The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian

Alcoholism is one of our nation’s largest social issues to date, and carries with it many negative aspects, the most dire being death at the hands of this disease. Alcohol and alcoholism have been part of societies for centuries. This habit was brought over to the new world when the first settlers landed on the shores of what was to become America. Furthermore, in bringing alcohol to this new land an entire nation of Native American Indians were introduced to a product that has affected them more negatively than any other to date, and continues to suffer from today and probably well into the future.

Poverty hits children hardest in the world. When I was younger, the Armenians had faced the hard facts of poverty after they break up with the Soviet Union, war with Azerbaijan, and a devastating earthquake. My family moved into our motherland Armenia while our nation was going through these huge dramatic changes. Furthermore the poor economy and inflation destroyed numerous hopes and futures. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Arnold Spirit, describes his hardships involving poverty living on Spokane reservation. The people on the reservation are stuck in a prison of poverty. They are imprisoned there due to lack of resources and general contempt from the outside world, so they are left with little chance for success. Like Arnold, I also went through hardships regarding poverty and education.

of alcoholism and its impact upon the lives of the Native Americans, Alexie does not aim to put

In Sherman Alexie’s ‘The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven’ (2005 edition) alcoholism plays a huge role throughout the book. Particularly in the short stories ‘Amusement’, ‘The Only Traffic Signal on the Reservation Doesn’t Flash Red Anymore’ and ‘A Train is an Order of Occurrence Designed to Lead to Some Result’. Kids on the reservation always start off good with school and sports keeping them busy, but somewhere along the way they always seem to fall off track. That is why things like basketball play such a huge role in their lives; distracting them from partying, drinking, and drugs. If just one person could make it out of there with a scholarship or something of that sort they would have hope. Victor being one of the most talked about character in these stories is a clear example of how his drinking problem affected him. In spite of that fact drinking affects every Indian on the reservation, if they haven’t drank, they’ve been around it all their lives. These stories help support why alcohol plays such a major role in their lives.

The book: Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is about a boy named Arnold (Junior) who was born a hydrocephalus which means he was born with water in the brain. Due to his condition this causes him to have physical differences and also caused him to have seizures and a stutter. Arnold is a fourteen year-old that lives with his family of an Indian reservation. In this book the narrator explains the struggles Arnold faces about his identity and the need to move off the reservation so he doesn’t follow the path of his family. Some of the main major characters in this book are his best friend Rowdy, Mary who is his sister, his Grandmother Spirit and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Spirit.

Problems with his parents, he would drink. Disagreement with his girlfriend, he would drink. Bad day at work, he would drink. No matter what difficulty he encountered or strain life would throw at him alcohol was always the answer. This, on top of the good times. Favorite sports team won, he would drink. Concert at the coliseum, he would drink. Fishing with friends, he would drink. The problem, he stated, was that his problems only got worse when he drank. So, he figured the answer was to drink more.

Thomas-builds-the-fire, as we all do, struggles with the idea of race, culture and identity. He is in the band Coyote Springs and feels a deep connection to the Black Americans who created the blues, the music that they play. However, he and his bandmates are Native American and still want to stay true to their own identities. For example, Phil Sheridan, despite having Coyote Springs, whose members were actually Native American, recruited Betty and Veronica, who were willing to do as Sheridan wanted and conform to what the“Indian” perception was at the time. Sheridan talks to Wright about “[getting] them into the tanning booth. [To] darken them up a bit…a little plastic surgery on those cheekbones. Get them a little higher…dye their hair black”

Drinking pattern does differ by race and ethnicity in the United States. Our book discusses the difference between Irish, Italians, French, Asia & Native Americans, Hispanics, and African American. Studies show that African Americans have higher rates of alcoholism than whites do. This conclusion is due to the lack of research on drinking pattern amongst blacks (Lex, 1985; Sterne, 1967). Evidence also show that white women has a lower rate of alcoholism than black women, yet African American women have a higher abstain rate (Harper and Saifnoorian, 1991). Most African American males don’t encounter with alcohol related problems until about their 30’s. Seen in a study by Herd’s (1990) it revealed that is was some similar patterns between white and blacks as well as differences. White were found to do more

Most people do not end up becoming alcoholics because they are completely satisfied with their life, happy and joyful, and drinking only to celebrate. Yes, it is highly likely that genetics play an important role in the formation of the disease, but a majority of alcoholics drink because they have endured some great trauma. This can either be from trauma from an outside source or emotional turmoil from within. The difference between an alcoholic who drinks because of instances of domestic abuse or clinical depression versus a Native American alcoholic is that the average person’s alcoholism is symptomatic of individual experiences. Alcoholism among the native population is encouraged by overwhelming and uncontrollable outside cultural forces. This is all to say that when Louis writes about his recovery from alcoholism and the effects of the disease on the Native American population, he is reaching beyond the surface implications of excessive drink and moving toward the causes and conditions of that substance abuse. Alcoholism is representative of the struggles the people on Pine Ridge Reservation endure because of EuroAmerican oppression. “Beer, blood, soil, home” writes Louis on page 46. It is all one-in-the-same, representative of a larger trauma that needs to be healed.

