“Native scholar Greg Cajete has written that in indigenous ways of knowing, we understand a thing only when we understand it with all four aspects of our being: mind, body, emotion, and spirit.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer
A HOLISTIC APPROACH
TO RECOVERY
The Liberation Pathways Tobacco Cessation Program (LPTCP) treats Tobacco addiction and misuse through changing users’ relationship with Tobacco, and it targets the many underlying factors that led to addiction in the first place and that perpetuate the need for use.
It is not a program based on solely increasing motivation for change or a model based on “willpower” as the means for sobriety. We do not seek to merely change behavior, but to help us understand the underlying source driving our choices and coping strategies.
Instead, the program addresses addiction through the lens of the Liberation Pathways Interconnection Model (LPIM) for addiction treatment. The LPIM addresses the psychological, social, biological, spiritual factors that contribute to development of addiction in a person.
AN INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVE
Tobacco has been cultivated in the Americas and by indigenous cultures worldwide for spiritual and medical applications for thousands of years. A major component of the LPTCP includes sharing indigenous ways of knowing in regard to Tobacco as well as providing information about the impact of colonization and capitalism in the misappropriation and misuse of this plant.
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HOW WE WORK
The Liberation Pathways Interconnection Model for Addiction Treatment (LPIM) espouses that addiction doesn’t happen in vacuum, and that it arises due to many, interrelated factors. Human beings are complex, intricate organisms with many interconnected aspects that dictate functioning. Below are some of the key components (as related to addiction treatment) of the LPIM, which is an ever-evolving model:
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PSYCHOLOGICAL/BEHAVIORAL
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PHYSICAL/SOMATIC
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SPIRITUAL
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INTELLECTUAL (EDUCATIONAL/PSYCHOED)
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COMMUNITY & CONNECTION
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For this reason, our approach begins with a 3-day retreat and continuing online support that includes the following components: Individual and group Trauma and Behavioral Health Therapy, somatic modalities such as breathwork, nutrition and acupuncture, education regarding the neurobiology of Tobacco use as well as on indigenous perspectives for working with Tobacco as a sacred medicine, time for spiritual exploration/connection (individual to each person), and emphasis on community-building for ongoing support.
GATHERING IN 2025
Applications for the Liberation Pathways Tobacco Cessation Program open September 21st, 2024
OUR FARM & RETREAT SPACE
Setting is a major component of our program. Liberation Pathways Healing Space is located in a beautiful small farm that focuses on organic food forest farming practices. We emphasize the growth of sustainable food sources and medicinal plants. Currently, we are in the process of building the platforms for building an online apothecary shop that will help fund scholarships for marginalized populations aiming to partake in Liberation Pathways Tobacco Cessation Program. We are also in the process of developing programing for Back-to-the-Land Youth Programs for marginalized youth. We are settlers on the lush, forested, Umpqua Basin, South of Eugene, Oregon in the lands of the Yoncalla, Kalapuyans, Southern Molalla, Upper Umpqua , Quuiich Tribes, Cow Creek Umpqua Bands and the many First Peoples who inhabited the lands of the Umpqua River Basin.
