Adjustment difficulties lead to alcoholism:
Drinking a lot of alcohol means an accompanying increase in the risk of addiction. Recently Chen Tai-an of National Taiwan University's College of Medicine took a random clinical survey of 993 aboriginals over the age of 15, including 251 Ami, 242 Atayal, 253 Puyuma and 247 Bunun. He discovered that excessive drinkers and alcoholics accounted for 38.2% of the Ami, 45.8% of the Atayal, 42.8% of the Puyuma, and more than one half of the Bunun.
Looking at the drinking problems of the aboriginal peoples and ethnic minorities of the world, most anthropologists put them down to pressure, seeing this as a symptom of the inability to adjust to rapid cultural changes. In a situation of losing traditional culture and having no way to find one's place, it often seems best to use alcohol as an escape. But as for the real situation, there has been no decisive conclusion even today.
Atayal medic Dr. Arthur Chi-wen Kung of Hsiulin Rural Township's clinic in Hualien County, says that alcohol abuse is probably the result of many factors and is the cause of many things too.
He cites alcohol abuse and divorce as being very likely examples of mutual causes and effects. Somebody might work very hard every day and neglect to look after his family. This might lead his wife to leave him, giving him such a blow that he becomes depressed and finally sinks into alcoholic oblivion.
But it could also be that, because this person drinks all day, he beats and scolds his wife and children when he is drunk, loses his job, and leaves his wife with no alternative but divorce.
So when you see alcohol abuse and certain other social problems appearing together, unless you make a deep investigation to understand exactly what is going on, it can be very difficult to judge the relationships between causes and effects.
Nevertheless, if we put aside for a moment the problem of what causes alcohol abuse, it does seem to be a perfectly normal thing when, in a mountain village which lacks rest and recreational activities, the residents who have labored hard all day get together in the evening to have a drink and relax. Moreover, many residents of mountain villages are not mistaken in thinking that drinking can cement ties between friends and family members.
So why then is the rate of excessive drinking so high? To explain this in the most simple terms; "it is bad when you do not know when to stop!" In fact, if you can just limit yourself sufficiently, then drinking need not become abuse.
Looking at many surveys and statistics, excessive drinking among the residents of the mountain areas is truly a serious problem. The situation of these excessive drinkers and alcoholics is usually that they are repetitive drinkers who cannot limit themselves. When they are drunk they behave badly, and they produce abnormal psychological or physiological phenomena. More than half of such people give rise to dysfunction at work, in the family or in marriage. The proportion of accidental injuries suffered due to alcohol abuse is also as high as 50 percent.
Can there be some kind of automatic improvement in this situation? Dr. Hsu Mu-chu of Academia Sinica's Institute of Ethnology explains that, because it is the difficulties of adjustment in the process of acculturation which lead to the problem of alcohol abuse, it could be that following integration into the larger society there will be a gradual improvement in the situation.
Take the Ami people as an example. Originally the situation of alcohol abuse among the Ami was very serious, but following the deepening of their degree of acculturation, today the situation is already much better.
The use of children to buy drinks for their parents could influence later attitudes when it comes to dealing with the problems of alcohol.