Uncategorized
October 31, 2024
*trigger warning — contains stories of addiction, suicidal thoughts and mentions of childhood trauma*
When are we going to start talking about the A word?
The thing that is killing our community, but shame stigma and lack of services stop us from pushing for change. The thing that allows us to walk past people who look like us, whose stories we don’t know but we pass judgement or even worse they become invisible to us all together.
We often talk about global majority folks that are most impacted but how often do we stop and talk about our communities that have become invisible to us, that are battling everyday with the disease of addiction and their families?
We see them for their addiction today but rarely do we stop and ask why? As Gabor Mate says, “Don’t ask why the addiction, ask why the pain”. There is a whole community of folks out there that are silently struggling and dying from the disease of addiction and families whose whole lives have been turned upside down. The trauma and suffering that is inflicted on a whole section of our community.
How do I know this? Because there’s something a lot of people don’t know about me, I am a proud wife of an addict in recovery. I don’t tell many people this because although I am so proud of him every single day, my community has conditioned me to feel shame and stigma. But today I have decided that that is a label we are both no longer going to wear.
Addiction is a global issue that affects people from all walks of life we know this, however I am going to speak about it in this blog from the perspective of the South Asian community in the UK, and the unique challenges that it poses and many of these will also be the same for our Black siblings too.
It is important for us to understand the impact of cultural norms within the South Asian community, how this plays out when it comes to addiction. This then creates barriers to seeking support and how then that plays out when those that do access it are failed.
The prevalence of addiction in the South Asian community is growing rapidly through substance abuse, from drugs, prescription medication and alcohol. It affects individuals of all ages, genders, and socio-economic groups. However, where this is noticed in the white community more prevalently it often goes unnoticed in the South Asian community, or should I say unaddressed, because of the levels of pressure to maintain a respectable image of family honour and to not be seen to be shaming the family. This is a real barrier to either the individual seeking help or a family member seeking help on their behalf or support for themselves.
The South Asian community places a strong emphasis on maintaining a collective reputation, and this means that this mindset stops conversations around addiction, mental health and trauma and it means that those in our community are left suffering in silence rather than being able to seek help. This is where things need to change, we need to see re-education happening in every space where we are around addiction/mental health and all the things that impact the most vulnerable in our community. I have noticed the same themes around neurodivergence, and we also know there are links between neurodivergence and addiction so if we are not changing the narrative through collective re-education then it’s impacting so many people in our community and the cost of this is lives.
Project Ahryzen, Sheffield Hallam University 2019, ‘Experiences of mainstream services: a lack of diversity and cultural knowledge among staff in mainstream services for drug and alcohol recovery was reported as preventing them from adequately understanding and meeting the needs of *BAME people with addiction. The belief systems of *BAME communities are rarely known or understood by mainstream service providers, and therefore they are ill equipped to provide the necessary support’. There are so many reports that have said this repeatedly yet nothing changes. We keep being told the same information, yet the outcome is the same, no change in mainstream services.
How often do we look at the ACEs of those in our community (Adverse Childhood Experiences)? Childhood trauma is at the root of many social and personal issues in our society. Studies from the US, UK and elsewhere show clearly that ACEs can significantly raise the likelihood of over 80 negative life outcomes, including suicide attempts, alcoholism, drug addiction, criminality, mental ill health, heart disease, liver disease, obesity and many more.
The 10 ACEs measured since the 1990’s are:
Certain groups are at higher risk for ACE exposure including those who are poor, reside in unsafe neighbourhoods and lack access to health care. Concentrated disadvantage exists among Black and South Asian communities in the UK, who are exposed at a higher rate to traumatic events than their white peers. Racial trauma, or race based stress, has been defined as “…the events of danger related to real or perceived experience of racial discrimination”. These include threats or actual events that can elicit shame as well as witnessing harm to others. As with all forms of oppression, such experiences often arise within an intersectional context, where different group memberships — including gender, sexual orientation, and social class — can intersect in ways that amplify the adverse impact of discrimination. Racial trauma is characterised as involving ongoing exposure over time to experiences of injury both direct and vicarious and is typically interpersonal in nature. In this way, it arguably shares some features with complex trauma.
