{"id":16642,"date":"2016-10-20T23:22:15","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T23:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/?p=16642"},"modified":"2023-10-02T23:28:18","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T23:28:18","slug":"overcoming-addiction-abuse-and-anger-a-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/2016\/10\/20\/overcoming-addiction-abuse-and-anger-a-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming addiction, abuse, and anger \u2014 a choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY CHRISTOPHER S. PINEO<\/strong>
\nNAVAJO TIMES<\/p>\n

CHINLE \u2013\u2013 A father takes hold of a horse\u2019s lead alongside the mother of his child.<\/p>\n

Both have the same rope in their hand, but one parent holds a shorter rope as they guide the horse around a set of obstacles.<\/p>\n

Jerome Towne, 50, of Chinle uses this equine therapy exercise to help parents understand how raising a child can be unpredictable, like a horse, no matter how well trained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give the lead rope to both parents,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat they do is they have a trail. They go through that, and they have to guide the horse through all these obstacles.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it shows how equality works in the home, where sometimes a situation does not allow for a perfect division of responsibility or time spent with children between two parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes the mother have more control and have to deal with kids more than the father, or is it the father that deals more with the kids?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

He said the exercise can frequently reveal a fear many mothers have when dealing with a son who could become aggressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the horse is a huge horse, a lot of times I have heard parents say, a mom say, \u2018I\u2019m afraid of this horse.\u2019 What does that horse represent to you? A lot of times they will say, \u2018My son. My son is huge. My son is big. I don\u2019t know how to tell him not to do this,\u2019\u201d Towne said.<\/p>\n

Currently, Towne works as a health educator with the Navajo Health Education Program under the Navajo Department of Health, but he also has 20 years of experience working with youth, young people, and families working to overcome addiction, alcoholism, or anger.<\/p>\n

Equine therapy is one of the techniques he uses along with what he called \u201cadventure-based programs,\u201d that get people out into the wilderness for healing experiences. When someone completes a program and thanks him, he places the responsibility for the choice to heal, with the participant.<\/p>\n

Featured last week in Your Story, Loren Anthony asked for a column on someone who helps kids with addiction. He wanted to ask how the counselor stays sober to maintain an example. Towne answered the question before I ask it.<\/p>\n

He has not struggled with alcohol since he was young. He attributes blessings in his life story to setting him on the path to help children and young people overcome temptation as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s social, crucial, and chronic sides of drinking,\u201d he said. \u201cI would say I was on the social and the crucial side.\u201d<\/p>\n

He drank with his friends \u2014 social. His drinking impacted elements of his life \u2014 crucial. But, he never became an addict \u2014 chronic.<\/p>\n

He grew up in Chinle and worked at a Safeway in Phoenix after high school.<\/p>\n

In 1986, he went for a job as a janitor with the NDOH. Instead, the interviewers saw potential in him for another position.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter I applied and the interview was over, I was asked to come back over,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

They asked him questions about drugs and alcohol, and ultimately offered him his first position as a counselor. He went on to work as a Children in Need supervisor, as a substance abuse counselor, and for a brief time in his own business called Hozh\u00f3ogo Iina.<\/p>\n

The first job set him on a path of two decades helping youth, families, and young people by laying out a path for them. Based on ancestral Navajo ways, he lets people he helps know that they have a path laid out for their whole life in the teachings he shares.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they are born on the east side they travel,\u201d he said, pointing to the part of a circle between the east and south.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight here is where they need planning. This is where parents are supposed to not plan, but teach.\u201d \u201cRight here, there is a place to teach the kids, but a lot of parents don\u2019t do that anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As he explained this, he traced his finger on the table to outline the four directions. And he traces it so the person he explains it to can see and get the perspective from their angle, not from his. With the seasoned experience of a teacher of sorts, he made the brief lesson about uplifting the other by putting self aside \u2014 a perspective he maintains with those he helps. He said he runs into people he has helped sometimes.<\/p>\n

He said those he helps choose the path, but only they can walk it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say thank you, and I tell them the same thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t me. You made the choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he finishes his time at his current position in December, he will return to his counseling business that takes the ancestral teachings as a guide \u2014 Hozh\u00f3ogo Iina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY CHRISTOPHER S. PINEO NAVAJO TIMES CHINLE \u2013\u2013 A father takes hold of a horse\u2019s lead alongside the mother of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16644,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642\/revisions\/16644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}