LINCOLN, Neb.— Locked behind an 8-by-5 steel door, Vernie Birdhead sang.
Wiopeyata etunwan yo! Nitunkasila, ahitunwan yankelo!
He sang for his sanity, to remember a place beyond the now familiar, rubber-walled pink detox cell. He sang for his friends, those he left behind on the streets, in the alleys and in the dark places of the world. He sang for his people, the proud Lakota who once roamed these lands free but now seemed so humbled.
In the end, he sang to forget, to distance himself from the alcohol burning in his veins.
"I remember some of it," said Birdhead, 62, of the Oglala Lakota tribe. "I don't remember all of it."
Life for Birdhead is very different today than it was nearly five years ago. His days of singing and dancing in a cramped detoxification cell, trying to keep his mind busy while the whiskey drained from his body, have come and gone.
But Birdhead has not forgotten where he came from. He remembers it every Thursday night at 8 p.m., when he and other recovering alcoholics meet to talk about their disease, alcoholism. The meeting, which Birdhead sponsors, typically lasts an hour and takes place just down the hall from the room where he once spent so many hours detoxifying at Cornhusker Place Inc.
It is an irony not lost on Birdhead, who has become a kind of beacon for the most desperate alcoholics in this Midwestern city of 250,000.
Not that he lets his newfound fame get to his head.
"As long as my story can help one person with my message, then I know I've done a good job," he said recently while preparing for his Thursday night meeting.
Rocky Road
The road to sobriety has been a rocky one for Birdhead. Like so many recovering alcoholics, it took the threat of death to awaken Birdhead to his problem.
As he tells his story, growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Birdhead spent much of his youth being passed around from relative to relative, then from foster family to foster family. The only common thread in his transient life, he said, was alcohol; it was his only escape and often his only friend in Pine Ridge.
He said he remembers running away as a young boy from the Catholic boarding school where he spent much of his younger years. He said he ran to get away from the abusive Catholic nuns who would whip him for speaking his language. To this day, tears well up in Birdhead's eyes when he thinks about his time at Holy Rosary Mission, now known as Red Cloud Indian School.
"Why did they do that to me?" he asked, holding his head low, but only for a moment.
As he grew older, Birdhead said, he spent countless hours and days in prisons across Nebraska and South Dakota. He said he doesn't remember exactly how, but he eventually made his way to Lincoln.
It was there that he spent the hardest of his days, drinking in the streets and getting thrown in jail by officers who came to know him by his first name, he said.
First Steps
He started his recovery in 1998, after most had given up on him and after what he said were more than 100 admissions into Cornhusker Place. He spent a year and a half in treatment at Cornhusker Place between 1998 and 1999, learning ways to fight his addiction, gaining the tools he needed to face the world on his own. He took his first steps in recovery as a child does letting go of a parent's hand, tentatively, often unsure of himself.
After more than four years of sobriety, he has learned to trust himself and everyone around him. He spends much of his time these days visiting Cornhusker Place, which has become a second home to Birdhead.
"He's living proof that there is hope for even the most chronic alcoholics," said Jim Baird, Cornhusker Place executive director. "He is always welcome here."
Birdhead said he lives his life day by day, paying his bills on time and keeping his word to those around him.
He can be found in the afternoons shooting pool at the F Street Community Center. And every morning, Birdhead takes time from his day to share coffee, stories and advice with staff and clients at Cornhusker Place.
Long known for sharing the message of sobriety, he is still very vocal about how he got sober.
"You have to take it day by day," he said. "If I can change from living on the streets and from slowly killing myself, there is hope for all those out there."
In the end, perhaps Birdhead's most powerful message to alcoholics is his sobriety, all 1,661 days of it.