovery for 15 years.(Aneri Pattani\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Jesse Dennis chops wood to prepare for a sweat ceremony in the Mi\u2019kmaq Nation\u2019s new healing lodge, which was built with opioid settlement funds. (Aneri Pattani\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Edward \u201cCharlie\u201d Peter-Paul is chief of the Mi\u2019kmaq Nation in northern Maine. About two decades ago, a traditional sweat ceremony helped him improve his relationship with drugs and alcohol. He hopes the new healing lodge the tribe built with opioid settlement funds can do the same for other tribal citizens.(Aneri Pattani\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine \u2014 Outside the Mi\u2019kmaq Nation\u2019s health department sits a dome-shaped tent, built by hand from saplings and covered in black canvas. It\u2019s one of several sweat lodges on the tribe\u2019s land, but this one is dedicated to helping people recover from addiction.<\/p>\n

Up to 10 people enter the lodge at once. Fire-heated stones \u2014 called grandmothers and grandfathers, for the spirits they represent \u2014 are brought inside. Water is splashed on the stones, and the lodge fills with steam. It feels like a sauna, but hotter. The air is thicker, and it\u2019s dark. People pray and sing songs. When they leave the lodge, it is said, they reemerge from the mother\u2019s womb. Cleansed. Reborn.<\/p>\n

The experience can be \u201ca vital tool\u201d in healing, said Katie Espling, health director for the roughly 2,000-member tribe.<\/p>\n

She said patients in recovery have requested sweat lodges for years as a cultural element to complement the counseling and medications the tribe\u2019s health department already provides<\/a>. But insurance doesn\u2019t cover sweat ceremonies, so, until now, the department couldn\u2019t afford to provide them.<\/p>\n

In the past year, the Mi\u2019kmaq Nation received more than $150,000 from settlements with companies that made or sold prescription painkillers and were accused of exacerbating the overdose crisis. A third of that money was spent on the sweat lodge.<\/p>\n

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