Recovery Flourishing as an Act of Rebellion!

This guest post was written by Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC and is cross-posted from the Online Museum of African American Addictions, Treatment and Recovery

Recovery Advocate, Senior Research Consultant and the substance use disorder profession’s number one historian William White has written another groundbreaking Monograph entitled, Post Traumatic Growth and Flourishing in Addiction Recovery. I predict this new publication will have a major impact on addictions, treatment and recovery.

In reading the monograph I was moved by the chapter entitled, Recovery Flourishing As an Act of Rebellion. At the beginning of my addictions counseling career my father died smoking crack cocaine (May 29, 1986) and within the midst of my grief the U.S. Congress intensified the war on drugs which led to mass incarceration, with a disproportionate number of African Americans being arrested by the legal system. Pastor Cecil Williams said, “This is not a war on drugs, its war on African Americans.” (Williams,1992). In addition, children born prenatally exposed to cocaine were labeled as “crack babies” and thousands of these newborns were removed from their homes by child welfare agencies based upon the stigma of addiction increase. Disproportionately children of color were removed from homes.

Clearly, an act of rebellion/revolution was needed to address this crisis!

My first act of rebellion was to author the book Treating the African American Male Substance Abuser followed by nationwide lecture series to increase empathy and culturally responsive programing for African Americans who had become the new face of the stigma of addiction and mass incarceration. I called my decision to focus trainings on increasing culturally responsiveness with African Americans with substance use disorder an act of rebellion as colleagues called my decision, career death by choosing to focus on the despised and the new face of addiction.

As the stigma of addiction increased in the 1980’s and 90’s residential treatment facilities closed. The African American community which already lacked fewer treatment options was hit particularly hard by these closures.

African Americans who were flourishing in personal recovery responded to this crisis through entrepreneurship (opening recovery homes in black communities), forming faith based drug ministries, advocating for eliminating the disparity in sentencing between crack vs. powder cocaine and protesting the selling of cocaine drug paraphernalia in the Black Community. A protest and boycott in Chicago’s Roseland Community led Salem Baptist Church’s Drug Ministry to the largest liquor store in Roseland which sold cocaine pipes to being shut down. The site became the largest African American Christian bookstore in Chicago.

I credit historian William White, MA for inspiring my interest in the history of addictions treatment and recovery. I learned that rebellion has always been a part of the African American recovery story. William White and I co-authored the article The Recovery Legacy of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X. The recovery pathways of both pioneering leaders were acts of rebellion!

Douglass, who described himself as a former “drunkard” believed that alcohol was used to control enslaved Africans. As an act of rebellion he quit drinking, shared his recovery story throughout Europe and in his recovery became a leader of the Black Temperance Movement. As a youth, a teacher told a young Malcolm Little (Malcolm X), that he could never be an attorney. Yet, in recovery, Malcolm advocated for millions. Malcolm stated, “They send drugs and alcohol into Harlem to pacify us. It is time to get together and eliminate the evils that are destroying the fiber of our society like drug addiction.” Through his prison ministry, Fishing for the Dead, Malcolm’s teaching of abstinence as an act of rebellion led scores of African Americans to recovery (Haley, 1987).

History also sheds a positive light on singer Billie Holiday, whose opioid dependence and alcohol use disorder were triggered by childhood trauma at age 10 when she was sexually abused. The police placed her in solitary confinement to silence her. Harry Anslinger, Director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics demanded that Billie Holiday stop singing Strange Fruit, a song about lynching’s of African Americans in the south (Hari, 2016). Despite Anslinger’s threats to incarcerate Holiday and take away her freedom to sing if she continued to sing the song, Holiday kept singing Strange Fruit and stated, “They silenced me when I was 10 years old. They will never silence me again (Hari, 2016)! Her act of rebellion ultimately led to the song Strange Fruit becoming the theme song for the anti-lynching campaign.

I have seen similar acts of rebellion in other communities of color and rural white communities. A recovery revolution is occurring in rural southern Illinois! Between 1997 to 2025, meth labs in a 5-county region in southern Illinois increased by 19,000 percent (SIU News, 2026). Things felt bleak! Today, recovery is visible and flourishing in the region. There are Recovery Councils throughout Southern Illinois and several RCO’s. Two years ago, Take Action Today, a well-known RCO in the southern region received the Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year Award in two counties. Mike Tyson, who has a public story of going from coal miner to RCO Director of Take Action Today stated, “During active addiction, many of us were a part of the problem and now we are part of the solution!”

According to White, in the newest monograph on flourishing, addiction can reach a tipping point in which a community feels, enough is enough and recovery becomes an act of defiance. The community begins to break the chains of addiction, and begin to move towards generational recovery (White, 2026). This is one of the driving forces of the Native American Wellbriety Movement. “To walk the Red Road is to offer a silent proclamation: Here the destruction stops. We will heal ourselves, we will heal our wounded relationships, we will heal our children, we will heal our nation. On this day our future history begins (Coyhis, 2012). Alkali Lake First Nation Tribe in British Columbia, Canada went from 100% alcoholism to 95% recovery and have maintained a 95% recovery rate for over 45 years. One of the tribes first acts in recovery was to fire the priest, reinstate the chief and tribal council and return to native traditions. They are clearly flourishing in recovery.

Recovery Flourishing and Rebellion as Acts of Love

I would be remiss if I ended this post without mentioning the love that lie at the heart of each act of rebellion I mentioned in this post. It was the love of Black people and the desire for their liberation at the core of the recovery movements led by Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X. Lesser known individuals, in the midst of thriving in personal recovery took it upon themselves to create drug ministries, recovery housing, leading protests and advocacy movements in the name of love for African Americans seeking recovery. This is similar to the love which inspired Billie Holiday to continue to sing Strange Fruit while facing threats of imprisonment and loss of career, Dr. King’s nonviolence movement, and the Black Panther Party’s decision to start a free breakfast program which fed thousands of black children before the school day started.

Over the years I have worked closely with Native American leaders in long term recovery. They describe a similar love which led to the return of culture, creation of culturally responsive curriculum they developed to address Native American healing and recovery across 7 generations. Rebellion and Love are a wonderful combination to help recovery flourish!