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What a horrible situation.
Alcoholism has affected my family relatively little, thank goodness. I had an aunt by marriage who became an alcoholic and died from it, but no one else has gone down that wretched path as far as I know. She was living in a community that has become notorious for heavy drinking and drug use over the past few decades. I hadn't heard anything about her for years, and then out of the blue, my mother told me she had died of cirrhosis.
I think the hardest hit communities are the more isolated reservations--the ones with the highest poverty rates, unemployment (30% in the Navajo Nation?), lack of good education, economy, etc.
There was a documentary on recently about conditions and alcoholism in Pine Ridge...incredibly sad.
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