Note: This post is for white sober living home operators who are interested in educating themselves about how to address systemic racism in the sober living home community. The author of this post is white. Recommendations in this post have been gathered from people of color. It is vital that white people center the voices of people of color in the discussion of systemic racism and acknowledge that, as white people, we can never be experts in the experiences of people of color. For these reasons, these recommendations can only hope to be general and derivative. Do not use these recommendations as a substitute for listening to the voices of people of color in your local recovery community.
As sober living home operators, we are always trying to do the right thing.
For some of us, the murder of George Floyd was a wake up call. For others, it was just another atrocity in a sea of racially motivated executions.
Whether the ideas of racial justice and white privilege are new to you or not, if you are reading this post, then you probably have a feeling that you could be doing more to advance racial equity in the sober living community.
You’re right.
You May Have Noticed That the Sober Living Community is Really White
Sober living home operators are mostly white. Addiction treatment centers are overwhelmingly owned and operated by white people. Nearly all recovery celebrities are white. AA and NA were founded by white men and continue to be organized by mostly white people.
Even as addiction ravages communities of color, the patients who are actually receiving treatment—and therefore living in sober living homes—are disproportionately white.
Clearly, maintaining a non-discrimination policy is the bare legal minimum of running a non-racist sober living home. This post will assume your sober living home is already not breaking anti-discrimination laws and that you’ve come to the conclusion that more work is needed to push your organization from one that is passively non-racist to one that is actively anti-racist.
Here’s 4 steps you can take now to advance anti-racism in your organization.
Educate Yourself and Your Sober Living Home Staff About How Racism Affects Sobriety
Though it’s not often understood this way in medical texts, systemic racism is a leading cause of addiction. People of color experience a unique type of chronic stress as a result of the social, economic, and historical effects of racism. This stress is cumulative and can often be destructive to both mental and physical health.
Systemic racism also plays a big role in recovery. While many people with SUD will become involved in the justice system at some point, statistics show us that people of color will be arrested more times, face harsher punishments, and experience higher rates of recidivism than their white peers. This has a direct effect on a person’s ability to cultivate the stability needed to pursue sobriety.
While the stigma associated with SUD is real for all races, a history of SUD is even more damning for people of color. Racism means it is more difficult and risky for people of color to “spin” the story of their recovery into a brave redemption story. Bias against people of color—conscious or unconscious—means that people of color have more to lose in disclosing their recovery status to neighbors, colleagues, and employers.
These are just a few of the ways addiction and recovery tend to be different for people of color. Educate yourself about what this means for how your residents of color might experience addiction and recovery.
Listen to Sober Living Home Residents of Color
When your residents of color speak, listen. Breathe. Resist the urge to defend or explain. Don’t burden your residents of color with generally educating others about systemic racism or white privilege. It is exhausting and unnecessary, as many people of color have written about these subjects in the past. If you have questions of that nature, Google is your friend. But if residents of color are volunteering information or making suggestions about what your facility can do differently, listen carefully.
Prioritize Sober Living Home Staff Diversity, Especially in Positions of Power
Who is running your organization? If you see only white faces in positions of power at your sober living home, it’s probably time to change that. Make sure your leadership reflects the population you wish to serve.
Support Black-Owned Businesses With Your Sober Living Home
Access to capital is partially determined by race in this country. Money and opportunity is often inherited. In the United States, African Americans were enslaved five or six generations ago. They did not own capital, they were capital. It’s easy to see, then, why African Americans rarely inherited capital in the past. Today, home ownership is still disproportionately white.
One way your sober living home can support the fight for racial equity is to shop local BIPOC-owned businesses for your supplies and services. This is a small way to support the financial wellbeing of your local communities of color.
We’re Here to Help
At Sober Living App, we are committed to helping your sober living home be the best it can be. Our all-in-one cloud-based software solution is designed especially for making the tough job of sober living home management a whole lot easier. From admissions, to property management, to scheduling and more, we make sober living simple. Claim your free trial today.