Rita Marmolejo has always been surrounded by addiction. The youngest of seven, her older siblings, addicted to drugs, ended up incarcerated. She dropped out of high school after becoming pregnant and married at age 16. Her husband served in Vietnam, suffering trauma that led to a heroin addiction. Several years later, her sons became addicted to drugs as well.

Eventually Marmolejo developed an addiction too. It wasn’t a dependence on methamphetamine, heroin, alcohol or any other type of drug.

“My addiction turned into wanting to fix everyone,” she said.

She went back to school to pursue a college degree in 1972. In her 30s, she taught 1st grade and kindergarten at Parmelee Avenue Elementary School in the Florence area, where she met a teacher who introduced her to a Lakota spiritual medicine man. And that’s when he introduced Marmolejo to the sweat lodge.

In a sweat lodge, there is a facilitator and the participants, each embarking on a spiritual journey during the ceremony. The facilitator, known as a sundancer, can be equated to a pastor or other religious leader, and the sweat lodge serves as a purification ritual.

A dome-like hut, covered by carpets and tarps, is made. The sundancer pours water on scorching rocks, creating steam. Hot and moist air fills the hut, similar to a sauna, and those inside must be mindful of breathing as they begin to sweat. The body is uncomfortable because it wants water, and, the belief is, this physically stressful situation helps a person enter a spiritual space from within, separating themselves from the body.

Now, Marmolejo treats women with addictions at the American Indian Changing Spirits Recovery Program at Century Villages at Cabrillo in West Long Beach. While she was only able to facilitate a couple of ceremonies before the COVID-19 pandemic, the program, which had its men’s sweat lodge led by another sundancer, launched a women’s group in January.

Marmolejo said experiencing the sweat lodge for the first time helped her reconnect with herself, providing a “sense of returning home,” she said. “And that began the process of my own healing.”

While not Lakota herself, Marmolejo continues the ceremonies for women, feeling “rejuvenated” after every sweat. She often speaks with thoughtful pauses, giving her words greater weight.

Women such as 50-year-old Juventina Sanchez only had a few chances to sweat with “Aunt Rita,” as she and the seven other clients in the Changing Spirits program call her.

In a sweat lodge ceremony, everything carries symbolism—the most notable one being the number four.

Winter, spring, summer, fall.

North, south, east, west.

Fire, water, earth, air.

Birth, adolescence, adulthood, death.

The stones are heated outside. The participants sit in absolute darkness. Marmolejo pulls back a tarp or carpet, closing and opening in the dome-shaped hut four times. As the women sit, the beating of a drum emulates mother earth’s heartbeat. There are prayers and songs that are made or offered, people can share whatever is on their minds. Some cry.

“I felt clean. It was like all the bad stuff just came off me,” Sanchez said. “Even literally, the dirt just came off me.”

Sanchez struggled with addiction to alcohol and methamphetamine, which she attributes to painful experiences. When she was 12 years old, her mother was murdered by four men in Fresno. Her aunt, who was with Sanchez’s mother during the incident, came out alive covered in blood.

“It all boils down to trauma,” she said.

Her addiction started in her early 20s, something that led her from enduring a dangerous romantic relationship to being homeless, sleeping in a tent or outside the San Pedro Regional Library.

Having finished her six-month rehabilitation at Changing Spirits, Sanchez said that the program helped her find peace.

Long Beach resident Nise’sha Cabayan, 35, who identifies as Blackfoot Native American, shared a similar path to addiction.

Cabayan started using cocaine after an aunt that raised her was diagnosed with leukemia. Later, she began smoking meth after her son’s father was murdered four years ago. Since then, she’s gone to jail and rehab, ultimately relapsing.

“I’ve been fighting for sobriety ever since,” Cabayan said.

Another fight she has is with her identity. Because she’s mixed with indigenous and Haitian heritage, she doesn’t like to label herself as Black, and she wanted to connect with her indigenous roots on a spiritual level. Cabayan has been to other rehabs, but Changing Spirits made that ancestral connection concrete.

“I want what’s mine,” she said.

Cabayan also feels a sense of belonging with a family of women who share the same pains. She gave the other woman indigenous names such as “Bless Walked” for a Christian woman, another named “Mother Warrior,” who was living in a truck. “Morning Dawn” is Cabayan’s name because she was told she’s a leader. This sense of camaraderie makes her feel protected.

“I am home, as opposed to being out there confused and orphaned,” she said. “I was an orphan out there in the streets.”

People enter the Changing Spirits program in a variety of ways. Some voluntarily seeking rehabilitation find out via word of mouth, and others are ordered by courts, parole or probation. If a bed is available, they’ll be mentally evaluated, if they have a severe mental illness, they won’t fit the program. The program is also welcome to anyone, regardless of indigenous heritage.

Marmolejo continued the ceremonies for women at the California Institution for Women, a prison in the city of Corona. At least once a month, between 2001 until January of 2020, she voluntarily visited the prisons to facilitate the sweat lodges after asking her mentoring sundancer for permission to do so.

Marmolejo said she feels honored to help someone’s recovery, personal growth and development.

“She’s just amazing,” Sanchez said, reminiscing how she spoke to participants “with love.”

Now, staying in a sober living house, Sanchez said she’ll never forget Changing Spirits.

“To be able to walk alongside them in their journey is a gift that I receive,” Marmolejo said.

Cabayan joined the program after the pandemic shutdown, so instead of sweat lodges, Marmolejo tries to keep the spiritual healing alive through virtual talking circles on Zoom.

“It takes away a lot—everything that you’re supposed to get out of it,” said Sanchez about the virtual programming.

Nevertheless, Sanchez appreciates Marmolejo speaking “with love” to her and the other clients being able to learn new things about the indigenous culture. Now, Sanchez says she can appreciate and “listen to the trees.”

First thing she said she will do once out of the program is get her California I.D., go back to school, get a part-time job and a set of keys to a home.

Feeling overwhelmed with emotions, Sanchez begins to cry.

“Everything that I’m going through is making me stronger,” she said. “Even the tears are a form of healing.”