American Indian Alcoholism
One of the most pressing issues in Native American society is alcoholism. Around 42% of Native Americans that start to abuse alcohol, will continue to do so the rest of their life. On top of this 12% of all Native American deaths are due to alcohol use. The most common deaths by alcohol include traffic accidents driving under the influence and liver disease, which contribute to over 25% of alcoholic-related deaths. This is over 3 times the national average at 3.3%. Not only does this affect the lives of themselves, but alcohol is a major part in many other afflicting issues, like violence, rape, and suicide.
American Indians, unlike other cultures that have been in contact with the consumption of alcohol for thousands of years, have only been in contact with alcohol for a few hundreds of years. As a result, in comparison to the rest of the world, Native Americans have had less time for their bodies to develop a tolerance to alcohol. They're bodies are naturally unable to tolerate so much alcohol. It is a similar reason why many East Asians are able to become intoxicated quicker, just on a more severe scale. Additionally history of Native Americans that originate from violence and cultural destruction upon their society as resulted in "generational trauma" as a recent story on NPR put it. The disconnection from culture and heritage forces Native Americans to turn to alcohol abuse to ease the pain. Finally, I believe that American perception further adds fuel to this fire. In the show Mike and Molly, a joke was made that stereotyped Indians in Arizona, "Why would I go to Arizona? It's nothing but a furnace full of drunk Indians". Having these cultural ties to alcoholism is only making this matter worse as Native Americans are further separated from society and their perception is kept as unkempt savages. They are on their own fighting this by themselves.
As a result, it can be difficult to create a solution to stop this. No one can stop the history cultural destruction of Native Americans. No one can suddenly increase the alcoholic tolerance of Native Americans. However, efforts are being made to stop alcohol from reaching the hands of Native Americans. Some reservations, like the Pine Ridge Reservation in Nebraska has become a dry reservation, meaning that alcohol is not allowed it in. Alcoholism has been dropping. From the efforts made, along with time to recover from the destructive history of Native Americans, rate of deaths due to alcohol are decreasing. In 1980, the mortality rate due to alcohol in Native American Tribes was 7 times greater than the national average. While that number has decreased to just over 3 times, efforts are still being made to lower it. Finally, American's should have a better understanding of the issues going on. In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the main character, who is a Native American living on a reservation, has a father that is an alcoholic. Rather than just making fun of the problem that was apparent in Mike and Molly, the readers see at first hand the issues occurring, and consequently gain a better sense of empathy. We as readers understand what is happening and we can make efforts to fight this battle with them.
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| Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Whiteclay, Neb. |
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