Alcohol Abuse and Native Americans: A Result of Colonialism, A Call for the Restoration of Justice Alcoholism is a disease. This disease plagues the Native American population in America to an astonishing degree. "Alcohol affects Native Americans disproportionately; the 1992-1994 age-adjusted alcoholism mortality rate for Native Americans is approximately 6 times the 1993 rate for the US population as a whole" [Frank344] Philip A. May states in his essay "The Epidemiology of Alcohol Abuse": "That alcoholism is …showed first 75 words of 1900 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1900 total…of the reservation is imperative. If they remain socially and geographically isolated, the negative conditioning patterns that have been instilled in them by settlers will only worsen; so will their drinking. Alcoholism is a disease with massive potential for destructive force; the Native American is now, and has been, the victim. It is a time for change. Eradicating most of the alcohol problem in the Native American community is the beginning of the solution.