A feminist approach to treating alcohol and drug-addicted African-American women

African-American women remain a population that is both unlikely to receive adequate treatment and more likely to be punished for behavior associated with alcohol and drug use. These societal responses originate, in part, in the failure of traditional addiction models to take into account the environmental context of addiction. Guided by the medical model in particular, the treatment community continues to identify addiction as a unitary experience and to deny the realities of sexism and racism in the recovery efforts of African-American women. Recommendations for the practice of feminist therapy with these women are explored.