April 2009: Theresa Sanderson

Theresa Sanderson. Photo: John HareutherTAP: Tell me about your work in Addictions Counselling.

TS: I help develop client programs and make sure they're implemented through the staff so my dealings are twofold, but the majority of the time I end up dealing with staff and their issues and concerns. It's a 20-bed facility, called Sakwatamo Lodge. Clients actually stay in the building and our cycle is 28 days.

TAP: Is the treatment mostly for alcohol addiction?

TS: Alcohol-related, and a level of drugs. But mostly it's teaching life skills. A lot of them don't even know about hygiene; some of them are street people.

TAP: Do you see a lot of success drying out from alcohol?

TS: A lot of people will say "What's your success rate?" And I could easily backtrack and I could say we had this number of people that actually had abstained from alchohol and drugs after they left; it might be a very small amount. But we tend to think of it as changing their lifestyle. Even if you stayed sober for one week, then you made a slip, that's....success because at least they thought about it and maybe the next time they'll stay sober longer. We're funded by Health Canada and have to always have stats to say how people are recovering and how much money we get, so we have to account for "this is what we do with your money."

TAP: It reminds me a lot of the Church because so many of your results are intangible.

TS: You might have a client that comes in four times, and maybe the fourth time it finally clicked and we realized that that client is going to be living a healthy lifestyle.

TAP: How do people come to you, just of their own free will?

TS: I've been there for 9 years. When I first started working there, about 80 percent of the people came because they wanted to come, 20 percent came for other reasons. Now it's switched around. Twenty percent are coming because they want to come and 80% because they're forced to through the courts, through Child and Family Services and their Social Service agencies.

TAP: You’ve said a lot of people who come to the Lodge don't have basic life skills--is that because a lot of them were raised in families where there was a lot of alcoholism?

TS: A lot of that has to come from residential schools. It's a cycle: my grandparents went to residential school; my mom and dad went to residential school; my brother and I went to residential school. And you don't learn a lot of those parenting skills, and then when you come back, you also don't know your family. So you might be dealt with differently by your family, you might not be as close... It all depends on where you went to school and who you went to school with. If you were there with your family, you could be very tight knit with your brothers and sisters afterwards. But a lot of times, you do have a lot of issues that happened to you at residential school. I went in the 1970's to Duck Lake. We were fortunate; we only went there for two years. A lot of people had gone for many years.

TAP: And then they had to go back into the community.

TS: And a lot of people say they took away their culture, they took away their language, they took away their responsibilities, their choices, and then they made all those choices for them [at] residential school. It was like they were trying to take the Indian out of the child. And they started making the wrong choices, depending upon alcohol and/or drugs.

TAP: How did it work for your parents after residential school?

TS: My mom and dad both went to residential school at Gordon's. So when they came out they got married and moved to the reserve. I was born in Kinistino. Then my dad took a surveyor course and got hired by PCL Construction--and we moved all over. But we actually had our home base in Saskatoon; that's where we graduated from high school.

My parents decided to get out of that environment [the reserve] and they moved to the city. My dad's dad never gave him any land. He gave each of his sons [land] but he said to my dad "You don't need any land because you're going to survive on your own. I know you can make it." So my mom and dad were taught in residential school that in order to survive nowadays, you can't speak Cree. So my brothers and I weren't taught Cree. And the language is totally gone. I don't speak it; I can barely understand it.

TAP: How do you feel about that--because you've lost something.

TS: I'm not angry at my dad. It was the only choice my mom and dad knew at the time. If I want to know Cree I can pick up a book or find someone to teach it to me. It's my choice right now.

TAP: Did you take any training after high school?

TS: I went to university for a year and dropped out. And I lived not a very nice life and then, at about age 25, by that time my son was 5 years old, I applied for schools. And I said the first one that accepts me that's where I'm going to go. And here in Prince Albert--at that time it was called a Business Administration program--I took that and I've been working ever since.

TAP: Tell me about your faith.

