https://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/digital/publishing/books/marcus1995/html/html/index.html
Posted on 12/25/2016 3:22:01 AM PST by Cronos
As soon as she glimpsed the body on the icy street, Marie Nickolai knew it was Jackie Amaktoolik. He’d been drinking outside.
She wept “That’s my brother,” she said.
When homeless people die in Alaska, it is often like this: outside, facilitated by a lethal combination of alcohol and cold.
...Nickolai, 42, and her stepbrother grew up among eight siblings in the remote Yupik village of New Stuyahok along the Nushagak river in western Alaska. She said it was a childhood of picking berries, hunting moose, fishing and attending the Russian Orthodox church.
..laska has some of the highest per capita rates of homelessness and alcoholism in America. From October to April, when temperatures can fall below freezing in this city of 300,000, bodies turn up outside with grim predictability; they are found in cars, hunched for warmth near transformer boxes, or in makeshift camps in the city’s many wooded parks.
Bodies also appear in the spring, as the snow recedes, often surrounded by plastic bottles once filled with alcohol or mouthwash. The most at-risk are those who have poorly treated physical or mental illnesses and years of alcoholism. The dead are disproportionately Alaska Natives, police and homelessness advocates say, who make up 20% of the general population but constitute half of the clients in shelters.
There are about 3,000 to 4,000 people without permanent housing in Anchorage, though many of those are living in shelters or couch surfing. At the last count in August, about 450 people were living in emergency shelters and in outside camps.
...the drug of choice in the city is alcohol. The rate of alcohol abuse among Alaska Natives is consistently the highest among all ethnic groups, mirroring that of American Indians in the lower 48 states
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
***All native Americans have a problem with alcohol [that’s racist] it appears.***
Yukon Indians found they could make their own using bread yeast, called “hoochino” or something similar, shortened to hooch.
Most Native Americans have been firm believers in dreams and visions. Some would go to a hill, expose themselves to the elements and starve until they had their religious experience. They found whiskey was a quicker way to have lots of visions, so traders kept lots of “Indian Whiskey” made up on the spot for trade to the Indians.
Indian Whiskey
From F.W. Hodge : Handbook of the American Indians North of Mexico (1907-1910)
Indian Whiskey, also called Indian liquor, is a cheap or adulterated whiskey used by traders for sale to Indians. A Mr. Teddy Blue, states that the whiskey was invented by Missouri River traders in the early nineteenth century, gives the following recipe for making Indian Whiskey:
“Take one barrel of Missouri River water and 2 gallons of alcohol. Then you add 2 ozs. of strychnine to make them crazy - because strychnine is the greatest stimulant in the world - and 2 plugs of tobacco to make them sick - because an Indian wouldn’t figure it was whiskey unless it made him sick - 5 bars of soap to give it a head, and 1/2 lb. of red pepper and then you put in some sagebrush and boil until brown. Strain this into a barrel and you’ve got your Indian Whiskey” (quote from Abbott and Smith 1939)
I worked with an American Indian man and one day our company had a dinner to celebrate something. Beer was served and after two or three he began to throw the small packages of butter across the room and in general make an ass of himself.
A few days later, I talked to him and he had no memory of what he did.
But then, I also worked with a white man from Georgia who went fishing, got drunk, fell in the creek, lost his fish, shot up his ammo, tried to kill a local black man, arrested by the sheriff, released and had NO memory of what happened, until he got drunk again. That was when he told me the rest of the story. He was very dangerous when drunk.
We stayed in Dulce one night years ago. I noticed one of the local natives walk by me “well lit” and “happy”. Someone must have been bringing some in from somewhere.
Not going to change that..........human behavior.
I doubt it anyway....
I knew the homeless stories would be back under a non-demoncrat administration.
I was in Charleston, SC many times over the past three years and asked why they have no homeless problem. Was told “it’s not allowed. We make our money from tourism.” They just take any new homeless person and take them away. I don’t know exactly what they do. But such a thing is also done in Manhattan Beach, CA for the same reason. It is possible. Yet L.A. keeps allowing, feeding, and all but encouraging “the poor homeless.”
