Christina
Christina needed to come home.
She had just learned that the woman who took her in and raised her for 18 years — a waitress in Fairbanks who took pity on Love’s mother, an Alutiiq woman with developmental disabilities — had cancer. Love fondly refers to her as grandma.
“She wanted me to come home, but I felt like I couldn’t until I was off drugs,” Love recalled during an interview at AWARE, Juneau’s emergency women’s shelter, where she started her career as an advocate for people who have survived domestic violence and sexual assault…
Bobby
I’m Bobby. I’m an Alaskan Athabascan Native, originally from the interior village of Northway. I was incarcerated for nearly five years in Alaska’s correctional system and was released in July of 2018.
Since my release, I have been actively working to reintegrate into my community of Fairbanks. I have a job as counselor/case manager at Fairbanks Native Association and I volunteer on both the Fairbanks Diversity Council and the Alaska Peer Support Advisory Board. I am also the community co-chair for the Fairbanks Reentry Coalition. Most recently, I was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Alaska Mental Health Board and Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse.
Most importantly, I’m a Peer Support Specialist and my strongest passion is peer support for justice-involved Alaskans…
Marsha
Mitakuye pi. Emaciyapi ye Tasina Luta Win, Red Shawl Woman, given to me by my Lakota Hunka family, Ina Cetan, Pansy Hawk wing of Porcupine, South Dakota. My English name is Marsha Jean Thomason-Oss. I am the daughter of Beverly Jean Phoenix (Tsalagi) of Coldwater, KS and Loren Ancel Thomason (Choctaw) of Oologah, OK. I am an Idahoan, but I live in Fairbanks and work with Reentrants with the Bridge under the Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living. I am a Substance Use Counselor and maintain an Idaho CADC, an Alaska CDC II and BHC II, and the NAADAC NCAC-I certification. I am a certified Forensic Peer Support Specialist Trainer and a Peer Support Specialist III. I am currently enrolled at UAF, finishing my Interdisciplinary degree in General Studies with a minor in History and Political Science.
I was born in Idaho. I grew up on farms surrounded by untreated Mental Illnesses, Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, Domestic Violence and was neglected. I developed a very sophisticated set of survival skills in order to navigate FAE and a myriad of abuses resulting in what one might label antisocial behaviors to include using substances beginning at age 4, skipping school, truancies, stealing, running away, fighting, driving under the influence, resisting arrest, possessing illegal substances, assaulting and eluding law enforcement. I developed a strong set of beliefs and found humor to be of great use. Trusting humans was not an option.
I attended four schools per year on the average between ages 6-15, so I was good at adapting, but never attaching. And I was a runner physically, psychologically, and metaphorically. Police contact started when I was six. I was in juvenile detention, foster care, and girl’s homes. After running away multiple times, I finally got away at 15, I found myself in Reno, Nevada and was sold into human trafficking in Oakland, California approximately 7 days after leaving my mother’s home.
I continued to experience abuse over the next 12 years, crisscrossing America traveling with Carnivals, living with outlaw motorcycle clubs, experiencing more human trafficking, domestic violence, substance abuse, all the while self-medicating serious mental health issues that were undetected and untreated. At 18, I tested for a GED in Arkansas and passed. At 22, I was arrested for a felony DUI, Resisting Arrest, and Assault, was incarcerated, and served probation time. I still face barriers related to a Felony DUI.
At 26, I entered treatment for intravenous drug use in the same hospital where I had been born. I was utterly alone, at my bottom with another failed suicide attempt. That decision for Treatment opened many doors for healing to address years of physical, mental, sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse. I successfully completed 45 days of treatment and immediately went to a Fire Lookout in the Idaho Wilderness with one of my stepfathers. On that mountain, clean after years of use, my memories came flooding back and I had some crazy thoughts and needed to make a decision. I could commit a serious crime and attempt to walk out of the wilderness, get high, and go on the run or I could truly take the 3rd step outlined in AA. I could trust God, as I understood God, and work all the 12 steps. While I was praying, on which choice to make over a 24-hour period, a huge forest fire jumped the Salmon River and was making a run towards my Fire Lookout. A helicopter evacuated me from that mountaintop. Out of the line of fire and away from my stepfather, my abuser. I only saw him a couple more times in my life, but he held no power over me ever again. I learned that day we have to pay attention to those burning bush moments and I have been blessed with many lightning strikes, burning bushes, and wildfires.
My family and friends set boundaries and kept themselves safe until I could be trusted again. I would attend 12-step meetings and eventually, community members befriended me. I started carrying 12-step meetings into Jails, Prisons, and Detention facilities, and after I was one year clean, I was offered a job at a Juvenile Detention Center. At five years clean, I took my first college class with the help of a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor and the support of a psychologist, a sponsor, a home group, and the rest is, as they say, history.
A big moment in my life was when I was sworn in as a Correctional Officer with Idaho Dept. of Corrections, 14 years into my recovery. I was sobbing uncontrollably when the Chief, Tom Beauclaire, pinned my Badge on my uniform. I adopted the ethical guidelines and conditions of being a good citizen from that oath into my daily way of life. Those are my guidelines to living in the community. Guidelines I never knew existed, and if I did know of them, had certainly never practiced them when engaged in criminal activity and hurting my family and my community.
I recognize daily that everything that happened in my life, changed my life, and gave me life. I never envisioned this career. Or any legal career for that matter. In the Big Book of AA, there is a line in the Family Afterward on page 124. “Cling to the thought that in God’s hand, the dark past is the greatest possession you have-the key to life and happiness for others. With it you can avert death and misery for them.”
I have gotten out of the Universe’s way and have dedicated my life to working with people that I recognize. I have replaced my disdain with compassion and empathy. I have ethics when before I had no idea what an ethic was. I am blessed every day that I am allowed to be of service. Those are days I never saw coming 33 years ago. I participate in Ceremony with my Tiospaye (family) as a Sun Dancer and have a spiritual life that meets my needs as a Winyan (woman) on the Ocanku Luta (Red Road).
Marianne Williamson wrote, “A Miracle is merely a shift in perception.” I have to give Wopila (thanks) to the Community that held me up when I returned home and patiently taught me how to be a part of, not apart from, a family and a community. My 12-Step sponsors, my Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor, and my therapist of 17 years for guiding me through the dark moments of self-loathing, shame, self-doubt, and self-sabotage. All my IDOC and AKDOC coworkers and other Supervisors, thanks for mentoring me and providing me direction in my career. I frequently go back to the things you all taught me.
Pilamayaye. Mitakuye Oyasin (All my Relations).