Drunks

[Griff]

Originally Posted by SamIam

It saddens me deeply that such once proud people have been so ravaged by alcohol. In my mind, alcohol is one of the worst things that the Europeans have spread among the Native Americans. Alcohol comes in a close second to small pox contaminated blankets in my book. And alcohol takes a far worse toll on Indians than it does on white people. Native Americans seem to become addicted more quickly, the alcohol impacts them more deeply, and few ever seem to recover. They are often doomed to die an alcoholic death at a comparatively early age.

The people that sold booze to them knew exactly what they were doing. It was another tool of opportunism and subjugation. As another sober person, I think the change needs to come from inside the culture. I've been thinking about my own issue with booze and a lot of it had to do with adhering to beliefs that were not my own and didn't jibe with reality. My Irish Catholic baggage seems pretty damn light compared to what happened to Native Americans, they still live where they were once free, I can't imagine the pain in that.