Superintendent’s Chat

Richard McClements, Shonto Preparatory School

When I was a small boy, there was a TV program called, “The Price is Right.” One of the interesting features was that at the end of the game, the winning contestant had the option to win more prizes if he or she could open the right door. Let us assume that behind one of the doors is a new car. Now that contestant has to open the correct door.

Door 1 ●

Door 2 ●

Door 3 ●

Door 4 ●

Door 5 ●

Behind four of those doors was something of far lesser value – such as a new vacuum cleaner or perhaps dinner for two at a restaurant.

Life is something like the decision on which door to open. Depending upon which door one opens and enters, that person will go off in a direction and a life then could have been totally different had he or she chosen another door.

Alcoholism among Native Americans is a rampant problem. Every tribe struggles with ruined lives, deaths, physical abuse, addiction, and estranged families because too many American Indians open that door. Nearly every family on the Navajo Reservation has relatives who are alcoholics. Far too many families have had uncles, aunts, fathers, mothers, sisters, daughters, brothers, and sons who died either directly or indirectly from alcoholism.

A member of the Shonto staff told me that his spouse had four uncles who died as a result of alcohol. All were young men. Their stories are horrible. One, for example, was drunk in the back of a pick-up truck and fell out, only to have a large truck behind him drive over him as he lay in the road. My tax accountant told me that his friend will no longer drive on the Reservation at night. Apparently, three Navajo men were intoxicated and lay down on the road to absorb the heat from it and fell asleep. That friend drove over all three. How do you ever deal with something like that? This cycle goes on generation after generation. It is time that this generation, starting with you said “no more.”

As a visitor here, I see the signs everywhere. I use to pick up Navajo hitch-hikers on Saturday morning on my way to Page to shop for groceries. I have learned to not do that. Inevitably, whenever I stop, that person is drunk. Then I have to put up with the smell and the foolish conversation of someone who can’t think straight. It is just not worth it. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Flagstaff at a gas station. As I walked in, a Navajo man was staggering to the counter with a bottle of cheap wine. He was already intoxicated, and was just filthy. He put the bottle on the counter and started to pull out change. He didn’t have enough to buy that bottle, and the man behind the counter told him to leave. He stumbled out the door and into the night. That scenario was painful to witness.

The statistics on alcoholism among Native Americans is frightening:

Native Americans have a higher rate of alcohol consumption than all other ethnic groups or subgroups in the United States. Arrest statistics, random-sample surveys, professional and social-service-agency studies, and ethnographic studies of Native Americans have identified that alcohol consumption is a leading health problem.

Native Americans have consistently been arrested at approximately three times the Black rate and ten times the White rate, according to age-adjusted figures for 1950-1968. Despite a number of reports showing that in particular Native American groups, most arrests are for minor offenses, this does not appear to be the case of Native Americans as a whole.

For drinking-related offenses, the disparity between Native American and the general population rate are even greater -- about eight times the Black rate and over twenty times the White rate in the United States. Canadian native peoples also have been reported to be over-represented in alcohol associated arrests and a high proportion of arrested Canadian native people have been reported as drinking at the time an offense was committed. These disproportionate rates of drinking-related arrests are one of the principal statistics cited to show that Native Americans have a greater drinking problem than the rest of the population.

In the Sioux Indian reservation of Rosebud, South Dakota, seventy percent of its teens and adults are alcoholics, and the rate of violent crime is at least twenty percent above the national average.

Source: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9235/Alcohol.html

Another source reports:

Within the drinking populations of most Indian communities, a substantial number of people drink very heavily. These people are found in both the recreational and anxiety drinker populations.

More than 70% of Indians who die in traffic accidents in New Mexico have been drinking. A University of New Mexico study of all ethnic groups in the state found that American Indian decedents from crashes had very high blood alcohol concentrations (BAC).⁴⁷ The average BACs of those who had been drinking and were killed in vehicular crashes in New Mexico were Indian .191, Hispanic .189, and Anglo .128. All ethnic groups, therefore, were averaging levels well above the legal intoxication level (.10). Indians killed in alcohol-related crashes had BACs significantly higher than those of the Anglos but not much higher than those of the Hispanics.⁴⁸ A full 85.7% of the Indian and 82.5% of the Hispanic victims who had been drinking were above the legal limit. This compared with 55.4% of the Anglos. Thus, the level of drinking among the Indians and Hispanics who drink is very high, probably indicating similar sociocultural patterns of drinking by certain peer clusters among the two groups.

A comparable pattern of blood alcohol levels exists for Indian decedents from suicide. Among those Indians who die from suicide in New Mexico, 69% to 74% (depending on the year studied) are alcohol-involved, with the alcohol level being quite bimodal. In other words, one-fourth of the victims tend to be completely sober, while three-fourths have very high BACs, as above (work in progress).

Research indicates, then, that those who are members of alcohol-abusing peer clusters in many tribes drink in a manner that produces very high blood alcohol levels. Both suicide and motor vehicle accidents are alcohol-related in a majority of cases. These results also support the notion that there is a connection between heavy drinking and risky behavior.

What Is the Relationship Between Child Abuse, Child Neglect, and Alcohol?

The one major study that has examined, in detail, the relationship between child abuse and neglect and alcohol use demonstrates clearly that alcohol often is involved. In northern New Mexico, 85% to 93% of the Indian child neglect cases and 63% of the child abuse cases involve alcohol.⁴⁹ Neglect, abuse, and alcohol problems were found to be part of a complex found in a number of multiproblem families where intergenerational transmission of pathology was present.

A subsequent paper from the above study compares the abuse/neglect sample to a matched group of Indian control families. Alcohol use and abuse was found to have been present in 58% of the control homes at one time or another, as compared to 88% in the abuse/neglect target groups.⁵⁰ This control study concluded that alcohol seems to be a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for child abuse. This is not unlike the relationship with suicide.

Is Alcohol Abuse Only a Male Problem?

Alcohol abuse, in the form of both alcohol-related and alcohol- specific/dependent behavior, takes its greatest toll among Indian males. IHS data from 1986 to 1988 (see Table 3) indicate that the number of Indian male deaths from alcohol-related and alcohol- specific causes is much higher (N = 2,705) than for Indian females (N = 951). This is true in every category. Twenty-six percent of male deaths are alcohol involved, whereas 13% of female deaths are. Stated another way, in a typical three-year period, 12.3% of all Indian deaths are related to alcohol use by males, and 4.3% are related to alcohol use by females.

Source: http://www.ihs.gov/publicinfo/publications/healthprovider/issues/IHSProMar2.asp

Now let us assume that the following choices are yours:

Door 1 ● Alcoholism – life of misery

Door 2 ● Addiction to drugs and narcotics

Door 3 ● High school dropout

Door 4 ● High school graduate. Life of hard work and commitment to one’s family

Door 5 ● College graduate. Life of hard work and commitment to one’s family.

Why would anyone open doors one or two? It starts with you and your decision to never open those first two doors. Everyone who opens doors one or two does so thinking that he or she can control it. Most, unfortunately, can’t.