8th annual Rockin’ Recovery event helps educate, raise awareness and reduce stigma surrounding addiction – Anishinabek News
October 7, 2021
THUNDER BAY — Rockin’ Recovery 2021 featured local stories of recovery from addiction, a comedy set by Biigtigong Nishnaabeg’s Janine Desmoulin, and music by V3nom and Barn Swallow through the Zoom virtual platform on Sept. 22.
“My recovery journey entailed me to pick up certain things, a lady laid them out for me — there were four sacred medicines on the floor: tobacco, semma, sage, cedar, and sweetgrass,” Desmoulin says, noting that she began her recovery many years ago at a women’s treatment centre in Sudbury. “She said, ‘Pick up those medicines.’ I had to be given the okay and I’m giving you the okay today to pick up whatever you need as medicine, whether it be walking, whether it be running, whether it be talking, whether it be making people giggle. That’s what you do, you pick up the medicines that you hold true to your heart, whether it be your ceremony, the things you need, your drum. Whatever you need, you pick them up.”
Desmoulin says it is important for people to focus on stories in their recovery journey that make them feel good.