If I were queen I would not allow it. I’d investigate every homeless person and divide them into three groups. The down on their luck folk who can work and be productive and want to. I’d encourage charities to help these folks with simple “experience gathering” jobs and wards to sleep in until,they get enough $ to rent a place with another like person.
The second group would be the seriously mentally ill, and I’d have a gigantic village way outside town where they would be kept even against their seriously mentally incompetent will. Yes, mental institutions with lots of free space and freedom allowed determined by the person’s ability to control their symptoms. I’d want healthy activities like a summer camp and I’d also want charities and universities involved (the latter to study what works with the various mental illnesses).
The third group woul,d be the substance addicted. I would compel them to get through a rehab and sober up, then I’d help them figure out which of the above two groups they fit best among. CAN they, do they want to, live as free people? If so, they would be led down that path.
I DO NOT THINK IT IS FREEDOM TO LEAVE FEEBLE MINDED PEOPLE OUT ON THE STREETS. They can’t handle freedom. I think of my dad with Alzheimer’s whom we lost this last year. He lost his ability to talk. He wanted to wander off all the time. If he were alone and lost on the streets of a town, is that FREEDOM??? It would be like leaving your 2 year old on the streets. That isn’t freedom.
Years back, I participated in a large inter tribal dance competition in Ontario, Canada... Tribal police right at the entrance - huge dudes- nobody was getting booze passed them.
Did you go into the Broken Butt Saloon? About 45 years ago I was in there with my father and brother, decided to come down from the mountains for a little R&R. It seems Pop got a little too loud for a guy at the next table, he came over and asked Pop to keep it down. Pop apologized and bought them a round. Don’t know if it was his buddies or his ego made him come back but he put his hand on Pop’s shoulder trying to turn him around. That’s when my brother and I stood up along with POP and his buddies started walking our way. He told Pop “If you wasn’t so old I’d kick your azz”, Pop grabbed him by the collar and said “Don’t let a few gray hairs make a chicken chit out of you”. The owner then came over and asked the other group to leave, was half way expecting them to be waiting outside but I guess they decided better. At the time I was a deputy Sheriff out of Texas and my Brother was a US Marshall out of California.
Forgot about high school or prison hooch.
On a trip to to Glacier and had to pass through the Blackfoot reservation when the big Pow-wow was going on. All the off reservation stores posted signs they were NOT selling alcohol during that week.
https://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/digital/publishing/books/marcus1995/html/html/index.html
We only got half the amount this year and looks like there won't be one next year.
That's what we get for voting a Democrat in for Governor.
If there's an upside to having the AI "drinking gene" - low tolerance for alcohol makes me a cheap date...
Yep, and soon the stories of grandma and gramps eating cat food, gas is soooo high, look at all the casualties in the military,.... on and on..
Btw- I speculated that the plague of homelessness would suddenly appear across the U.S. ... funny how they stayed hidden for these past ~8 years
It can be very, very cold up there in parts of Alaska. Most people in the mainland do not know real bitter cold. I’m talking cold where if you even sweat, you freeze to death because the perspiration inside your clothing freezes. If you urinate, it is so cold that the urine freezes before it hits the ground. Now that’s cold! If you have a sleeping bag, you have to slowly worm your body into it so that you can thaw it out with your body heat - hopefully not freezing to death before you are able to warm the space inside the sleeping bag.
Many Alaska villages are dry. Problem is, most of the native populations get checks from their native corporations and the. Go buck wild, destroying their lives with drugs and alcohol.
I wonder if they ever considered not doing that. It is on them.
deficiency of alcohol dehydrogenase.
Sound like God's way of saying:
GET OUT!
I come from a long line of alcoholics. I’ve had quite a few in the past, not to excess. I did not try to quit, I just realized one day I had no desire for it.
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