Berkshire County — Multicultural BRIDGE (Berkshire Resources for Integration of Diverse Groups Through Education) held a virtual community conversation on Zoom on Tuesday, November 14 to discuss resources for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) when it comes to getting help with addiction. The conversation included several BIPOC residents who are in recovery, along with representatives from local recovery groups and organizations.
To protect their privacy, The Berkshire Edge will not identify by name the recovering addicts who spoke at the virtual meeting.
The meeting was part of a “Let’s Talk About It” series of meetings organized by BRIDGE to discuss issues of racial equity and various issues facing the Berkshire community. “BRIDGE has been involved in race equity conversations since our inception,” Multicultural BRIDGE Founding Director and CEO Gwendolyn Van Sant wrote in an email after the event. “We have addressed stigma and stereotypes, and we arecommitted to [normalizing] the conversation by adding it to our training curriculum. We also had BRIDGE team members as recovery coaches with a race and gender lens. Recovery and addiction know no boundaries of race, gender, and class. Although social identities inform one’s experiences even more and can exacerbate the already challenging journey. We anticipate this space will bring some to their edges and touch people dearly. We also intend for this session to catalyze collaboration and change.”
The meeting was moderated by BRIDGE Racial Justice Coordinator and Berkshire County native Delano Burrowes. “I am now in 11 years of recovery [from addiction],” Burrowes said. “I mostly got recovery [services] in New York. It was challenging to be growing up in the Berkshires because there were always microaggressions [when it comes to recovery]. When I first got into recovery, there were these [discussions] about microaggressions, but also about how important it is about going to fellowship, and how important it is to connect.”
Burrowes said that he had to deal with racial bias firsthand when he was in recovery. “After a big meeting, when I was going to a fellowship [meal] with a bunch of people where nobody looked like me, one person said, ‘Hey, they don’t have watermelon on the menu!’” Burrowes recalled. “This is the place where I’m supposed to come and get better, and they are still in the world where we live in bias. When COVID happened, all of these things changed a lot. All of these BIPOC [recovery-related] meetings started.”
Burrowes said that the fellowship of other BIPOC people in recovery from addiction helped in his recovery journey. “BRIDGE is about equity and social justice, and equity also means access to mental health and addiction resources,” Burrowes said. “It’s important to know and understand how different cultures view addiction and recovery, including some of the hurdles that are faced internally and externally in terms of cultural competency, addiction spaces, and such. It’s also important to understand how someone of the law deals with someone who is from one background, whether it would be socioeconomically or racially, as opposed to someone else.”
BRIDGE Public Health Coordinator Florence Afanukoe said that there needs to be more support for BIPOC residents who are in recovery from substance abuse. “As we all know, these people have limited resources,” Afanukoe said. “In 2019, there was a study published by [The National Institute of Health’s] PubMed about drug and alcohol dependence. This study found that across 17 states, from 2000 to 2019, opioid overdoses were concentrated more in economically disadvantaged zip codes. The study also linked higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and lower education to people dealing with addiction. One thing this study discussed is how systematic racism contributes to overdoses and how big of a role it plays when it comes to addiction and recovery. This situation of addiction and recovery is not isolated but is connected to all the things that we see in our communities.”
Matt Alcombright, program director for the Brien Center for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, said that the center hired its first-ever diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) director last year. “I work closely with our DEI director [Gina Coleman],” Alcombright said. “We attended a 413 Racial Equality Summit out in Springfield where I sat in a really good workshop called ‘Leading with Curiosity.’ I think the ‘Leading with Curiosity’ model is what we have to look towards in regards to having a diverse, equitable, and inclusive treatment program for all people. There needs to be a bridge, so to speak, of curiosity where [people must] not be afraid to reach out, not be afraid to be uncomfortable, to not be afraid to allow people to experience discomfort, and to sit with them in the discomfort. It’s those moments of discomfort where we can find a lot of understanding.”
For more information about Multicultural BRIDGE, visit its website.
