Opinion

Ivan Star Comes Out: Alcohol and drug abuse hinder our people

Friday, July 15, 2016

Ivan F. Star Comes Out. Photo from Native Sun News

Coming to terms with your past is the only way out
By Ivan F. Star Comes Out
Native Sun News Columnist
nsweekly.com

Why do Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires) descendants consume alcohol and drugs to excess? Is it because everybody else does it? Do they do it to feel good or even normal? It’s as if people do it to achieve a brief quietude or contentment that is not there otherwise. I do know that alcohol and drug abuse is a regular occurrence here on the Pine Ridge.

As a recovering alcoholic since 1978, I know that drinking to excess is the likeliest activity many use to temporarily “fix” their personal situation. I have even seen people conceive fabulously brilliant excuses to justify their drinking. I am aware that regardless of social status, every single person in the abuser’s family is affected by it.

Consuming alcohol excessively merely denies a person a normal life, much less to move on, and deters genuine happiness. Instead, I see many justifying their consumption in some odd or even imagined way. It is a waste of time and talent that could do better applied to the well-being of our future.

Realistically, consuming alcohol to excess occurs to a degree greater than imagined. The abundance of empty alcohol containers along our homeland highways should tell us there is a problem here which our government seems to ignore. Also, there is the domestic violence, child abuse, rape, incest, suicide, and on and on.

Those few unfortunates in White Clay (Neb.) are but a tiny portion of a large contingent of alcohol consumers on the reservation. The few businesses there are impetuously perceived to be the sole source of the alcohol problem on the Pine Ridge. The supposed 3.5 million cans of beer sold annually are made possible by a significant but unseen populace.