Sweat Lodges for Long-term Residential Clients

Austin Recovery offers voluntary sweat lodges to some of our clients as another way to get in touch with feelings and experience the changes happening within. Saunas and sweat lodges are a historical fact in many parts of the world, including most of North and Central America, Ireland, Finland and much of Europe, Russia, Africa, Japan, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Benefits of sweat baths have long been known. Spiritual renewal and the purification of body, mind, soul and spirit are the major purposes and benefits resulting from regular sweat lodge use.

Sweating rids the body of waste and toxins. Depending on how hot the sweat bath and the climate in which it occurs, a fifteen minute sauna or sweat can perform the heavy metal excretion that normally takes healthy kidneys 24 hours to accomplish.

The ceremony itself takes place in a round or igloo-shaped structure made of thin boughs and covered by blankets and canvas. In the center of the lodge is a shallow ring or pit in which heated stones are placed. The stones are “fired” outside of the lodge until they are red-hot in a fire ring. Once they are placed in the pit, the door or flap to the tent is closed and water is splashed on the stones to produce steam. Songs and prayers are offered during the ceremony and the flap is opened four times to allow circulation and in observance of the four directions: North, South, East and West.

The sweat lodge is a spiritual experience that does not interfere with anyone’s current beliefs or religion. It simply offers another way to connect body, mind and spirit and experience the lessons of recovery at a much deeper level.

Testimonial from client:

"What an eye-opening experience where-by my spirituality was tapped at a level never experienced before." -- Angela R.