TOWARD A (DYS)FUNCTIONAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF DRINKING - AMBIVALENCE AND THE AMERICAN-INDIAN EXPERIENCE WITH ALCOHOL

This article explores the complex and contradictory experiences of urb an American Indian drinkers. While previous anthropological accounts h ave emphasized the functions served by American Indian drinking, the t estimony of drinkers also documents their awareness of the destructive effects of heavy drinking, particularly the way in which it often int erferers with their ability to meet social obligations. Nevertheless, people often continue to use alcohol, and this means that many are pro foundly ambivalent about their drinking; they see it simultaneously as something that is embedded in certain important relationships, but al so something that is destructive of much that they value. Drawing on i nterviews with 35 self-defined problem drinkers, this article derails the ambiguous nature of the American Indian experience with alcohol, h ighlighting the need for a clinically sophisticated anthropology of al cohol.