Alec Petsikas spent 69 days in the desert, learning how to change his life. Last summer he spent a couple more teaching field staff how to help save lives.

            The Detroit native graduated from Medicine Wheel in the summer of 2007.  “I was 17 when I went to RedCliff,” he explains. “I’d never been to the desert. It’s very surreal the first week or so.”

            Alec says the hardest part was realizing the program does not have a set ending date. Length of stay varies for each student, depending on how they progress through the phase work. “Even if you finish all your phase work and are not emotionally or mentally ready, you stay,” he says.

            It took him 21 days and a couple of bows to bust his first fire. During that time he learned a thing or two about himself. “I always thought something else was the problem,” he recalls. “It wasn’t my problem, it was my tools, or it’s everyone else around me that need to change.” 

            Eventually, he says, “You realize you have a lot of improvement to make and you try. Getting a fire after not having one for so long is like, amazing.  It’s the most incredible feeling you could ever have. After that I felt there wasn’t much I couldn’t do.

Bow drill is so significant to how you handle every relationship in your life.”

            Alec turned 18 while in the field and chose to remain and complete the Medicine Wheel program.  “At that point I was totally doing it for myself,” he says.

            In 2008 Alec returned to RedCliff, this time to do a staff training presentation. His job was to help field staff see the RedCliff experience through the student’s perspective.

            “It was cool that I got to help,” he recalls. “Being staff is more difficult than I might have thought. I realize now how hard it is to have the patience that you need.”

            He says the experience showed him field staff are all trained to respond in a similar manner – keeping the program consistent from group to group. “It was really weird seeing all the reasons they approached kids in certain ways, why they said some of the things they did.”

            “I owe my life to RedCliff,” Alec says. “I was going nowhere pretty quickly. RedCliff changed that. It will make you want to turn your life around. It won’t do it for you. But it will make you want to life a more fulfilling and better life.”

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