Native American community and substance abuse

Native American community and substance abuse

One of the most common problems facing the Native American community is substance abuse. Substance abuse is not only a problem among adults but also among Native American youths who have substantially high rates of cigarette, marijuana, and alcohol abuse, among other drugs. With addiction and substance abuse disorders being a common phenomenon in this population, they have faced devastating effects on communities, business, and residents from different parts of the country. While these factors are effects of substance abuse, they further exacerbate the substance abuse problem. The rise in substance abuse among this population has also seen an increase in crimes. Regardless of the efforts to increase access to healthcare to victims of substance abuse, the care is not always effective due to cultural barriers. Currently this population is in dire need for culturally sensitive resources, family centered substance abuse counselling that would regain their glory for the future.

Cultural Awareness

Healthcare professionals have to be aware of the few unique characteristics that identify Native Americans. First, it is important to understand who a Native American are. The Native American population includes all individuals who identify themselves as the Aleuts, Eskimo or American Natives on the race question of census. In most cases, the Native American communities reside in associations, communities, and villages. groups, clans, bands and tribes. Close knit is a word commonly used to define the Native American family today. Usually, a close-knit family is one that is balanced in physical, emotional, spiritual and social domains of their lives. Such close-knit families also possess the required skills to adjust their lives to offset any imbalance in the aspects mentioned above. A healthy family allows members to access and use community agencies and the extended family as sources of support.

More so, Native American families have a grounding force, described as an individual that is respected by the entire family. Such an individual might be an elder such as a grandfather or grandmother and is responsible for influencing and instilling a sense of family as well as acts as a source of reference for family values. A typical Native American family further requires the presence of adults within the home to ensure proper parenting as well as keep the family together. The presence of an adult similarly affects the social atmosphere of children. Individuals significantly benefit from the presence of adults due to the family stability that comes with adults in a family as well as their role in guiding children as role models. More so, native Americas value the presence of male adult in the family who often acts as the father figure for male children. Such a father figure might be an uncle stepfather or father.

Furthermore, couples have to make their commitment to each other formal as it is considered one of the ways of enhancing family stability. With these family characteristics, the more cultural beliefs are passed on from one generation to another, the more likely a family stays closely knit. More so, an extended family system acts as a protective buffer for maintaining and keeping families together as members of extended family provide the needed material, spiritual, emotional and social support to one another. As opposed to the average American family, Native Americans tend to identify themselves with strong spiritual believes and ties that impact the pride of individuals in their families. For instance such religious activities as smudging, Sweats and Sundance improve family cohesiveness and have been used to heal such conditions that involve addictions (Martin & Yurkovich, 2013). About 22 percent of Native Americans live on tribal lands or reservations where family and societal beliefs and values are prominent. Overall, family relationships and cultural and religious beliefs and values play an important role in shaping behaviors and act as support factors for healing among Native Americans.

Another important aspect about Native Americans is that poverty is prevalence among families, which limits their opportunities to good healthcare, education and employment. According to Krogstad (2014), about 26 percent of entire Native American population lives in poverty. They also have a lower level of academic achievement than the average American. For instance, for those above 25 years, over 14 percent reached the high school level. However, this percentage could be higher in some parts of the country, such as 19 percent in Standing Rock. Only 29 percent of Native American population of those above 25 years have attained a bachelor’s degree or higher. Similarly, this could also be lower or higher in some parts of the country such as Sanding Rock where only 15 percent have bachelor’s degree or higher. More so, the Native American community experiences the highest number of high school dropouts of 11 percent for youths between 16 an d 24 years (Krogstad, 2014). From this statistic, poverty and lower educational achievements are a common aspect among Native Americans.

With low academic achievement, unemployment is also a common phenomenon that further exacerbates the level of poverty. With the low level of education among Native Americans, it is apparent that they have limited knowledge on common healthcare topics including substance abuse and its effects. Regardless of the efforts by tribes to keep their languages and culture alive, a survey between 2011 and 2015 showed that about 53 percent of Native Americans now speak English (Fish, 2017). This is an important area in healthcare as practitioners and counsellors have to be aware that about half of their Native American clients might not speak English and that even for those who might speak it; they might not have the same proficiency as the average American.

Counselling Approach

Based on the unique characteristics of Native Americans, it is important that counselling interventions are culturally sensitive and family centered. The intervention must also ensure that it takes into consideration such aspects as poverty, low educational achievement and unemployment. Most family centred interventions are effective in the treatment of substance abuse. However, the Aboriginal Offender Substance Abuse Program is often used for substance abuse counselling among native Natives (Rowan et al., 2014). This intervention incorporates a holistic model, which integrates contemporary practices with traditional healing in the treatment of addictions. With traditional holistic healing approach, this intervention ensures the interconnectedness of the emotional, mental, spiritual and physical aspects of an individual’s wellbeing. The mutuality of this relationship implies that an individual’s sense of social or personal responsibility and identity are inseparable and that they exist collectively within the society (Rowan et al., 2014).

This approach to substance abuse treatment is important when dealing with Native Americans considering that it integrates their unique spiritual beliefs into the treatment. More so, with their strong family ties, the treatment emphasizes the importance of sobriety as part of one’s responsibility to their families or communities. However, there also exist differences in cultural beliefs among Native natives although this problem might be mitigated by comparing common features or objectives of an intervention. For instance, instead of emphasizing on differences such as shaking tent versus sweat lodges, the intervention should emphasize common functions of treatment, such as enhancing cultural identity and accessing traditional spirituality, which should be integrated into treatment as events with a substantially complete dynamic system (Hawed, Shell, & Riley, 2009). This approach is effective in treatment of addiction due to the integration of spirituality into the treatment exercise.

