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Doin' Drugs: Patterns of African American Addiction
Throughout the African American community, individuals and organizations ranging from churches to schools to drug treatment centers are fighting the widespread use of crack cocaine. To put that fight in a larger cultural context, Doin' Drugs explores historical patterns of alcohol and drug use from pre-slavery Africa to present-day urban America.
William Henry James and Stephen Lloyd Johnson document the role of alcohol and other drugs in traditional African cultures, among African slaves before the American Civil War, and in contemporary African American society, which has experienced the epidemics of marijuana, heroin, crack cocaine, and gangs since the beginning of this century. The authors zero in on the interplay of addiction and race to uncover the social and psychological factors that underlie addiction.
James and Johnson also highlight many culturally informed programs, particularly those sponsored by African American churches, that are successfully breaking the patterns of addiction. The authors hope that the information in this book will be used to train a new generation of counselors, ministers, social workers, nurses, and physicians to be better prepared to face the epidemic of drug addiction in African American communities.
William Henry James and Stephen Lloyd Johnson document the role of alcohol and other drugs in traditional African cultures, among African slaves before the American Civil War, and in contemporary African American society, which has experienced the epidemics of marijuana, heroin, crack cocaine, and gangs since the beginning of this century. The authors zero in on the interplay of addiction and race to uncover the social and psychological factors that underlie addiction.
James and Johnson also highlight many culturally informed programs, particularly those sponsored by African American churches, that are successfully breaking the patterns of addiction. The authors hope that the information in this book will be used to train a new generation of counselors, ministers, social workers, nurses, and physicians to be better prepared to face the epidemic of drug addiction in African American communities.
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First published November 30, 1995
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September 9, 2022
This text has a few anachronisms (weed is a "gateway" drug) but generally is excellent at presenting 1st hand experience, academic research, historical analysis, and analysis from 1st hand experts on how to address the unique experiences of Black/African people around addiction.
It links African American addiction patterns to not just slavery, but indigenous African drug consumption patterns link racial power and trauma to addiction and recognize dominant modes of addiction care can serve to further this trauma without specific attention to the history of race and trauma (ie. powerlessness might not work as a methodology of recovery for people traditionally subject to political disempowerment). Far from being a 12-step, abstinence-only and pro-Christianity text, as Black addiction practices have been accused of being by some mainstream harm reductionists, the text is very explicitly sensitive to the reality of relapse and the use and limits of the Black church and gives practical, concrete steps on how to better provide addiction care given the unique Black experience.
Importantly, this text is EXPLICIT in linking the issue of addiction to the issue of community gun violence driven by the drug trade. This is the most GLARING hole in the most white analyses of the Black community's relationship to addiction; it was never a fear of intoxication in general, it was a fear of intoxicated people killing thousands of people in the community, a community most white drug users or public health addiction specialists have never lived in. To the extent the Black middle class was "conservative" around drugs, it was because of violence, not the actual drugs. Rather than chastizing the Black middle class for "respectability politics", as many academic texts do, the book gives specific guidance in addressing gang violence and addressing some of the common root causes of violence and addiction in the Black community, racialized self-hatred, poverty, and trauma.
There seems to be a consistent reality that Black people who have works inspired by grassroots work that deliver unique insights on our conditions are systematically ignored, repressed, or denigrated.
I've been studying addiction and harm reduction for the past 4 years with the explicit intention of finding histories, strategies, and insights into the unique experience of Black/African addiction, and took me FOUR years to find this book. This is not an accident. If texts like this are NOT repressed, then things like 12-step, simplistic and apolitical applications of methadone or other public health-centric measures could only work with Black leadership on methodology, research practices, and curriculum. The deletion of texts this these are an essential part of the academic warfare against attempts to resist the hegemony of eurocentric thought.
It's frankly disgusting that this text has been COMPLETLY ignored/suppressed by mainstream academic addiction researchers..but it is, unfortunately, not surprising.
It links African American addiction patterns to not just slavery, but indigenous African drug consumption patterns link racial power and trauma to addiction and recognize dominant modes of addiction care can serve to further this trauma without specific attention to the history of race and trauma (ie. powerlessness might not work as a methodology of recovery for people traditionally subject to political disempowerment). Far from being a 12-step, abstinence-only and pro-Christianity text, as Black addiction practices have been accused of being by some mainstream harm reductionists, the text is very explicitly sensitive to the reality of relapse and the use and limits of the Black church and gives practical, concrete steps on how to better provide addiction care given the unique Black experience.
Importantly, this text is EXPLICIT in linking the issue of addiction to the issue of community gun violence driven by the drug trade. This is the most GLARING hole in the most white analyses of the Black community's relationship to addiction; it was never a fear of intoxication in general, it was a fear of intoxicated people killing thousands of people in the community, a community most white drug users or public health addiction specialists have never lived in. To the extent the Black middle class was "conservative" around drugs, it was because of violence, not the actual drugs. Rather than chastizing the Black middle class for "respectability politics", as many academic texts do, the book gives specific guidance in addressing gang violence and addressing some of the common root causes of violence and addiction in the Black community, racialized self-hatred, poverty, and trauma.
There seems to be a consistent reality that Black people who have works inspired by grassroots work that deliver unique insights on our conditions are systematically ignored, repressed, or denigrated.
I've been studying addiction and harm reduction for the past 4 years with the explicit intention of finding histories, strategies, and insights into the unique experience of Black/African addiction, and took me FOUR years to find this book. This is not an accident. If texts like this are NOT repressed, then things like 12-step, simplistic and apolitical applications of methadone or other public health-centric measures could only work with Black leadership on methodology, research practices, and curriculum. The deletion of texts this these are an essential part of the academic warfare against attempts to resist the hegemony of eurocentric thought.
It's frankly disgusting that this text has been COMPLETLY ignored/suppressed by mainstream academic addiction researchers..but it is, unfortunately, not surprising.
Displaying 1 of 1 review