Why do Indians drink a lot of alcohol?

Answer 1

Native peoples do not necessarily drink a lot of alcohol, but it is a common stereotype. The causes of alcohol abuse are complex and tend to defy simple explanations.

Around the late 1800s in Canada, Indian Residential Schools were set up by missionaries. The purpose of the schools was to educate the Indian and eventually have them mixed into mainstream society and to be rid of their way of life which the missionaries saw as pagan. Around the 1980s, an investigation had begun into the ways in which the missionaries treated the aboriginal students over the years since the schools began. The investigation found that some of the priests and nuns of the school had been physically and sexually abusing students. Over the years since their abuses took place, many of the students thought it had only happened to them but found a large number were now disclosing what had happened in the schools.

Over the years, many of the First Nations people could not handle the horrible experience of being physically or sexually abused and they tried to drown it out. The one thing that seemed to drown out these memories was alcohol. Many of them began drinking heavily and most still do today.