MadameNoire
Source: Facebook Watch / Facebook, Red Table Talk
The pandemic was challenging in all sorts of ways. But for those dealing with addiction, being separated from family and friends, forgoing normal routines and reading depressing headline after depressing headline, the stakes were even higher.
Years before all of this, Khadi Olagoke had launched Sober Black Girls Club.
Olagoke, a high-achieving attorney realized that her drinking had gotten out of control. As a child she romanticized adulthood and was using alcohol to cope with its sometimes harsh realities. A therapist suggested that she attend a 12-step meeting to address her issues. But she was the only woman of color in the room and she couldn’t identify with the culture. She told the women of Red Table Talk, “There were rules I had to follow and there were things I had to agree on and if I didn’t agree on certain things, then I wasn’t doing something right. I wasn’t doing sobriety right. I couldn’t get with. I really couldn’t get with it.”
From there Sober Black Girls was born. She describes it as a safe space for Black women.
During the pandemic members of Sober Black Girls Cub doubled in size. Olagoke said, “Folks needed meetings and they felt like the meetings they were going to online—they felt like they didn’t belong. They felt like they couldn’t talk about certain issues and that’s why we decided to create our own meeting.”
You can watch this clip from Olagoke’s appearance on Red Table Talk in the video below.
This full episode of Red Table Talk will air at 12pm EST on Facebook Watch.
