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You're an alcoholic, yet you drink....that isn't very common.
There are degrees of alcoholism ….from the executive who sips drinks all day but who isn’t staggering down hallways, to some fellow under a bridge holding a bag with a bottle of wine in it and he can’t get up. All have one thing in common….they have to have their booze. I fall someone where in the middle, depending on circumstances. At one point I realized my problem and I stopped drinking, without touching a drop for around 15 years.
Then due to a situation I started again. Then I stopped again. During that time I did a lot of thinking and I decided that alcohol was not going to defeat me….but neither was I going to run away from it. Few things in this world I allow to control me in any way and neither was this. Now, for the past 13 years or so I will have the occasional drink. I will go for months without even one although there is a bottle in the bookcase no more than 15ft away.
In here I sometimes say I need a drink or I’m going to have a drink. Others have mentioned this before and I have explained that I’m just joking. It’s a Newfie thing.
I do Not recommend how I handled this to others. There are people I know who are what I classify as severe alcoholics and they should never have a drink again…..and if at all possible they shouldn’t even walk past a bar.
But I suspect that their information is based on their membership, not on the whole population.
When I was originally told that by the AA official, your comment was the same as my first reply to him. He said that AA has their own stats but they also have to know what is happening around them in the big world. He said “we cannot succeed by working in a bubble”. He went on to say that they get their information from police, courts, the government, hospitals, clinics and any group who can help paint a true picture for them to look ahead and see what their future will be.
Native people have based on some stats a high rate of alcoholism but I think we have to look closer. When I worked the doors in some seedy bars and based on what I seen it would be easy to conclude that all Natives are drunks…..because I did not see the other side. I go to two Reservations now on a regular basis and have for years and with the exception of two occasions, I have Never seen a drunk Native person…..Never. I actually know several Natives who will admit that they use to drink and never touch a drop now.
I have people I know out west….Sask, Man, and especially Alberta. There seems to be a larger group of Natives in those areas with alcohol problems…..and that’s what people see…..and that is how they make their judgements.
As a Chief said to me many years ago….’we do our best for our people and yet a drunk Indian on Talbot St is all people remember’. (Talbot St at the time had a few of the worst bars on it)
Also one has to look at the reasons behind alcohol consumption. Based on the stats I have seen, the more desolate the area, the area where unemployment is higher, so goes the consumption of alcohol. Bottom line…..where people have less of a chance in life and less hope for a future…..the more they find that alcohol (or drugs) is their cheapest and fastest escape. The highest rate of alcohol consumption in Canada is in the Yukon….their unemployment rate is 25% and other jobs are probably the working poor. The third largest alcohol consumption in Canada is Nfld…..unemployment rate 2012 …11.3% but although I cannot find stats I know for a fact that many jobs are once again the working poor in a Province where the cost of most anything his higher than other Provinces.
I was in the bar business for many years and I know how people think. You could have a bar with 50 drunk white people in it….but everyone would look at the one drunk Native person and focus on him or her. I never heard….”look at all those drunken white people”. Why? Because we do not condemn our own…it’s just not done. In many ways we applaud them, cheer them on, approve.
Human beings as I have often said are very visual and prefer their own ‘herd’. If someone is out of the ‘norm’ of the herd there is automatic criticism and caution and ….fear. Then we look for anything and everything to justify our views. I can put on a good suit or a tuxedo and go to an event with millionaires and I am one of them. The next day I can pull up beside them at a stop light on my Harley with my leathers on and I am judged differently. (I’ve done it…had a good laugh as well).
Natives face the same thing….every day! It reminds me recently of the racists I have read in the media saying ‘how do all these Natives get the time off work to go to the demonstrations, or are they working at all?’ Just another subliminal attack by using a question rather than being straight forward with what they are Really thinking.
We are cruel people and it angers me. Why don’t all these bigots haul their behinds to a Rez….sit down….talk to the people….go to the Band office and ask questions? Instead they live off what the media says (many of the media being either bias or told what to say by the government)….or they listen to their friends …..or they listen blogs and other devices of modern communication....or they join in packs on the internet to attack anyone who dares shatter their bigotry.
People do not condemn others because of who or what those other people are…..they talk about others to make themselves feel good about who they are.
Your link Pierre do not show a ‘comparison’. That’s what was being talked about.
Also it does not show that in the white world there are Many unaccounted for alcoholics…people who have never sought help…..and I know a lot of them.
A couple of days ago, I posted a number of items from the Sun that were pro-native.
