Andrew Raven and John Curran
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 21/05) - For many Northerners struggling with addiction, the root of their problem can be traced back to their time in residential schools.

"That was the only way for me to cope", said Joachim Bonnetrouge, a recovering alcoholic who now heads a healing circle in Fort Providence that helps former students.

"Residential schools created emotional scars for many of the people in my generation," he said. "When you have an unresolved trauma, it will keep coming back to haunt you."

Bonnetrouge, like other children from the Deh Cho region, attended the Sacred Heart Mission School in Fort Providence.

Many were pried from their families as part of the federal program to school aboriginal children.

While the mission school, run by the Catholic Church, gave students an education, the emotional, physical and sexual abuse that went on inside its foreboding walls turned many towards the bottle, Bonnetrouge said.

Bonnetrouge can point to 27 people from his generation who died as a result of alcohol abuse. Some have passed away due to exposure while others were struck crossing the street in a drunken fog.

"A lot of them were just killing themselves slowly," he said.

For Bonnetrouge, a former Chief of the Deh Gah Go'tine Band in Fort Providence, the battle back to sobriety was a long one.

"It began when I first started to address what happened at the mission school," he said.

Many former students are just now beginning to deal with this trauma, Bonnetrouge said.

"It will take two or three generations before the issues go away," he said.

He is a firm believer that exploring the past will pave the road to recovery for residential school survivors.

"Every time you share your story, things seem to get better," he said.

A little further up the Mackenzie River in Tulita, Laura Lennie also knows first hand how deep residential school scars run. She first turned to the bottle at the age of 20 in an effort to drown out the her bad memories.

"The time I was drinking was wasted," she said. "I wonder what I could have accomplished if I didn't drink in that time."

Lennie too beat her addiction, but not before she dealt with the spectre left by her eduction.

"I stopped at 38 after 18 years of drinking," she said.

Now Lennie is the chairperson of the Tulita Wellness Program and strives to help others make healthy choices in their own lives.

In this community of about 500, the battle to regain control has been a long one that continues to this day. Progress is being made however and Tulita Chief Frank Andrew can see the difference.

"I stayed here all my life and in the 1970s everybody was drunk," he said. "Those were dark days."

Thanks to the efforts of Lennie and others like her, Andrew said, "I'm proud to say many of my people have found sobriety."