Alcohol Use Disorder and Generational Trauma in the Native American Population

The complexities and whitewashed history

Symptoms of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)

(AUD) is diagnosed when a person regularly drinks alcohol excessively with the inability to stop or control alcohol use. The person is unable to stop drinking alcohol even when it is causing them the inability to function and creates or exacerbates the difficulty in interpersonal relationships. The alcohol use causes interpersonal, occupational, or health consequences. The alcohol use is a pattern of alcohol use that causes damage to the person’s physical or mental health. Additional symptoms include increased intolerance, withdrawal symptoms (occurring four to twelve hours after stopping or reducing alcohol intake), and a loss of control, usually due to cravings (according to the DSM-5, a craving is a strong desire to drink that is so consuming it is difficult to think of anything else) (Schuckit, 2009).

Most people diagnosed with AUD have shown these symptoms in their teens to twenties. In addition, the age of a person’s first drink has been associated with being diagnosed with AUD (Davis et al., 2020), especially when a person’s first drink is under the age of fifteen (Falk et al.)