TS: I never went to church. My dad totally stayed away from church. And so my brothers and I didn't go to church--we weren't even confirmed. We were baptised for the grandparents' [sakes]. The only time I went to church was through friends at high school--I was introduced to the Alliance Church and we'd go there for a few sessions. I was brought up in a very strict environment in some ways, but there was a lot of dysfunction in the family. So I saw all of the dysfunction in my home life and I didn't want anything to do with it. So I ended up having good grades in school, having friends that didn't drink, didn't do drugs. That's the way I went. As the years went by, I started going to church maybe once every couple of years or when someone passed away. But when I went to residential school--we still had nuns, we didn't have priests because it was a Catholic residential school--they would have a tape recorder or a record player and they would put it into the middle of the dormitory and they would play the old stories from the Bible about Noah and his ark, or about David and Goliath. You would listen to the stories while you went to sleep. I knew all the Bible stories because I listened to them as I went to bed every night. And that stayed with me all those years. I didn't have that connection with God, but for some reason he must have been looking out for me. I remember getting a little red Bible, the kind you get at Bible camp, just the New Testament and Psalms, and had that in my possession all those years. And during my times of trouble, I would open it up, and you know where I would read? I would read the Psalms. And I would be crying over whatever happened in my life at that time and I'd be reading the Psalms. And you know the only prayer I had? "I want somebody to love me and my son. Please God, somebody to love me and my son."

TAP: And I guess that’s where Wilfred comes in?

TS: Yes, we got married in 1997 and he loved me and he loved my son like his own. In about 2000 we started going to church quite often.

Wilfred and Theresa at Wilfred's ordination as Deacon, joined by Bishop Morgan, Bishop Burton and Bishop ArthursonTAP: What made you start going to church?

TS: Partly it was Wilfred; he had a dream about wine! I was thinking it was partly due to him not drinking anymore but he started thinking that perhaps we should try to go to church, not just start to drink wine. And after that we were going to church just about every Sunday. And Martha [Stonestand] asked us to become lay readers.

TAP: Did you feel at home when you went to the Anglican church?

TS: It was the singing that attracted me, the singing of the hymns—at that time I did not know how to sing Cree hymns, but it was the hymns that really got me going.

TAP: What made you want to become a lay reader?

TS: I was just doing it to help Wilfred, being a wife and a helper. And then when we went to Camp Okema one year, 2004--I remember distinctly because it was Rev’d Bellerby--we took that preaching class and I remember him just standing there and he was talking away, there was a whole bunch of us there. And he said that Jesus died on the cross for “you”—and he pointed to each of us and all of a sudden it just hit me out of the blue. And after class I started to cry and I was thinking “Oh my gosh, he did that for me, just for me.” And I think that’s when it started to change—and I started to go to church for myself.

TAP: And does your faith in God help you get through the day?

TS: I have a routine. I get up extra early to read my Bible and say my prayers. If I don't do that, then it's like my day just does not go right.

TAP: Does having gone through some of these life issues yourself and then coming to faith change how you see people and their recovery?

TS: There's one thing that's missing: the spiritual self, and they don't even think of that because right now they're just trying to think of how to get through the next day without having alcohol in their system. Just having even a disagreement with somebody, they're already thinking "well I'll just go out and get high or get drunk." So we're a cultural-based program where we have our elders coming in but at the same time, it's optional on Sundays to go to church so one of our workers takes them to church on Sundays. And they're very welcomed when they come for the service. And a lot of them know that Wilfred [the priest] is my husband. He'll come and pick me up; he'll introduce himself to the clients; he'll have coffee with them so that helps too. And one of the other lay readers, Bill Opoonichaw, works with us also at the Lodge. So between the two of us, if [the clients] have any spiritual questions, they come up to us. If it wasn't for God, I don't think I would have made it this far in my work. I asked Wilfred one time "Are you crazy when you say 'Oh Lord, what should I do next?'" But that's basically what I'll do. If something's bothering me I'll just shut my office door and do a quick prayer and it helps.

TAP: Does it give you hope too? You or your staff deal with a lot of situations that must seem hopeless.

TS: It seems hopeless at times; sometimes it does get you down. But just to see one client--especially when we meet up with them after--some of them come up to me now and they have this hope and it's just unbelievable. Wilfred and I will go to sing or do a service in Red Earth or Shoal Lake and I'll have a client come up to me and say "Hi Theresa" and I won't remember a name, but they'll remember me, the Centre, the staff. So it's little things like that that make it all worthwhile.