Rocky Boy holds anti-drug bonfire event

Residents from Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation and Box Elder came together Wednesday night in the parking lot of KHEW, the reservation’s radio station, for a community bonfire to celebrate sobriety and healthy living.

The event was organized by the Project for Safe and Healthy Choices, a program at Stone Child College dedicated to promoting drug- and alcohol-free lifestyles. It also tackles other health issues on the reservation such as diabetes and HIV.

Mike Geboe, project coordinator for Safe and Healthy Choices, said the event is one of several that have been held at different locations throughout the reservation and Box Elder.

He said the first gathering was held on the Rocky Boy agency in May 2015, and subsequent gatherings have taken place at various locations throughout the reservation.

Geboe said it was the first time such an event was scheduled for a Wednesday night.

He said with school out for the summer, children are more likely to come out on weekends to such gatherings.

It was also the first time his group had hosted a bonfire near Bonneau Dam.

He said the station is on a busy street and the greater visibility could draw more people.

Most of those in attendance were children and families, who engaged in organized activities such as games of musical chairs, hula hooping and the giveaway of door prizes.

Many families sat in front of the radio station or in their cars, eating Subway sandwiches provided by the Rocky Boy Diabetes Prevention Program.

Geboe said such gatherings have changed the way people think about recovery.

“They talk about it openly and say, ‘Yeah, I am in recovery,’ and don’t feel like it is stigmatizing,” Geboe said.

He said many addicts are now recovering and are taking active steps to better their lives.

“They are going to treatment, they are getting clean, they are going to ceremonies. They are signing up for school and college,” Geboe said.

Speakers talked to the audience about personal struggles growing up around drugs and alcohol.

One of those speakers was Trey’al Belgarde, a recent graduate from Rocky Boy High School and a motivational speaker.

Belgarde said drugs and alcohol make it harder to succeed.

He said people need to have confidence in themselves and their own abilities.

“If you doubt yourself, so will everyone else. The more you improve, the better your situation will become,” Belgarde said.

He said people need to both improve themselves and others.

“Go out and create success. Pass on the things that you learn to the young. This is how we improve as a people,”he said.

Bryce Kirk, a recovery advocate, said in an interview that he had been “a meth addict, a pill addict, a drunk, a bad father and a bad husband.”

An Assiniboine Sioux, Kirk told the crowd about how he grew up on Fort Peck, where people around him, including uncles and other relatives, used drugs and alcohol.

“You had to either fight for what you got or had to steal what you got,” he said. “We weren’t given too many opportunities.”

Drugs and alcohol were so prevalent in that environment that, he said, it became “the norm.”

Kirk said he has been clean and sober for three years and credited his wife, Miranda Crasco Kirk, family, whom he now lives with on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, prayer and God for sustaining him.

He said that as an addict he hated being judged and was able to break free from the grip of drugs and alcohol once he realized people were not condemning him but the drugs.

Kirk said addicts often want to quit, but people often push them away, though love and a supportive community can help people overcome the obstacles created by addition.

“It’s too late to condemn. It’s too late to hate, ” Kirk said. “It’s time to love one another as a community.”