Culture and the restoration of self among former American Indian drinkers

This paper explores the social and cultural context of remission from alcohol problems in an urban American Indian community. Using the discourse of interviews conducted with 48 self-defined problem drinkers, 13 of whom had abstained from alcohol for at least a year prior to the interview, it explores the ways in which alcohol problems have been understood and dealt with by these Indian men and women. Drawing on the ethnographic literature on AA and culturally specific healing practices, the analysis centers on how new understandings of the self are articulated in sobriety and the ways in which this discourse draws on the themes of cultural restoration that are widely articulated in Indian communities. The paper closes with a consideration of how this inquiry with a community sample forces us to broaden models of self transformation that are derived from work in more circumscribed institutional contexts and, in turn, how the testimony of these men and women forces us to take quite seriously the idea that cultural restoration can be crucially involved as Indian people and communities grapple with problems with alcohol.