The stereotype of the drunken Indian often confuses the history of alcohol in our communities with genetic theories. Separating these issues out from one another allows us to tackle the myth more effectively. It also gives us another piece of the picture that is colonialism, because alcohol has absolutely been weaponized against Indigenous peoples in Canada, and the history of this weaponization stretches back to contact.
I want to examine the stereotype and provide some of the research mentioned in Walker’s article, quoted above. Maybe you’ll learn some things about the issue that you never knew. More important, I’m hoping people will be more critical-minded when this stereotype is brought up.
Belief #1: Indigenous people cannot metabolize alcohol.
A very common belief is Indigenous people “can’t handle their liquor” due to the lack of a specific gene that helps humans metabolize, or break down, alcohol. The basic idea is that because most Indigenous people living in Canada and the United States did not have a habit of drinking alcohol prior to contact, there was not enough time to develop a genetic resistance to it the way Europeans and other alcohol-drinking populations had. This idea seems to make sense, particularly if one compares lack of resistance to alcohol with lack of resistance to European diseases – except the two situations aren’t even remotely similar. Alcohol is neither a virus nor a bacterium, and genes aren’t antibodies, so step away from the pseudoscience, please.
First of all, the presence of fermented alcohol among various First Nations and Inuit is fairly well documented.6 Some folks will concede this but then argue distilled liquors pack a heck of a lot more punch, so the absent-gene theory is still plausible.
Well, there are genes that have an impact on how a person metabolizes alcohol. Without getting into exhausting detail, there are actually a number of genes that influence the creation of two main enzymes responsible for breaking alcohol down. Those enzymes, alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), basically help your body turn alcohol into chemicals that are no longer as damaging to your vital organs. Humans have seven different genes (and many variations within them) that are responsible for ADH production, and two genes responsible for ALDH production. All human beings have some genes that allow these enzymes to be produced in the body.
You metabolize alcohol more quickly, or more slowly, depending on which gene(s) you have. The genes that are considered protective tend to produce enzymes that metabolize alcohol more slowly, meaning you cannot drink as much at a time because the effects last longer. So, you don’t actually want the enzymes that clear the alcohol out of your system right away, as this tends to encourage heavier drinking, which can be a factor in developing an alcohol dependency.
Some of these genes are more common to specific ethnic groups. For example, the ADH1B*2 allele (gene variant) is found with high frequency in East Asians, but in low amounts among many First Nations people and among Europeans. It has some of the best protective effects against developing alcoholism.7 However, “high frequency” is no guarantee. Other populations will also have this gene, and specific East Asians may not carry it. We’re talking about probabilities here, not certainties. Add to this the fact that genetic differences within specific ethnic populations (e.g., between two East Asians) can be as high as variations between ethnic populations (e.g., between East Asians and Europeans), and the “they just lack the gene” theory starts crumbling to itty-bitty bits.8
To sum up, Indigenous people have genes that help them metabolize alcohol, just like all human beings do. Some of these genes work better than others and can help protect against alcoholism, but none of these genes can prevent alcohol dependency. Specific ethnic groups tend to have certain genes in higher frequencies, but genetic diversity within ethnic groups is also very high, thus generalizations about alcohol dependency cannot accurately be made based on genetics.
Overall, the research shows First Nations people react to alcohol much like any other peoples. As the Wisconsin Department of Health Services puts it:
Metabolism of alcohol among all people groups is related to prior drinking history and body weight, not race or ethnicity.
Drinking patterns and problems among American Indians are influenced by the same factors as other people groups. These factors include genetics, age, social norms and laws, social involvement, economics, mental health, emotional pain or trauma, self-esteem, and environment. Substance abuse is not caused by race.9
For Indigenous peoples, it is important not to internalize the idea there is a genetic predisposition to alcoholism based on an inability to metabolize alcohol as efficiently as other populations. Simply accepting this can lead to a sort of fatalism – after all, if it’s in your genes, how can you fight it? For Canadians, it is important to avoid perpetuating junk science, regardless of whether the intention is malicious or benign. Why? Well, “junk science” sort of says it all, doesn’t it?
Belief #2: All Natives are drunks.
The cause of death due to alcohol use is 43.7 per 100 000 among Indigenous peoples in Canada, which is twice the rate of the general population.10 There is no doubt alcohol abuse in our communities is a huge problem. However, there is a fairly common belief that all Indigenous people drink.
Although getting updated statistics is difficult, the 2002–2003 and 2008–2010 First Nations Regional Longitudinal studies give us the following information:
More First Nations adults abstain from drinking than the general population (34.3 percent versus 23 percent among non-Natives).11
Most First Nations adults who do drink do so less frequently than the general population (17.8 percent using alcohol on a daily/weekly basis compared to 44 percent in the general population; males twice as likely as females to be weekly drinkers.)12
The proportion of heavy drinkers in First Nations adults is higher than the general Canadian population (16 percent versus 6.2 percent).13
To sum this up, more Indigenous people abstain from alcohol than the general Canadian population. Some studies suggest Indigenous people are twice as likely to abstain as their non-Indigenous counterparts. Indigenous people who do drink alcohol tend to do so less frequently than their non-Indigenous counterparts, but they also tend to drink more extremely when they are consuming alcohol.
