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The Effects Of Alcoholism Essay – Native American Alcoholism and Treatment Failure

The Effects Of Alcoholism Essay

A colleague recently asked me for my assessment of the applicability of the “disease model” of alcoholism with regard to Native Americans. She asked not only because my adopted children are Inyupik, and from alcohol devastated families in northwestern Alaska, but also because I have worked in non-traditional ways of combating alcohol abuse for over twenty years. The Effects Of Alcoholism Essay

My answers have evolved out of the past forty years of my experience, work, observations, research, discussion, and reflection.

To begin with, the repeatedly discredited “disease model” negatively impacts everyone suffering from alcohol abuse – not just Native Americans; and second, “Native American” is also a counter-productive term, one implying that there is only one homogeneous group indigenous to North America. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

To exemplify, Alaska alone, is home to three distinctly different “Native” groups: Aleuts; the Yupiks and Inyupiks (“Eskimos”); and over twenty different “Indian” tribes. Within and between these entities the degree of alcohol use and abuse varies widely and so do solutions to their alcohol related problems.”

However, it is true that across the continent, including Alaska and Canada, Native Americans do exhibit a higher percentage of alcohol abuse and dependence than many other groups, though again, not in every case. Still, given the high incidence it’s tempting to want alcoholism to be a disease, rather than looking for more complicated and less forgiving causes. However, regardless of the group being considered, alcohol abuse and dependence rates really are a reflection of an accumulation of contributing social, psychological, biological, and cultural factors.

Consider for a moment one such factor: that alcohol use is frequently a matter of learned behaviors based on community and cultural expectations. Most of us adopt alcohol use, and abuse, as patterns from our family, our community, and society at large. Who introduced alcohol to Native Americans? Prospectors, whalers, soldiers, and others whose immoderate alcohol “use” is now reflected in many of today’s Native American’s usage, and these stereotypical patterns continue to be handed down from one generation to the next.

Of course these learned behaviors could be changed if they weren’t serving a purpose, which, unfortunately, they do. For example, in many cases being drunk is a readily accepted excuse to diverge from cultural norms – an excuse to act out aggressively rather than adhering to a passive conformity, for example. Community members hesitate to criticize someone for getting drunk and acting out this week when they may themselves want to get drunk and do the same next week. (Again, however, please remember that this isn’t a pattern unfamiliar to many other communities.)

Drinking is also a way of achieving some temporary respite from crowded living arrangements that don’t allow for any privacy. Thirty years ago my neighbor on the upper Yukon was one of eight people occupying a cabin roughly fifteen by twenty feet – a cabin without electricity, running water, or any distractions. Who could blame him for disappearing into an alcohol induced stupor from time to time?

Alcohol also helps blot out the depression and frustration that comes from a seemingly hopeless future. In many communities the most capable people have left, pursuing educational, vocational, and social opportunities. Generations have seen a steady decline in leadership, stability, and ability. In some cases, nearly all of the women have left, preferring the easier life available to them with non-Native husbands, college education, or city jobs. Who can blame them for leaving, or for the hopeless young men left behind from drowning their loneliness?

In addition to personal and community factors there are also political factors. Leadership within some Native American entities, like other ethnic or religious entities, is sometimes jealously held by families or individuals who see promoting alcohol abuse as a way of maintaining their positions and preventing rivals from threatening their power. “As long as they’re drunks, and their children are drunks, my children’s future is secure,” is how one Fairbanks Athabascan matriarch put it to me over twenty years ago, echoing her western Alaska Yupik counterpart two decades before that. They were right. The Effects Of Alcoholism Essay

The unending problem, of course, is that alcohol also makes all of the problems it “solves” worse; providing temporary fixes which preclude long term solutions. Depression that encourages alcohol abuse, while making the depression worse, is only one of a number of short and long term “Catch 22” features of alcohol misuse.

Returning to my colleague’s original question, viewing alcohol abuse as a “disease” makes maintaining the status quo easier for everyone. It obscures the real problems and sidetracks everyone from seeking and implementing real solutions.

On the other hand, if it’s a choice, , then changing the habits of use and abuse becomes matters of individual, family, community, and political choice. Predictably, however, there aren’t a lot of people anxious to sign up for responsibility when being a victim is so much more appealing, at least for today. After all, having a disease over which I am powerless is the perfect excuse to keep on drinking. Changing, on the other hand, requires a sustained effort along with the acceptance of responsibility for one’s own situation and decisions.

The picture I have painted in this brief essay is, of course, a simplification – a picture that includes only some of the major factors that contribute to the ongoing destruction of what? Nor have I discussed the individuals, communities, and tribal groups who have successfully navigated through alcohol’s traps and temptations and achieved a sober and satisfactory life. Many more could, and would, with social and political supports that addressed the underlying needs and factors from a realistic perspective.

Is that apt to happen? Not as long as “treatment” reinforces the hopelessness and powerlessness that that failed industry provides and depends upon. Not as long as leaders externalize the causes they profit from financially and politically rather than addressing the real needs, problems, and attitudes which support continued alcohol dependence. Not as long as “alcoholism” is seen as a cause rather than a symptom. Not as long as being a victim is preferable to assuming responsibility for ourselves and for our communities.

Clearly, alcohol abuse is not a disease, and the solutions – including real assessment of individuals and communities; the provision of active opportunities vocationally, socially, and recreationally; and the refutation of a passive “disease” mentality – are no different for Native Americans than they are for the rest of us. But it requires the courage to acknowledge the mistakes of the past, to implement real change, and to withstand the objections and sabotaging of those who profit from business as usual. The Effects Of Alcoholism Essay