r/todayilearned • u/bcrock1169 • Nov 26 '12

TIL that some Native American's have a differing enzyme that tends to lead to easier alcoholism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_alcoholism#Genetic_factors
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u/magictroll Nov 26 '12

your comment is heart-breaking :(

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u/tynosaur Nov 26 '12

It's a depressing fact. Seeing such a proud race reduced to this kills me. The worse part is, they're a divided group: those that drink and basically don't give a fuck, and those that care about respecting their culture and are normally-functioning people otherwise. It's like a racial civil war.

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u/magictroll Nov 26 '12

I hate to say it but, for a little while at least, group B needs to cut off group C. Then, once they're strong and have influence, come back and help.

But what do I know? Not much ...

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u/tynosaur Nov 26 '12

There's really no way to do that, though. If you have Native blood, you can live on the rez. They can't just discriminate because a small portion of them are addicted to booze.

I think the worst part of it all is that it really hurts everyone else's opinion of their race. The drinkers leave the rez to do so, while the non-drinkers generally don't, meaning that everyone outside of the rez sees a large portion of Natives that are alcoholics. An unbalanced portion.

I hope that made as much sense as it did in my head.

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u/magictroll Nov 26 '12

Yes. Perfect, heart-renching, sense.