The National Association for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC) published a guide that claims “defensiveness” and “power-hoarding” are “white institutional values.”
The guide titled “Rehabilitating Addiction Treatment: An Anti-Racist Recovery Approach,” warns against “white institutional values” and provided a 12-step guide to recovering from white supremacy.
The document was created by the NAADAC, whose mission is to represent “the professional interests of more than 100,000 addiction counselors, educators and other addiction-focused health care professionals in the United States, Canada and abroad.”
The guide argues, “At the heart of whiteness can be the feeling of isolation. Relational intimacy in both the family and the community tends to be more surface level and lacking in deep closeness and belonging.”
It also describes the alleged nature of “white institutional values.” Among them are “all-or-nothing thinking” and a “scarcity mindset.” The guide also mentions “paternalism and power hoarding” that have resulted in treatment programs being designed “primarily by cis-gender, straight, white men or appropriated from communities of color and sold as a commodity.”
The “white institutional values” are contrasted with “transforming values.” Paternalism and power-hoarding, for example, are contrasted with “inclusive clarity,” which supposedly results in an approach to treatment that “prioritizes restoration of one’s connection to their culture rather than appropriation of other cultures.”
The document complains of “white solidarity,” the supposed tendency of white people to let “each other off the hook.” However, it also warns against “calling people out to ‘prove’ antiracism.”
Additionally, the document targets “white fragility” and tells addiction professionals not to act or lead “in dominating ways,” one manifestation of which is “centering whiteness.”
The first of the 12 steps to recovering from white supremacy is to admit that “we were powerless over white supremacy – that our culture had become unmanageable.” This step is followed by an appeal to a greater power. The second step reads that those in recovery “Came to believe that a collective conscience greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
Steps four and five call on participants to profess their guilt and participation in white supremacy. Those in recovery “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our internalization of white supremacist values,” step four reads.
It is followed by step five, which says participants “Admitted to our collective conscience, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our participation in white supremacy.” Participants are also called upon to “unlearn our misshapen beliefs and thinking.”
The tone of the 12-step process becomes increasingly religious in the last two steps. Number 11 says those in recovery “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious understanding of white supremacy culture, praying only for increased awareness of our agency … to create change.”
Finally, the last step calls on participants to become evangelists for anti-racism, saying participants, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps … tried to carry this message to our communities.”
The guide explains that the 12-step guide was sourced in part from Sarah Suzuki, the owner and co-founder of Chicago Compass Counseling. Suzuki offers “allyship counseling for white people,” effectively monetizing leftwing racial politics.
The program’s description asks, “Do you ever desire to confront your inner racist?” and “Do you ever feel like there’s something holding you back from fully becoming the Ally you want to be?”
The program even affirms, “You’re willing to go deep inside to decolonize your mind.” One of the frequently asked questions reads, “I’m white. I feel traumatized by systemic racism. Can Allyship Counseling help me?”
This is not the first time racial politics has been injected into the medical industry, particularly the recovery services field. Breitbart News previously revealed that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services, had also embraced critical race theory.
The agency promoted the work of critical race theorists Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo and even advertised a resource discussing “conceptions of whiteness as a structural privilege, a harbinger of violence, or an institutionalization of European imperialism.”
Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com.
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