This article describes a black woman who refused to go to AA but did have support from her church. It brings up an interesting point that Blacks view that confessing your sins in AA, and airing your dirty laundry as foreign to them, and goes against their belief system. Actually I think many people of all races probably are not thrilled with this part of AA! It is also I think a very dangerous practice. Scientology practices this too.
AA does have a higher % of whites than blacks according to Alcoholics Anonymous Statistics. I know I have witnessed in Volusia County Drug Courts that the participants were predominately white, and they are mandated to AA/NA/CA. The meetings I have seen over the years in our Holly Hill Parks our also predominately white.So when I came across this article I found it interesting.
Of course the author of the article is of the opinion that the woman would of been better off going to AA, no mention of SMART that does NOT ask you to confess your sins.
snip
‘This attitude is fairly common among African-Americans addicts in poor neighborhoods in most large US cities; ironically, while the biggest complaint about AA and NA among skeptical middle-class white addicts is the dependence on a Higher Power, in urban black communities 12-step recovery groups are marginalized because they aren’t explicitly allied with any church. In addition, the confessional mode of “sharing” that defines the AA fellowship is alien to the ethic of African- neighborhoods, where airing your dirty laundry in public is disappoved of rather than viewed as a method of establishing trust and fellowship. For the same reason, professional psychotherapy is frequently dismissed as a “white” treatment; given the church’s influence, mental health issues are widely viewed as caused by a lack of faith remedied by more regular attendance at Bible study.
When I was new to doing social work in the black community, this widespread attitude confused me and frustrated my efforts to help my black clients. An an ex-junkie, I could vow for the benefits to be gained from both recovery groups and therapy. A North Philly church lady coworker set me straight. “A lot of black don’t feel that AA and therapy are alien to everything they know,” she told me. “If you got problems you just go to church on Sunday and scream your head off and then everything’s fine.”
But for Susan, it turned out, everything wasn’t fine. While Jesus and the church were pulling her in one direction, the judicial system had made an unwelcome appearance and was pulling her in another. The entire time Susan was in prison, the state of Pennsylvania was running a tab on all the welfare dollars her mother received in her children’s names. Consequently, per state law, Susan was held responsible for the total amount upon her release, and soon the welfare department came calling to get its money back.’
Entire article-