I can sit here and tell you all day about the impacts and give you facts and figures, but these are real people and real lives, so instead I am going to share three stories with you of three incredible and brave men who I have the pleasure of knowing. It’s also important to remember that addiction also impacts South Asian people of all genders, ability, sexual orientations, socio economic group and faith, one day I hope to be in a space where we as a community are able as a collective to create spaces safe enough for anyone to share their story.
Jit Chauhan, 48, was an alcoholic and has been sober for 7 years, and I am honoured not only to know Jit but also to be able to share his story.
“Some days I’d sleep a knife next to my pillow, just wanting to end it all. Other days I’d wake up on a park bench,” he said.
Jit started drinking when he was 15 with his family but things really got bad between the ages of 31 and 41. It was a 10-year period of heavy drinking. It got to a point where he was weary of going to social events because he knows what that meant… alcohol, and that would lead to a spiral. It meant that he would disappear from his family and friends for whole weeks at a time and those times were spent just drinking and doing drugs on his own.
It got to a point where he was dependant on alcohol. Any minor issue, even something as small as stubbing his toe, he would turn to drink it was almost like he was looking for a reason. His rock bottom was a four-week episode of drinking and doing drugs. He recalls drinking at least a litre bottle of whiskey in a day and that’s not including other alcoholic drinks he was consuming like beer.
“Mentally I didn’t have control over anything. Alcohol makes you feel good in the moment, but ultimately it was affecting my health and my livelihood.”
If Jit’s family had not intervened, he believes he would be dead now. Jit got support from a service in Leicester and through AA. He practiced the 12-step program and still works on himself through meditation, reading and understanding his mind to then apply tools he has learnt, to deal with issues which could potentially lead him to substances again.
Despite the stigma that exists in the South Asian community Jit wanted to get his story out in the public domain because he’s been at the bottom of the barrel but he’s been able to turn his life around through his company 7 events, and he knew that if people could see such a transformation, they would see it’s possible for them, just like with everything having representation and role models is important.
The short film Jit made is about his journey as someone from the South Asian community dealing with addiction, and the impact it has had on people around him. It talks about his struggles coming from that community and the way the community view addiction — the stigmas and taboos it creates around those in active addiction. The film includes interviews with those around him, the impact his drinking had on them, and a conversation with a woman from the South Asian community who is also in recovery.
When I asked Jit what inspired him to do the film, he said it was because he had enough of seeing people struggle without support, the lack of conversations about alcohol harm and the hurt families feel. He didn’t want anyone to go through what he went through. I felt that and respected that deeply as someone who is a family member of someone in recovery.
Jit knows his story is not exclusive to the South Asian community. This is a story that people of the Global Majority community can relate to in a big way because of the taboos that they face surrounding certain subjects such as mental health and addiction.
“For me I wanted to do something positive for us, which could potentially help someone. If I can help even one person through my story, then I’ve done my job.”
I think we can all agree that Jit and his story is a story of real courage and inspiration, and I am really grateful to Jit for allowing me to share it and for everything he is doing.
This story is an incredible honour for me to share and it’s the first time it’s being shared publicly!
“I was born with a predisposition to addiction, and I didn’t even know, my birth parents were addicts. Some day’s the trauma was just too intense, I wondered if it would ever stop”.
Rich was born into an environment of addiction, trauma, abuse, and neglect, as a biracial child whose mother was a victim of domestic abuse. By the age of 4 he was in and out of the care system and women’s refuges, until his mother tragically lost her life at 22 when he was 4 years old. At 4 years old he was adopted into a white family where he suffered abuse and more trauma for his childhood into his teenage years.
Living life as a transracial adoptee Rich never felt like he belonged, he felt like he was simply existing. No one had ever helped him to work though these feelings of lost identity and he had his voice taken from him. Every system he had encountered had failed him, I say failed him but actually they were working exactly how they were designed to work, and no matter what he did it was never enough to fill that space that was filled with trauma. No matter how many county championship athletic races he won, no matter how many swimming trophies he won, no matter how well he did at school because for even the smallest mistakes the consequences were extreme for a young biracial Black & South Asian boy living in a white household.
I know now through my extensive learning that addictive tendencies arise in the parts of our brains governing some of our most basic and life-sustaining needs and functions: incentive and motivation, physical and emotional pain relief, the regulation of stress, and the capacity to feel and receive love. These brain circuits develop, or don’t develop, largely under the influence of the nurturing environment in early life, and that therefore addiction represents a failure of these crucial systems to mature in the way nature intended.
