Horse Nation to the rescue
By Richie RichardsNative Sun News Today Correspondent
nativesunnews.today WAGNER – During the 2018 Meth Awareness Initiative in Wagner last week, a panel of four former meth addicts and dealers talked about the struggles of their addiction, incarceration, loss and recovery. One of the panelists was an Isanti Dakota woman who has been helped in her recovery by the horse she was gifted by a man who has helped bring her to the horse nation. LeeAnne Red Owl, 37, has been an addict for most of her teen and adult life. Having grown up in the foster care system, Red Owl has struggled with identity and a culture to call home. As a self-described former “thug”, she was once captured by the culture of drugs and incarceration. As Red Owl stood at the podium at the meth conference, audience members were drawn to the rawness of her story; a story that is becoming more and more common throughout Indian Country. She grew up in the foster care system along with her other two siblings. She said she was constantly bullied by other students and had to physically fight her way into new schools and new social circles. Along the way, she developed no healthy relationships; that was until years later when she met her first horse – Crazy Boy (Witko Hoksida). Growing up, the young Isanti Dakota girl claims to have experienced all forms of abuse, including physical, emotional, sexual and spiritual. In coping with the trauma of these abuses, Red Owl turned to a partying lifestyle which began at the age of 14. It was on her 14th birthday in which her best friend’s brother raped her. This sent her teen years into a spiral. LeeAnne Red Owl has been sober for six years now. During her active use period, her drug of choice was meth, but concedes that she has tried “just about every drug out there.” Often times, when the user’s drug of choice is not available, they will substitute with other drugs. “The alcohol, cocaine and the weed were just substitutes for when I couldn’t get meth.” The stories Red Owl shared for this article are personal, but she feels her story might be able to help others. “There’s a lot of women out here who have been through the things that I went through. The things that I tell people is that ‘Yeah these bad things can happen to you but it doesn’t mean that it has to weigh you down and keep controlling your life,” she said. She claims to have been abused, neglected and abandoned. Developing relationships with others was hard to do and the drugs were a social mechanism which seemed to make others tolerable. “The thing that pushed me over is when I got raped,” said Red Owl. “I stayed the night at her house and her parents weren’t home. They had a big party and it was the first time I ever drank – Vodka. That pushed me over the edge.” Red Owl said when the rape occurred she stopped caring about herself. She used drugs and her addiction to numb the pain of her childhood and the memories of trauma. “I didn’t care what happened to me. I would put myself in high-risk situations. I started drinking every night when I was 14, 15 years old,” she said. Over time, she no longer let anyone know where she was going and would just leave for the night each evening. “I got pregnant was I was 16 with my first son. I was really lonely. I didn’t have anybody to tell me not to do the things I was doing,” she said. “Why didn’t someone tell me not to do these things?” She first got introduced to meth at the age of 15, but her meth addiction didn’t really get bad until she was 17. This was after she had her first son. “By the time I was 18, I was a serious IV user,” Red Owl. “The first time I went to prison, I was 24. I been in and out of prison five times.”
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