The Storyteller

Ever heard voices? Jess did. It shook him up. "So I went to Charles, but I didn't tell him what was going on in my thoughts. I asked him to give me a straight shot of whiskey, and I always had the pills to make me high or low, so I went into the bathroom and took those two elements, and what I was trying to do, I was trying to forget that voice."

It's tough growing up when you feel like you don't fit in. For a little girl named Harriet, it was a lonely time. Listen as she reflects back on the early days of her life, and as she shares the most significant moment in her life... at a school away from home.

And I said, 'Do you happen to remember, back in 1949, your mother coming into possession of a little Apache Indian baby?' And she sucked in her breath - I heard it on the phone. And she said, 'Why, why yes. Why do you ask?' I said, 'Well I'm that baby.'

I remember, early on, wondering a whole lot about my place in the world and if there was any significance to my life, or was I just kind of drifting along here like a twig sitting on the waves of the ocean, no significance, no background, no future.

"Danny was the big man on campus. He was the meanest, toughest, most foul-mouthed boy on the ranch, and we all wanted to grow up and be just as tough and mean as he was. But he would kick us around, hit us, yell at us, force us to do his chores and things, just a very mean fellow, but one day Danny just changed, totally without any explanation, without any warning his life changed. His demeanor changed, his vocabulary changed everything about him, and nobody knew what had happened."

You've heard alcohol referred to as "spirits". Have you ever wondered why? Ted's story may help shed some light on this. What he experienced was frightening beyond imagination. But it didn't matter because he was determined to be set free.

When alcohol is your master, it effects every part of your life. For some, it comes on slow. But eventually you begin to realize the grip is not you on the bottle, but the bottle on you. Ted speaks candidly of his journey to find freedom, and the demons he faced along the way.

Growing up without a dad was not easy. But it was in the loss of his father that Jimmy came to know God as Father. Listen as he reflects on how that happened.

It's not often that a boy gets to see his father die. It's even less common to hear someone talk about it. But that's what Jimmy does as he shares what happened the day that his dad unexpectedly took his last breath.

Hazel grew up on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When her family moved to the town of Dupree, she experienced prejudice for the first time. At a young age she ended up getting married to a non-Native man in order to get away from abuse. The result was not what she was expecting.