Another common cultural sensitive intervention is the Red Road (Wellbriety). This treatment approach blends the cultural practices and beliefs of Native Americans with Alcoholics Synonymous. The intervention is considered a holistic approach to emotional, spiritual, physical and mental wellness based on the healing traditions and beliefs of Native Americans with prayer as the basis of every healing exercise (Coy his & Simon Elli, 2008). This treatment approach also emphasizes historical trauma as the underlying cause of substance abuse and recommends spiritual recovery as an effective intervention that would result to sobriety. A significant strength of this approach is that it identifies the unique feature of historical traumas associated with the colonialism and war periods that devastated the lives of Native Americans. More so, it acknowledges the important role played by religion among native communities use it as the basis for addiction healing.

Other interventions have picked up a similar approach to substance abuse treating such as the Friendship House used in Francisco. This approach intertwines more contemporary trauma approaches with retraditionalization program for healing their wounds to facilitate sobriety (Edwards, 2003). The adaption of Alcoholics Anonymous into Wellbriety is one of the most visible interventions used today even though therapeutic community and motivational interviewing are common treatment interventions and substantially enhance sobriety (French, 2004; Venner, Feldstein, & Tafoya, 2007). All of these interventions are promising areas that would address the substance abuse and alcohol problem among Native American communities. They utilize culture and spirituality, which form major aspects of their lives. Apart from the cultural and spiritual aspects that should be considered as protective buffers in substance abuse counselling, healthcare professionals should similarly consider personal differences that might provide significant insight on strengths towards treatment success.

Cognitive behavioral therapy would be a useful intervention that considers the strengths of victims of substance abuse in building support towards sobriety. This intervention is based on the premise that substance abuse, that is, a maladaptive behavior is only reached through learning processes. Since substance abuse is learned, it can be unlearned. Individuals in counselling therefore with the help of their counsellor identify and rectify their problematic behavior through different skills that would help them stop substance abuse. This approach can further help address other co-occurring problems. It is important for the counselor to note that most naïve Americans might not have the basic educational background to understand the wide range of substance abuse effects. As a result, exploring the negative and positive effects of continued substance abuse is a good starting point. More so, self-monitoring strategies to identify situations that increase the risk of substance abuse offer insight to narrow down the focus of counselling intervention. After identification of the factors that increase substance abuse cravings, the counselor together with the client then develop strategies to help the client cope with their cravings and avoid high-risk situations. A major strength of this approach is that it acknowledges individual strengths such as the support of the family in helping the client quit substance abuse. Additionally, it takes into account the educational level of a client and bridges the knowledge gap on, say, substance abuse.

Religious and Spiritual Counselling

Religion and spirituality plays a huge role in the wellbeing of Native Americans. Under the Waken Tanka, a Native Americans desire to appease the spirits, which happens in numerous ways. There are significant perceived similarities between the Christian concept of god and the Great Spirit, which makes it somehow easy to apply the same concept in counseling, and the role religion plays in the counselling exercise. Most importantly are the concepts of emotional, spiritual, mental and physical aspects that are often treated as one in Native American religion. Considering the effects of substance abuse, drugs harm the physical, emotional and mental aspects of an individual. More so, god, as well as the Great Spirit takes significant interests in the lives of individuals and might intervene to help individuals preserve their emotional, mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing. However, this is not possible if individuals engage in activities that harm any of these aspects that make humans whole. As a result, elimination of substance abuse allows an individual to continue to enjoy their relationship with God. As a result, humans are expected to be holly, and holiness entails leading a drug free life.

For those who are Christianity, religion still provides an important guide to substance abuse counselling. The bible condemns any intentional harm to the human body. Although it does not directly address addiction, numerous scriptures could be interpreted in a way that implies addiction and substance abuse to be sin. Most importantly, substance abuse is associated with body cravings. The first book of Corinthians warns individuals against giving in to temptations that overpower us and that god gives humans resources to overcome such temptations (1 Corinthians 10:13). Integration of these spiritual and religious elements would help maximize counselling outcomes.

Conclusion

In brief, Native Americans face numerous challenges associated with substance abuse and are in desperate need of culturally sensitive counselling to address the menace. Native Americans continue to be among the most marginalized groups in the country exhibiting low educational achievements, high poverty rates and high unemployment cases. Majority of them either have resented to substance abuse as a way of life or cope up with life. However, their unique cultural beliefs, values and language make it difficult to access healthcare services around the country. As a result, using culturally sensitive interventions would significantly address the substance abuse problem. Culturally sensitive interventions take into account cultural beliefs, language and the role of family in the journey towards sobriety. On the other hand, such interventions as cognitive behavioral therapy consider personal strengths and differences in unlearning maladaptive behaviors. Overall, these approaches are useful culturally sensitive as well as person-centered approaches to substance abuse counselling.

Abstract

Native Americans are significantly affected by substance abuse. However, they have limited access to healthcare services due to cultural and socioeconomic barriers. They exhibit low educational achievements, high unemployment rates and high poverty rates. With these factors, they have trouble accessing quality mental healthcare including substance abuse counselling. As a result, developing culturally sensitive interventions such as the Aboriginal Offender Substance Abuse Program, the Friendship House in Francisco and the Wellbriety interventions all of which are designed for Native Americans are a great relief in overcoming cultural barriers. These inventions take into account the important role of cultural and spiritual beliefs and use them as a foundation for counselling towards sobriety. Other western interventions such cognitive behavioral therapy takes into account personal strengths to unlearn substance abuse among African natives. While these interventions might be used in isolation, making use of their strengths further advances counselling outcomes. Integration of religion and spirituality ensures effectiveness of these interventions. Overall, they are culturally sensitive and person-centred, which ensures that every interaction is unique and personalized to needs of an individual and group.