Native Americans used alcohol long before Europeans colonized America. The use of alcohol was mainly spiritual and the drinks had only a small concentration of alcohol and required a lot of effort to produce a small amount of alcohol. Native Americans used alcohol to communicate with spiritual forces, and only high-ranking priests had access to it. Distillation, a European process for producing a more potent drink, was unknown to them, but when the Europeans began trading with the Native Americans they introduced them to their own method of producing a more potent drink that they were not accustomed to. The abundance of a more potent drink in such a short time did not allow the indigenous people to develop morally and regulate the use of alcohol, which Europeans had thousands of years of experience and had regulated centuries earlier. Due to history and factors such as socioeconomics, culture, and genetics, modern Native Americans have been influenced even more by alcohol abuse, which has had a destructive impact on their culture. In his book Reserve Blues, Sherman Alexie, a Native American himself, describes the life of Native Americans on the Spokane Reservation in Washington State. In the book, alcoholism is discussed and covered with deliberate details that litter the reservation. So one of the reasons for such a high rate of alcohol abuse among the Spokane Tribe is the socioeconomic situation on the reservation. Poverty, unemployment and low education often encourage alcohol consumption. Simon, one of the characters in Alexie's story, can't afford to fix his truck, so he drives his pickup truck backwards, endangering him and the tribesmen. Although done in a humorous way, Alexie illustrates well the alarming levels of poverty in European paper culture, and this was done with violence. Trauma from violence and cultural loss caused Native Americans to use alcohol as a coping mechanism. Their genes were not on their side, but they actually strengthened their addiction. As a result, escape from alcoholism was inevitable for Native Americans. Works Cited Alexie, Sherman. "Author Sherman Alexie Talks 'Flight'" Interview by Rebecca Roberts. Speeches of the Nation. NPR. Seattle, Washington, April 11, 2007. Radio. Transcript.Alexie, Sherman. Blues Reservation. New York: Grove, 1995. Print.Beauvais, Fred. "Spotlight on special populations. American Indians and alcohol." Alcohol Health & Research World 22.4 (1998): 253-259. CINAHL Plus with full text. Network. July 23, 2014.Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993. Print.