There are two extremes represented here that are important to understand. Many Indigenous people do not drink at all, and consider alcohol to be a very serious problem in our communities. Heavy drinking is more common among Indigenous drinkers than among non-Indigenous people, however.
As expressed in all of the studies cited in this section, Indigenous people tend to have a more negative view of the use of alcohol compared to non-Indigenous people, which is no doubt linked to the damage that alcohol abuse continues to wreak on our communities.
Belief #3: Alcohol abuse is an Indigenous cultural trait.
Most people won’t say this openly anymore, but this belief has hardly gone the way of the dodo. As with any population, substance abuse is a complex issue. Some people do not want to accept those complexities, however, and wish to merely attribute it to some sort of inherent weakness on the part of a specific population. This particular belief has existed since contact, and continues to inform public opinion today.
Earlier on, I mentioned the way alcohol has been weaponized against our communities. Well, I’m not just going to keep you hanging; this is something we need to discuss. Early European colonists demonstrated excessive drinking and violence, so much so that alcohol consumption among early settlers was considered a serious problem by colonial authorities.14 Settler voyageurs, in particular, were notorious for excessive drinking, and these men were the first to contact many Indigenous peoples. Sexual violence against Indigenous women by European colonists and soldiers, a horrifically common part of colonial expansion, was very much linked to alcohol abuse.15 From the early days of contact, right up until the end of the 19th century, Indigenous peoples were consistently exposed to models of violence associated wit
h binge-drinking by fur traders, soldiers, and, later on, miners.16
It is important to note that temporary groupings of single, settler men – unattached to the communities they are interacting with, living without families or kinship obligations – have consistently enacted violence against Indigenous peoples (particularly against Indigenous women and girls) since contact. Alcohol and, later, drugs have almost always been part of the way in which this violence is enacted and continues to be experienced. The boomtowns of the gold rush have become the man camps of oil and shale-gas extraction.17
Colonial authorities were not successful in restricting alcohol consumption among their colonists, traders, and soldiers.18 Attention then became focused on controlling or banning the provision of alcohol to Indigenous peoples (a population that was much more vulnerable to colonial domination), as well as legislating the consumption of alcohol by Indigenous peoples for their “protection.” In 1874, for example, legislation was passed making it an offence for an Indian to be intoxicated. The punishment was one month in jail!19 This led to a number of outcomes, including a booming and unhealthy underground trade.
As the historian Brian Maracle writes:
The law didn’t stop or prevent Indians from drinking, but it did change the way they drank – for the worse. Since Indians were forbidden to buy liquor, they frequently resorted to drinking other far more dangerous intoxicants. More ominously, Indians also had to guzzle their beer, wine or liquor as quickly as possible to keep from being arrested.20
In Canada, the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869 (which later became consolidated into the Indian Act) gave the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs the power to determine who was of “good moral character,” and the consumption of alcohol figured greatly into this determination.21 This had immediate impact on Indigenous peoples, as this determination was directly linked to certain benefits. Widowed Indian women could even have their children taken away if they were found lacking “good moral character.”
This is what I mean when I say that alcohol has been weaponized against Indigenous peoples. First, it was deliberately introduced into our communities in highly destructive and violent ways by settlers. After that, it was banned on the pretext that Indigenous peoples were too racially weak to have a healthy relationship with alcohol. This bloomed into a widespread belief that alcohol abuse is an inherent trait of Indigenous peoples (whether cultural or genetic, it doesn’t seem to matter), despite the fact that alcohol abuse is just as (if not more) widespread in settler populations. The use of alcohol among Indigenous peoples led to children being removed from the home, rations and annuities being withheld, and even imprisonment. These kinds of consequences remained in place in Indian Act legislation up until the 1980s and, it can be argued, are still in play, particularly when it comes to the removal of children from the home.22
Some closing thoughts
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) has an excellent publication called Addictive Behaviours Among Aboriginal People in Canada, which I highly recommend.23 To get a real sense of the problem, you have to understand the history of colonization in this country. While embarking on that exploration can take years, AHF does a good job of distilling some main points, as well as explaining why that history really does matter:
No other population group in Canada’s history has endured such a deliberate, comprehensive, and prolonged assault on their human rights as that of Aboriginal people. Yet, despite growing recognition of past wrongs, many Canadians remain unaware of the full scope of these injustices or their impacts.
To understand how Indigenous cultures that had flourished for thousands of years began breaking down, giving rise to epidemic levels of addictive behaviours, it helps to look back at history through an Aboriginal lens.24
There is nothing inherent in our cultures (or our genes) that makes us more likely to become alcoholics than non-Indigenous people. In fact, the most successful substance abuse prevention and treatment strategies have been those that integrate Indigenous traditions, rather than external programs that pay no mind to our cultural context.
