by Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC
Between the mid-1980's through the early 1990's Crack Cocaine hit General Motors Corporation in Detroit Michigan hard! Substance use disorders treatment facilities in Michigan were at capacity with GM employees and the overflow wound up in treatment centers throughout the country. This included Chicago where I worked as the gatekeeper for the General Motors Substance Abuse Program.
When a GM Employee was admitted into a substance use disorders treatment facility within a 40 mile radius of downtown Chicago, my job was to drive to the treatment center and do an assessment to determine the level of care and length of stay. Then treatment centers were mostly in suburban communities. The majority of the GM employees were African American men. Most often, the entire treatment team, the majority of other clients in treatment and the city where the treatment center was located were white. The GM employees were always happy and surprised to see me. Their eyes would light up like a Christmas tree when I appeared. I was often told by them that I was the only Black face they had seen since they entered treatment. One GM employee humorously told me, “Even the squirrels in this place and city are white." These employees spoke of feeling isolated while in treatment.
It became clear that most of the treatment facilities were not trained to provide culturally responsive treatment for African American nen. Wanting to be a part of the solution, in 1989 I started writing a handwritten book, which I titled, Treating the African American Male Substance Abuser. I completed the handwritten manuscript in 1991 and in that year, I met Roman Coronado-Bogdaniak. Dr. Coronado was the first Addictionologist I had ever met. He received his doctors degree (M.D.) at Warsaw Medical Academy in Poland in 1981 and his masters degree in Addictions Studies from Governors State University in 1985. Dr. Coronado spent his career teaching and writing about addictions treatment and recovery.
When I met Dr. Coronado-Bogdaniak I mentioned the book and he volunteered to edit it. As an amateur writer, I welcomed his edits! In his role as Director of the Addiction Counselor Training Program at Montay College in Chicago, he also sponsored the first trainings I ever did on Treating the African American Male Substance Abuser in his role at Montay College He coordinated and sponsored these trainings and the book wasn't even published yet! I am forever grateful that this doctor, who was of Polish heritage saw the importance of work which focused on African American males with substance use disorders and he put his talents behind support of the project.
After the book was edited, I was scared to publish it. I had never seen a book in my profession exclusively focused on counseling African American men and feared that publishing the book would be like ‘career suicide’. I feared that if the book were published, I might never be hired again, because of the stigma we face as Black men.
My work with Dr. Coronado-Bogdaniak continued. I was approached by an agency called Travelers and Immigrants Aid, a program that worked with South East Asian and African Refugees, whose substance use was increasing when they migrated to the United States. They wanted me to educate the staff on how to address substance use with their clients. Dr. Coronado-Bogdaniak coordinated the program through Montay College and students were able to receive college credits. We established the first Southeast Asian and African Refugee Addiction Counselor Training Program in the world. Our students were from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Ethiopia.
Dr. Coronando-Bogdaniak died a sudden death in the early 1990's. He was in his late 30's at the time of death. I attended his funeral and decided afterwards that life was too short to be afraid. A few months after his death I published, Treating the African American Male Substance Abuser. Since then I have given hundreds of speeches on counseling African Americans with substance use disorders, written additional books and articles on the subject and provided consultations to organizations wanting to provide culturally responsive services for African Americans seeking recovery. Today I offer a salute and heartfelt thank you to Dr. Roman Coronado-Bogdaniak, one of the first to believe in the importance of this work.