If you or someone you know or love is struggling with an addiction please do what you can to get help immediately. Simple but small steps will help to get you started; bitng off more than you can chew all at once is a recipe for failure. Start by engaging someone you trust to stand by you. If you have no-one, call for help using the links below. Go to the local resources page or look in your local phone directory for helpful agencies. Review my Steps To Wellness and commit to start today. Stay in touch via the message forum - we can support you as you make this life changing journey and your sharing will always help someone else.

Alcohol 

African Americans use less alcohol overall than whites and Latinos.

• 35% of African American men (over age 18) abstained from alcohol in 1992, as compared with 28% of white men and 22% of Latino men (Caetano and Kaskutas, 1995).
• 51% of African American women (over age 18) abstained from alcohol, as compared with 35% of African American men, 48% of Latinas, and 36% of white women (Caetano and Kaskutas, 1995).
• About 15% of African Americans age 12 to 17 had used alcohol within the past month, as compared with 20% of whites age 12 to 17 and 20% of Latinos age 12 to 17, according to a national survey (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1998).

However, the African American community as a whole suffers a disproportionate level of alcohol problems, despite their lower consumption levels.4

• African Americans in California are more likely to die from alcohol-related homicide than whites, Latinos, or "Asian/Other" (Sutocky et. al., 1993).
• African American women suffer more social consequences from alcohol than white women (Caetano, 1997).

Smoking

The following is an excerpt from a report called "Big Tobacco and Women". You can read the full report by clicking on the link below.

The tobacco industry spends vast sums of money each year persuading people to take up or continue smoking. In its own words, the industry is "a monster which has to be fed"3. The industry sees women as a territory to be conquered and a large portion of this total expenditure is aimed in their direction. Statistics on cessation, uptake and disease reflect this effort.

Tobacco industry statements, and documents subpoenaed in a series of American legal cases, show how:

• The industry's strategy is to segment the market so it can better respond to the "wants and needs of women" - i.e. so it can target its products more effectively.
• The industry has conducted a vast amount of research on women to enable more effective targeting. The industry feels that women are less influenced than men by anti-smoking campaigns, i.e. that once they've started they find it harder to give up.
• The industry views underage women as part of its target market and has aimed products at these women.
• As part of a policy of segmenting the market the industry has developed products aimed specifically at black women and women on low incomes.
• Aware that women are generally more concerned than men about health issues, the industry has largely aimed the low tar brands at women, in an effort to stop women quitting. It promotes these products as less dangerous despite its own evidence which shows that the health benefits are extremely low or zero.
• The industry has attacked and attempted to refute all the health effects that smoking has on women, both those specific to women and those which affect both sexes. It has fostered the idea that the big three smoking diseases - lung cancer, heart disease, and chronic bronchitis (chronic pulmonary obstruction) - are male diseases and that purely because of gender, women may be less at risk.
• The industry has denied and countered evidence that smoking can affect the foetus.

Drug Abuse

Health Effects

A National Vital Statistics Report found that 21,683 persons died of drug-induced causes in 2001. Of the drug-induced deaths, 7,439 (34%) were females. Drug-induced deaths include deaths from dependent and nondependent use of drugs (legal and illegal use) and poisoning from medically prescribed and other drugs. It excludes accidents, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to drug use. Also excluded are newborn deaths due to mother’s drug use.