In this episode exploring The Devil card, I talk with Khadi (Khadijat) Oluwatoyin, founder and director of Sober Black Girls Club, an organization that offers support and community for Black women, femmes, and nonbinary folks who are practicing or exploring sobriety.
Both Khadi and I share lived experience with alcohol addiction, a dynamic perfectly encapsulated in The Devil card. We talk about our struggles with alcohol, when and how we got sober, 12-step programs (their gifts and limitations), and what becomes possible when we reclaim our power from substances that may be draining our life force, health, creativity, and Spirit.
But The Devil can also represent a number of other dynamics we experience as humans in this world, and Khadi and I get into those too: overachieving and seeking external validation, overconsumption, internal and external judgement, white supremacy and anti-blackness, instant gratification, denial, illusion and half-truths, choosing "the image" and ego over the real deal, taboos, control and domination, breaking cycles, bringing secrets out into the open, and LIBERATION!
Khadi also shares some important links between America's history with alcohol and racial oppression.
No moralizing or preaching here when it comes to alcohol and drug use (HOW COULD WE JUDGE?!), but this is a beautiful episode for anyone considering sobriety, practicing sobriety, or struggling with sobriety, and a relevant conversation for thinking about where our power lies (with us or elsewhere?) and how we can reclaim it.
Check out (and support!!!) Sober Black Girls Club on Instagram and their website. Check out Khadi's new film 988: A Coming of Self Film. Check out the book Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks.
This episode was beautifully edited by Chantal deFelice, and the logo for this podcast was created by Ami Plasse.
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