Alcohol abuse among Indigenous peoples is not a myth. But, there are some pernicious stereotypes out there that have a very real impact on the way people regard alcohol use by Indigenous peoples, and also on the way we ourselves view our relationship with alcohol. Obviously, these views need to be dealt with and examined, particularly among those who work with Indigenous populations.
It is not helpful to claim we are genetically weak and unable to avoid becoming dependent on alcohol. Nor is it helpful to imagine all of us have an alcohol problem, or will eventually develop one. More important, it is unhelpful to ignore our cultural and historical context in the belief this context is unrelated.
I grew up believing many of these myths, and it’s taken many years to see alcoholism is not a foregone conclusion among our people. We can take steps to prevent it and treat it. I’m hopful that dispelling some of these stereotypes will help to keep the focus on what we can do, rather than on what is supposedly out of our hands completely.
NOTES
1.Katherine Walker, “The Drunken Indian Stereotype and Social Healing,” CBC News, last modified October 22, 2008, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/the-drunken-indian-stereotype-and-social-healing-1.729514.
2.Dawn Walton, “Tim Hortons Serves Up Some Controversy,” The Globe and Mail, last modified March 13, 2009, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/tim-hortons-serves-up-some-controversy/article17996444/.
3.Jayme Poisson, “‘Half-Breed’ and ‘Dirty Drunken Half-Breed’ Chucked from Burger Menu,” The Star, last modified August 29, 2012, http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/08/29/halfbreed_and_dirty_drunken_halfbreed_chucked_from_burger_menu.html.
4.“Political Expert Says It’s Too Soon To Know Impact of ‘Drunken Natives’ Comments,” Global News, last modified August 9, 2014, http://globalnews.ca/news/1500278/wife-of-mayoral-candidate-under-fire-for-drunken-natives-comments/.
5.Mary Agnes Welch, “Drunk Indian Myth Surfaces,” Winnipeg Free Press, last modified May 29, 2014, http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/drunk-indian-myth-surfaces-261044871.html.
6.Patrick J. Abbott, “American Indian and Alaska Native Aboriginal Use of Alcohol in the United States,” American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research 7, no. 2 (1996): 1–13, http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/PublicHealth/research/centers/CAIANH/journal/Documents/Volume%207/7%282%29_Abbott_Use_of_Alcohol_1-13.pdf.
7.Howard J. Edenberg, “The Genetics of Alcohol Metabolism: Role of Alcohol Dehydrogenase and Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Variants,” Alcohol Research & Health 30, no. 1 (2007): 5–13, http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh301/5-13.pdf.
8.Ian R. Gizer, Howard J. Edenberg, David A. Gilder, Kirk C. Wilhelmsen, and Cindy L. Ehlers, “Association of Alcohol Dehydrogenase Genes with Alcohol-Related Phenotypes in a Native American Community Sample,” Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research 35, no. 11 (2011), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3197765/; Tamara L. Wall, Lucinda G. Carr, and Cindy L. Ehlers, “Protective Association of Genetic Variation in Alcohol Dehydrogenase With Alcohol Dependence in Native American Mission Indians,” American Journal of Psychiatry 160, no. 1 (2003): 41–46, http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ appi.ajp.160.1.41. If you are interested in these gene variations and their prevalence in Native Americans, check out these sources.
9.Rosalie A. Torres Stone, Les B. Whitbeck, Xiaojin Chen, Kurt Johnson, and Debbie M. Olson, “Traditional Practices, Traditional Spirituality, and Alcohol Cessation Among American Indians,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol 67, no. 2 (2006): 236–244, https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/publications/p0/p00806.pdf.
10.Deborah Chansonneuve, “Addictive Behaviours Among Aboriginal People in Canada” (Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2007), 25, http://www.ahf.ca/downloads/addictive-behaviours.pdf.
11.First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC), “National Repo
rt on Adults, Youth and Children Living in First Nations Communities,” First Nations Regional Health Survey (RHS) 2008/10 (Ottawa: FNIGC, 2012), 97, http://fnigc.ca/sites/default/files/docs/first_nations_regional_health_survey_rhs_2008-10_-_national_report.pdf.
12.First Nations Regional Longitudinal Health Survey (RHS) 2002/03, “Results for Adults, Youth and Children Living in First Nations Communities,” (First Nations Centre, 2005), 115, http://fnigc.ca/sites/default/files/ENpdf/RHS_2002/rhs2002-03-technical_report.pdf.
13.Ibid., 116. Heavy drinking is defined as binge drinking (five or more drinks per sitting) at least once a month for the last year.
14.Paul Aaron, and David Musto, “Temperance and Prohibition in America: A Historical Overview,” in Alcohol and Public Policy: Beyond the Shadow of Prohibition, eds. M. H. Moore and D. R. Gerstein (Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 1981), 127–181.
15.Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (South End Press, 2005). This offers a more thorough account of how colonialism has relied on sexual violence against Indigenous women.
16.A. M. Winkler. “Drinking on the American Frontier,” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 29, no. 2 (1968): 413–445.
17.A. C. Shilton, “The Human Cost of Keystone XL,” psmag.com, last modified May 14, 2015, http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/the-human-cost-of-keystone-xl.
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