Separating fact from fiction on natives and alcohol

The forecast low in Gallup is 17 degrees, cold even for February, but the man’s jacket is unzipped when the headlights find him slumped against a darkened storefront, a Broncos cap pulled over his eyes.  “I’m going to get you someplace warm,” Public Safety Officer Gabriel Lee Jr. says as he helps the man into the back of the police van.  In a downtown hospital emergency room, where most clinicians attend to urgent injuries or illness rather than their underlying causes, licensed professional clinical counselor Sheryl Livingston asks a Navajo patient what she enjoys most about alcohol. The patient laughs in surprise, then begins to open up.