Rich started drinking in his teens, and like many others who are in recovery he didn’t even know it was an issue. All he knew was that it was an escape from feeling the intense feelings of sadness, loneliness, trauma, and it made him more confident. It wasn’t until about 6 years ago that it really came to light. He found himself having one drink or two and he soon found that he didn’t have an off switch.
Upon reflection and looking at Rich’s traumatic journey it was no surprise that he ended up in the prison system. When we look at that list of ACE’s Rich had experienced all 10 before the age of 8, and there wasn’t one adult in his life that had provided him with safety so was it any surprise that his whole life was spent in survival mode?
“I can only describe it as me having a battle with a powerful monster in my own head that I was powerless over no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I knew it was hurting the one person I loved more than anything else in the world, I think subconsciously I thought I didn’t deserve this love and life that was given to me”.
Rich would disappear and drink and every time I would go out and find him and bring him home. I would watch him sleep all night to make sure nothing happened to him that night. Some days I wouldn’t sleep for 2 or 3 days at a time, but I would have to continue working because I couldn’t tell anyone what was happening. There were times where I really thought I would end up finding him in a hospital and they would give me the news I dreaded. I started to panic every time he left the house. Not only could I not tell anyone at work, but I couldn’t tell my community either because the shame that sat with me internally was huge and even if I did tell them no one would truly understand the complexity of it. I was lucky to have a couple of great friends who supported both of us.
“If it wasn’t for my wife, I truly believe I would be dead today. She is the one who took me to my first NA meeting. In fact, she came to every single meeting for a year with me because I wasn’t ready, but she made sure I went and built a connection with NA and got a sponsor. She didn’t tell me what she was doing but now I look back she saved my life. Because one year later when I relapsed, I had a bunch of people who welcomed me back in the NA rooms and I was ready to do it on my own, although she knew I wasn’t ready she was setting me up with a support system”.
Today as we tell this story life is so different, I am so proud of how far Rich has come and we contemplated if we were even brave enough to tell this story, but it’s important to be the representation and for people to see that recovery is really hard for the person in recovery and those who love them. Rich will often walk into NA rooms and be the only person who looks like him, but he has to because he can’t go back to a life of active addiction and more importantly, he doesn’t want to, and he knows he has to ensure that his story inspires others to take the tough steps he did. Today he runs a NA meeting for other addicts and supports them in their recovery. He is working to support others who have been on the same journey and is working to improve the same systems that didn’t support him. He is also working as a mentor for people coming out of prison to support them back into society as a mentor. Rich is using his experience and education to set up an Outreach programme for Global Majority young people to support them upon release from prison and bridge the gaps where systems have not supported them around mental health, life skills, addiction, purpose, mentorship, and employment. He has also just started publishing a blog through letters to his biological mum sharing his story of adoption, addiction, and trauma in hope that it will support others and show them that there is a road to healing and that although his journey has been tough there is light at the end of the tunnel and there is support out there.
“All my pain, all our pain, and any pain I have caused cannot have been for nothing, I am grateful to be alive today, I must make a difference and turn pain into purpose. Healing and working on my recovery are something I have to do every day because it never goes away, I cannot get complacent. I have to use the techniques I have learnt like mindfulness, therapy and my support system to reach out when I need support because using is no longer an option”.
I know I am biased, but Rich’s story is incredible and anyone that has met him will know just how inspiring he is, and I know he is going to change so many lives, just like he has changed mine.
Sohan is someone who has been in recovery and is making a real difference and changing lives of so many people in the Global Majority community. Very early on in Sohan’s recovery (over 20 years ago) Sohan realised how important representation and having services that were racially and culturally informed were to aid recovery for Black and Brown communities. When he had a similar experience to Rich walking into NA rooms and seeing no one that looked like him.
‘In all walks of life, we frame our understandings based on the lens we apply and the lives we have lived’.
Sohan knew he needed to create something and be part of a solution to save lives, so he became the co-founding member of BAC-IN. BAC-IN is a Nottingham based, peer-led drug & alcohol support service that provides culturally responsive recovery solutions for adults and families from Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic communities. It’s an award-winning service that was inspired and founded in 2003 by individuals in recovery. They believe support from others who have been through addiction is one of the most effective and therapeutic routes to recovery.