Substance abuse is a topic most prefer not to discuss; it destroys lives, relationships and families all over the world. Native Americans seem to have suffered immensely by it. Since the coming of the Englishmen and the introduction of new knowledge and tools Native people have been trying to hold on to their own culture and their own way of life. Unfortunately with them came new items for consumption, alcohol was one of the main ingredients to the internal downfall of Native populations. Native American populations suffer greatly due to the ongoing epidemic of substance abuse and dependence; some things are being done about the problems people are having but in the end will it be enough to heal a nation? To open this paper I will look at

Alcoholism is defined as the addiction to consumption of alcohol to a point where individuals become unable to live a normal and healthy live. “Excessive alcohol consumption is a leading preventable cause of death in the United States and has a greater health impact on American Indians and Alaska Native than on other racial groups” (Landen, M., Roeber, J., Naimi, T., Nielsen, L., & Sewell, M., 2014). American Indians and Alaska Natives have the “highest rate of binge drinking (30.2%) and heavy alcohol use (8.5%) of all racial groups in the United States” (Rieckmann, 2016). To fight high rates of alcoholism, federal law was implemented for prohibition of alcohol on Indian Reservations in 1974. Alcohol abuse on the reservation is cause for much of the social and economic woes that plague this sovereign nation. It is so drastic, that Navajo Nation and United States Department of Health and Human Services have dispatched programs to combat the alarming rates of fetal alcohol syndrome and binge drinking.

The impact of various kinds of substances to cultural groups has historically been precipitated by the significance of particular substances on different cultural groups (Moore, 2010).This is mainly because the long term usage of these substances leads to the integration of the consumption of the substance into the cultural patterns of the given group. One such group that has been affected by the extensive usage of a particular substance is the Native American community. According to the Associated Press (2014, August 28), as noted on the MSNBC website, out of ten deaths among the Native American population, one is Alcohol related. Additionally, the prevalence of Alcohol consumption among the Native American population relates to

Following the European invasion in America, Native Americans came to endure many problems. While some have faded, others still linger on in their lives. The issue of alcohol and alcoholism is one of them. From settlers using it to deceive, to today’s issues on the reservation, alcohol has played a devastating role in the lives of Native Americans. Knowing how the issue of alcohol became such a predominate part of Native Americans lives will allow us to spawn ideas on how to end the problem.

Alcoholism is a severe disease that affects many people around the world. The person that the learner chose to write this paper about is a 30+ year alcoholic. The disease has taken a toll on said person, as well as on the family. Alcohol is the most dangerous recreational drug to use (Comer, 2011). It affects millions of families across the world as well as social relationships (Comer, 2014). The first thing the subject did as they awoke was cough and spit severely as if they were chocking. The subject went outside and continued to gag and cough, each time louder. The subject went back inside, walked to their room, and opened up a beer that was in one of the dressers. This was the routine that said person did daily. The subject also spent most of their time in their room, or outside talking on the phone while intoxicated. The subject called their parents while intoxicated and mentioned that they forgave their dad. It is likely that the subject went through some sort of trauma as a child with their father. As the day went by, the subject would drink until intoxicated, which took about three beers. The learner thought this was odd because the subject had been drinking so long, however, this happens to severe alcoholics whose liver doesn’t function as well. The subject became intoxicated and the behavior of the subject changed drastically. The subject went from being very antisocial, sitting in their bedroom watching TV, to talking to the other family members, becoming

What is alcoholism? Alcoholism is a chronic disease where a person becomes dependent on liquor. One in every twelve adults suffer from Alcoholism. Alcohol is one of the most abused substance in the United States. There are over 80,000 death in the United States due to excessive drinking. Alcoholism has many names two of the most common are Alcohol Use Disorder, and Alcohol Dependence Syndrome. A person who is dependent on alcohol is usually called an alcoholic.