Ceremony as medicine, a Lakota approach to addiction and intergenerational trauma

RAPID CITY – Oaye Luta Okolakiciye hosted the Fifth Annual Strengthening the Spirit Conference at The Box Elder Even Center April 21-23, 2026. The program specializes in culturally grounded recovery and just this month received a ten-thousand dollar South Dakota Community Foundation grant to expand their ceremony-assisted treatment programs.

Rates of addiction, sexual abuse, violence, and psychological distress remain alarmingly high in Native American communities. Yet the role of cultural loss—and its impact across generations— has often been misunderstood or dismissed outright. Attempts to address Indigenous trauma with Western clinical models have frequently fallen short, in part because they overlook the collective and intergenerational wounds of colonization, boarding schools, and forced relocation. At the same time, Native communities continue to confront entrenched prejudice and discrimination, and many Native people live with less security and a lower quality of life than their white counterparts.

Oaye Luta Okolakiciye is working to change that — and leaders say the organization has a proven track record with a seventy-five percent sober rate. Its name translates to “Moving Forward in a Sacred Way,” a phrase that founder Gene Tyon says captures the core ethos of their work.

Tyon, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation who grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, is the founder and executive director of the Rapid City-based nonprofit. After studying at Oglala Lakota College and the University of South Dakota where he focused on addiction studies, he says he was given a vision: to help heal his people from collective trauma and cultural loss through ceremonial practices. Tyon says that the organization’s emphasis on kinship and cultural and community-based pathways to healing and resilience has flourished into a physical institution that serves as a key resource for cultural healing within health, justice, education, child welfare, and Indigenous advocacy space. “We work alongside Western and Indigenous partners in a context shaped by deep trauma and long-standing systemic politics and racism. In my leadership role, I advocate for, mentor, and champion Indigenous health and wellness for individuals and communities through our culture.”

Administrative Supervisor Caitlyn Shoulder, also a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, said the Lakota ways of healing were pushed aside by Western approaches, which do not take into account the spiritual component. “Our director had this vision to bring this back to the forefront for our Lakota people to heal, and not just for our Lakota people, but also our Native people in general, because we are spiritual beings. That spiritual component was always missing for a lot of our healing.” She says that was a deliberative action of colonization to intentionally separate Native Americans from their culture, language, ceremonies, and each other.

“Now, we have to be intentional about reconnecting it. Moving forward in a sacred way means to realign with our cultural values, to realign with our sacred laws and our ceremonies that we know are effective and we know are working. We just need to bring that back into a space of today’s society, understand it, and validate it as an effective way to heal.”

One of the difficulties for many Native Americans is navigating what Shoulder described as living in a “dual world” where the messages between worlds can seem confusing. “We aren’t tying to carve out a new lane for ourselves. We want our own lane, to exist, and we want to be able to coexist, because when we live in a dual world, we might have to use dual approaches. Our ultimate goal is how do we work to the benefit of our relatives.”

She spoke about their 12-week program as similar to an intensive outpatient program. “A relative may have to start with some Western approach, like initial detox perhaps, but that can help them come to a space to be able to utilize the ceremonies and healing practices of the Lakota. Those practices address the root of the problem. Sometimes, the relative isn’t in a safe enough place – mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally -to be able to adjust right away.”

She said the program pairs some Western perceptions with Lakota perceptions about how to handle emotions, like anger. “In this way, the program has more impact and benefit, and the overall healing can be sustained, because they now have new tools. They can understand the layered symptoms underneath – the hurt, the pain, the trauma -and way that relatives can process that through understandings and utilization of the ceremonies and being able to fully move through them.

Shoulder said there is no stigma either that relatives often experience in other treatment programs. “Not to dismiss the effectiveness of treatment programs and inpatient treatment programs, but sometimes they don’t work because they don’t align, and that’s okay. But we’re creating a space where it does align with a lot of our Native people, because that identity, that stigma, those preconceived notions don’t exist here.

The program emphasizes the seven universal laws which are central to Lakota spirituality and daily conduct -compassion, humility, wisdom, generosity, fortitude, bravery, respect, and honor. These laws or virtues are foundational teachings meant to guide individuals in living in balance and harmony with themselves, their communities and all of creations, according to the Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center.

Shoulder said another difference with the Oaye Luta program is the understanding that healing is a lifelong journey, and relatives may need to return for more healing. “We always have things come our way that can put us back in that painful pace. But that’s okay because healing is not linear. There’s going to be a road bump and sometimes a blockade. I always emphasize to relatives that it’s not going to be easy. In fact, it could be heavy, sometimes ugly, and may be the hardest thing you have ever come through to make these breakthroughs.”

Shoulder said a lot of other programs that are 30 or 45 days inpatient only scratch the surface and patients are released in a raw and vulnerable state. She pointed to the seventy-five percent sober rate outside of all of Oaye Luta’s programming. “That is one of my favorite statistics to speak on, because it emphasizes the power of our approach, that ceremony is effective, and that Lakota teachings are effective.”

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

The post Ceremony as medicine, a Lakota approach to addiction and intergenerational trauma first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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