I was talking about articles in the Sun…..written by Sun media employees. Not Sun articles taken from other media sources.
He was a counsellor that I worked with a couple of years ago. He has been in AA for 23 years. He said that, in all that time, he has had only one Native in the program.
And what are you saying…..that there are more drunk white people than Natives? Did you ask him about the stats kept by AA probably at their head office?
But if the information does not support your ideas, then you lose the information and claim you "can't find it".
Again……….the ‘comparative stats’ are not there. You can find a Lot about Native alcoholism but no comparison to other groups. Understand????????
I’m not invisible mikey…..no more than others on here with their own IDs. I also am available for meetings which I hold at the Morris Tract Conservation Reserve Goderich Ont.
I think this thread has gotten a little off track But I do enjoy the read!
It is always enjoyable to watch the hyena pack tear at someone from the safety of the internet.
I am Canadian, my maternal ancestors settled in New Brunswick, New York and Maine in the early 1600's, my father was born in Sweden. His language and culture stayed in Sweden, they did not want to become a "distinct society", they wanted to be Canadian
Certainly, in a new world. Have your sister ask people in Sweden if they want to be Canadian and adopt a Canadian culture……my bet is they will say No….because they are in Sweden and they like their own culture…..they should not have to ‘adapt’ to some outside force. This is how the First Nations people feel. You are the immigrants…on their land….you should have adapted….not them.
No one in my history stole land, fought in Indian wars, killed buffalo, or signed treaties, but just because I am Caucasian, I feel as though I am being held responsible for everything that is wrong in this country.
True. However it’s like a stolen car. You buy it and drive it but you didn’t steal it. Nonetheless the car still belongs to the person it was stolen from. It doesn’t matter if it is a car, or a house, or land……..the same applies. This is why the Native people are trying to protect the treaties they made in the past….the ones that Harper is trying to change now to continue the present day theft.
It’s all so easy for people to criticize others when it is not happening to them and even more so it benefits them.
Feel free to pass my reply on to your sister verbatim.
In your view and probably that of the pack. To people in the real world.....no.
Remember this......
"Everytime I think I know who you are ,you make a statement that proves me wrong"
Actually it is more you in the 60's when things were worse and now this phrase 'moving on' in truth means moving back to the 1800's. More treaty promises and rights will be broken and more land and resources taken from the Native people and more lakes and streams and land destroyed by corporate greed. The same as happened in the 1800's.
This is realy simple (except for those who are greedy or the uneducated).......keep the promises and the treaties with the First Nations people. Have the integrity as a nation to say to the wealthy and the corporations that they can't have more because there have already been agreements made that cannot be broken. Period.
the pack aren't the "real world" ?
True they are. Unfortunately the world of the greedy. Packs of rabid dogs and disease and serial killers and thieves are also part of the real world.
Treaties that were signed 150 years ago by Great Britian
Doesn’t matter. Canada accepted the treaties. I have an agreement on part of my land for a right-a-way over other land. It was signed in 1856. Still holds today. Canada is a new country compared to others....there are legally binding agreements in other parts of the world that are hundreds of years old and still apply and probably always will.
Yes I know it’s ‘tiring’ ross. It’s always tiring to keep legal agreements and promises especially when one is part of a society. It always reminds me of those ‘judge shows’ on TV where a defendant wants to wiggle out of an agreement in any way possible and the judge looks at them and says…..”What makes you think you have the right? If someone made an agreement with you….you would expect them to keep to it.”!
Adios
(second time)
It will always be a standoff nan……always was, always will be. That’s part of ‘real life’ as well. As the famous baseball manager Casey Stengel once said ….”whatever decision you make…..50% of the people will have something to disagree with”. (I paraphrase slightly)
“high jack”….LOL must be a new phrase for ….’someone in an open discussion forum who expresses their opinion which differs from the opinion of others and the other people don’t like it’.
Some people might be better off with a blog that is locked from all other opinions or only allows in those who agree with them.
Y'all have a nice day now.
It happened in the US….the same happened in Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yz7xYzEEZo
And this True song. It may have happened in the US but I know a Native man in Canada who the same thing happened to him after having fought for Canada in WW2 and the Korean war. When he returned home he found his land had been leveled for a military training base. His parents graves had been dug to make training fox holes. He was not even allowed on the base to visit his parents site....all he could do was look through a fence at the road. He had no where to go and he slept in a ditch that night. He said .....'I found all my enemies when I got home.'"
Clifford George. Passed away at 85