Sohan knew that he needed to be able to really support anyone that walked through the doors from his community, so he became a BACP Accredited/UKRCP Registered Counsellor/Psychotherapist. He now has experience in the fields of counselling, psychotherapy, drug/alcohol addictions, abstinence-based recovery, mental health, culturally specific interventions, and clinical supervision.
His learning didn’t stop nor did his dedication to supporting his community he trained at the University of Nottingham, Temenos, University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) and Chartered Management Institute (CMI) in subjects ranging from professional counselling practice, supervision, drug strategy, business management and leadership development. He is also the author of Shades of Recovery which can be purchased on Amazon.
Sohan believes and I agree that the Global Majority are not adequately represented in treatment figures so he built an organisation that would address those barriers and be part of a solution for the Global Majority community and he built a team that reflected the community that they support to be able to engage effectively.
Sohan is a real change maker and is pushing for change all the way up to APPG (all party parliamentary group on addiction recovery) at Westminster Houses of Parliament on the subject of “Drug & Alcohol rehabilitation and challenging, how can they be more equitable and reflect the racial diversity of a multicultural Britain, address the ‘long overdue’ gaps in services and Global Majority underrepresentation in drug and alcohol treatment, recovery and residential rehab services. Like most services though for Global Majority folks funding is not equally distributed and donations are key to BAC-IN being able to continue to support Global Majority folks. If you would like to donate you can do so by clicking the donate icon on the right here: https://www.bac-in.org/
The work Sohan and the others at BAC-IN is incredible and I am honoured to have Sohan as part of my community and call him a friend and I am so grateful for the work he does.
These three remarkable men are proof that recovery is possible and smashes the stigma that those who suffer from the disease of addiction are nothing more than addiction and never will be anything else. These three amazing humans are three of many, but stigma allows us to pass judgment on people that are changing the world. Some may not change the world they may just survive and that’s ok too. The narrative has long been that substance use disorder is a hopeless condition that few recover from. There’s no question that many people relapse after an addiction recovery attempt. But most people make multiple attempts. Just as with changing any heavily ingrained habit, like smoking or unhealthy eating, many people don’t succeed on their first try. Some of us addicted to something like work, food, or something more socially acceptable.
I will never forget the first time I walked into the NA rooms with Rich, I will be the first one to say I had judgement in me, I had preconceived ideas of who people with addiction were. I remember someone saying to me within my first couple of weeks. “if you are going to stick around you will need a black suit, we see a lot of death in these rooms”. It hit me like a tonne of bricks. Within a couple of months those same people I walked in with pre-conceived ideas about were my community. I found myself cooking meals for people who were struggling, driving people to meetings every day because they were my friends and I desperately wanted them to live. They were the same people who I could pick up the phone to at 3am and say I think Rich might be struggling at they would be there. It taught me a real important lesson that everyone has a story, but they weren’t wrong lives have been lost and it doesn’t get any easier.
The next time we walk past someone in our community that is suffering with the disease of addiction I urge everyone to remember, that’s someone’s child, sibling, friend or loved one, show them grace and kindness and please don’t treat them like they are invisible because one day with some care and support they could recover too.
If anyone would like to join us in Leicester for the screening of the filming of, I am Jit and a community scoping session please get in touch — I will be posting more details in due course and I will be also reaching out for ED&I leads to support to host a screening so anyone who would like to support with that please get in touch.
If anyone is struggling or has a loved one struggling here are some places you can go to for support:
Nottingham-based BAC-IN specialise in providing Black, South Asian, and other minority ethnic groups with alcohol and drug peer support services. They also offer family support, group sessions, virtual sessions, and home visits to anyone in or around the Nottingham area.
Birmingham-based KIKIT offers help, advice, peer support and mentoring for Black, Asian, and other minority ethnic groups dealing with alcohol dependency.
Bristol-based Nilaari provide alcohol and drug peer support services including one-to-one sessions and group workshops for Black, Asian, and other minority ethnic groups.
NHS directory for minority ethnic groups
The NHS lists a variety of local alcohol peer support services for minority ethnic groups which can be searched for by entering a postcode.
No More Pretending is a UK-wide signposting service for the Punjabi community that provides information for families or anyone with alcohol-related problems to help themselves or a loved one.
Links to additional reading can be found here which also include Sohan’s book — Shades of Recovery https://groundswell.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/BAME-groups-and-substance-use-interventions.pdf