America's First Addiction Epidemic: Alcohol

As the United States struggles with the opioid epidemic, journalist and author Christopher Finan takes us back to one of the first addiction epidemics and in the New World — alcohol — and how it was dealt with by the Native American tribes that became addicted to it.  

He writes in depth about the impact alcohol addiction had on Native American communities, and why they were particularly vulnerable to alcohol abuse, having had no social or cultural experience with drinking, and thus no social taboos against drunkenness.  Alcoholism quickly became an epidemic — threatening not just public health, but their entire economy. 

"It was obvious to all that drinking threatened the survival of the natives. Danckaerts had observed that the Indians were willing to trade anything for alcohol, including their blankets, leggings — 'yes, their guns and hatchets, the very instruments by which they obtain their subsistence'. The impact on the Indian economy was devastating."  

Final also writes about the experience of Handsome Lake, a member of the Seneca Nation, who first succumbed to alcoholism and eventually became a leader amongst his tribe in the fight against it. 

Handsome Lake had dreams and visions — which he believed were sent to him directly from the Creator — about the evils of alcoholism, including a direct revelation that "whiskey is the great engine which the bad Spirit uses to introduce Witchcraft and many other evils amongst Indians" that he shared with his tribe, and the High Council — a group of elders from many different tribes. The High Council believed him, appointed him high priest, and banned alcohol use by Native Americans — creating, in effect, the first prohibition.

For anyone interested in the history of addiction, how addiction epidemics have impacted and devastated cultures and societies of the past, and what previous societies have done to fight them, this is a must read.