The members of a small community of Forest Potawatomi (located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan), subjected to the pressures of acculturation stress, have institutionalized drinking to the point where it constitutes an outlet for certain psychological needs and provides a means of repatterning social functions. Since forms of social control such as warfare and withdrawal from interpersonal relations are no longer feasible, feigned or real intoxication has become the only effective means for reducing aggression. In addition, the drinking situation has become a substitute for defunct kinship and religious institutions which formerly met the dependency needs of the individual. Historically the Potawatomi social system provided a maximum of opportunity for individual action. The most important status differences were structured along sexual lines, but the disappearance of the hunt and military expedition as a basis for validating the superiority of men over women has led to a decline in the prestige of the male. As a consequence men seek to create through drinking a fantasy status of authority which enables them for a short time to reassert an aggressive dominance over women. Social conflict is avoided by attributing this unrealistic form of status dominance to intoxication. Beyond the help it provides in maintaining a modicum of intra-community harmony, alcohol also serves as a symbolic means for predicting behavioral differences between the whites and Indians in the area and helps to limit the development of tension between the 2 groups. Among contemporary North American Indian societies, the Potawatomi of Whitehorse may be considered as representing the extreme and chiefly negative consequences of drinking as a way of life. Nevertheless the adaptive aspects of heavy and frequent consumption of alcohol are recognized by these people as outweighing the social costs.