Alcoholism and the Native American

One of the biggest problems for the people of Pine Ridge is alcoholism and the many problems (fetal alcohol syndrome, death, etc) associated with it. There are various reasons in existence for why Pine Ridge people have a drinking problem. Among them are unemployment and the coinciding poverty and despair. Unemployment is over 75% on the reservation.  Two thirds of people live below the poverty line. Partially because of the risks associated with alcoholism, the average life expectancy for men is 48 and for women it is 52. When this is compared to the average life span of 78 for Americans living off of the reservation, it is easy to see just how bad the situation is on Pine Ridge. Because of the alcohol problem, the sale and possession of alcohol on the reservation has been banned. However, just across the border exists a town with the name of Whiteclay whose sole purpose for existence seems to be for the sale of alcohol to reservation inhabitants.  Whiteclay is a small Nebraska town on the border of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation which probably owes its survival to the Pine Ridge inhabitants who frequent its alcohol-selling stores. Each day, over 11,000 beers are sold in White Clay alone. Why haven’t they shut down White Clay? It’s referred to as the skid row of Nebraska so obviously they realize it’s not doing the already boring landscape of Nebraska any favors. Part of the reason for its existence rests in the fact that at least three people have liquor licenses and own stores in town. When the documentary was made, the town had four stores but it was reduced to three stores after an arrest was made. However, not long after the arrest, there was yet another person applying for a liquor license in the hopes of replacing the owner of the fourth store. He wanted to “expand his interests”, or so he said, but by that, I believe he really just meant that he’d like to expand his pocketbook. So it is at the expense of disillusioned reservation Indians that Whiteclay continues to sell its firewater.

  

So how can one go about legally removing the temptation and the alcoholism that plagues Native Americans? From Skins, we learn that you can’t just try to burn the liquor stores down. They just pop back up and often, in the case of the liquor store in Skins, come back even stronger. The only definitive answer is through legal action. However, programs such as AA and the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program, or even a restoration of Native American powwow dances to the reservation could also be probable solutions.  As one Native American shared, he had been sober for at least 30 years partially due to the fact that he had started dancing again. Moving past those simple solutions, maybe if we knew more about how Whiteclay and the alcohol situation were born in that area, it would help us to find successful solutions for the problems occurring in and around the Pine Ridge Reservation. According to one Native American, battles which plotted Native Americans against white soldiers such as the Massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890 were a major reason for the building and maintenance of Whiteclay as a “buffer zone”.  According to Alcohol Problems in Native America, “suppression, oppression and colonization of Native people by a radically different cultural group, and that group’s deliberate use of alcohol as a weapon of colonization, is an underlying cause of indigenous alcohol problems in North America” (Simonelli 74).  This article also reveals that there have been various “movements throughout Native history working towards resistance and recovery from Indian alcohol problems. These include the Delaware Prophets, the Indian Christian Preachers, the Handsome Lake Movement, Indian Temperance Societies, the Indian Shaker Church, the NativeAmerican (Peyote) Church, the Ghost Dance, the “Indianization” of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Indian sobriety movement, the rise of community recovery movements, and especially, the modern Wellbriety Movement, which is thriving in Native America today” (Simonelli 73). The Wellbriety movement was inspired by “Handsome Lake, a Seneca, who began to teach about alcohol recovery following his own successful sobriety and recovery from the effects of alcohol” (The Story). The early movement used both AA and cultural practices to try to curb the alcoholism. The movement then began to evolve, finally becoming today’s Wellbriety movement. “The Wellbriety movement was born with Hope Journey I in 1991 and is carried through each succeeding Hoop Journey” (The Story). In addition, Firestarter Circles made up of Native and non- Native people emerged. Firestarter Circles consist of “communities who work the Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps program of sobriety, recovery and cultural healing with the help of learning videos for both men and women” (The Story). According to a post on Addiction Blog, Native Americans drink for a variety of reasons. These reasons include endemic alcoholism, family dysfunction, generational drinking patterns, increasing distance from traditions and language, isolation, little hope, no communication within the family, no personal support or role models, personal trauma (abuse and sexual assault 2-3 times national average), social pressure, and unemployment (at 80% on many reservations). Most of these issues stem from past actions of the U.S. government.

As we have discussed in my Native American class, the U.S. government caused a lot of these problems through their actions of land theft, mistreatment, and the buildup of lies. They were also involved firsthand in introducing a patriarchal society that had almost no use for women when the children were sent off to boarding schools. This is where a lot of the current and past violence against women arose from. All in all, the past actions of the U.S. government and other settlers have led to the breakdown of families and culture and the consequential problems with alcoholism. After initial disbelief at the claims of boarding schools leading to dysfunctional families that was presented in the article, The Women of Standing Rock, my thoughts have now changed. I now think those claims no longer warrant as much disbelief as boarding schools do contribute to a more patriarchal society which results in alcoholism and women being abused.

In conclusion, through watching the documentary The Battle for Whiteclay , I have discovered that alcoholism is still a persistent problem in places like the Pine Ridge Reservation because of factors such as unemployment, easy access to the liquor in Whiteclay, past decisions of the U.S. government and the nonexistence of a place to drink the alcohol.  However through programs such as AA, the Wellbriety movement and emerging cultural inclusion programs, Native Americans can overcome the disease that is alcoholism. And Whiteclay doesn’t have to be all that bad. As the activist Webster Poor Bear said at the end of the documentary, “surrounding cities don’t know about the reservation but maybe Whiteclay will expose us to them and we can start moving toward solutions”.

Simonelli, Richard. Rev. of Alcohol Problems in Native America. Winds of Change Summer 2006: 73-75. Web.19 Mar. 2012. <www.facesandvoicesofrecovery.org/pdf/White/WOCreview.alcoholbook.pdf>.                                                                                                                                                                                         

"The Story of the Wellbriety Movement." White Bison. Web. 19 Mar. 2012. <http://www.whitebison.org/wellbriety_movement/index.html>.

"Native Americans and Alcohol: Why Do Native Americans Drink so Much?" Addiction Blog. 11 Oct. 2011. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. <http://alcohol.addictionblog.org/native-americans-and-alcohol-why-do-native-americans-drink-so-much/>.