Sixteen months into the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there’s still so much to learn about the calamitous effects this health crisis has had on our society. The collective loss we’ve faced has left no area of our lives untouched, impacting our economy, food systems, and public health — and thrusting mental health into the public consciousness in a way it had never been before. Suddenly, we were not only facing a pandemic, but preparing for a mental health epidemic, too. So many struggling through grief, job insecurity, and the stress and anxiety of social isolation at the beginning of lockdown searched for ways to cope — and drinking was one of them.
One study found that college students who reported higher levels of stress and anxiety were also increasing their alcohol use. In a fall 2020 study by JAMA Network Open, it was found that Americans had upped their alcohol consumption by 14% compared to 2019, with women exhibiting a 41% increase over the baseline. The rise in women’s alcohol consumption means a higher, more dangerous risk of life-threatening conditions such as liver disease, as well as substance use dependency.
On a recent episode of Red Table Talk, co-hosts Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris (affectionately known as Gammy), dive into this topic, sharing their own personal connections and experiences with excessive drinking. Featured on the show was Khadi Olagoke, founder of the Sober Black Girls Club.
When Olagoke graduated from law school, she was not mentally prepared for life after college. Olagoke’s sense of identity was shaken, and she experienced depression as the pressures rose at work, where there was already a drinking culture instilled in the social settings of her law firm. Olagoke began to drink excessively. It wasn’t until 2018, through therapy, that she confronted her dependence on alcohol and sought help and recovery for alcohol use.
When lockdown enforced social distancing requirements across the nation in early 2020, this included shutting down in-person Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. As everyone tried to adjust to the strange pace of quarantine, Olagoke witnessed a trend.
“The drinking culture once we were in quarantine... a lot of us did not know how long it was going to last,” Olagoke tells Teen Vogue. “We thought it was just going to be a really quick thing. On Instagram, I'm seeing a lot of drinking challenges, on Facebook, Twitter, just pictures of people drinking with bottles [and] bottles.”
Soon after, Olagoke created the Sober Black Girls Club, a non-profit organization and community for Black women like herself who were currently seeking support for alcohol use during a time when isolation was heightened. The Sober Black Girls Club met virtually, doubling in size by May 2020. Today, the group has over 600 members.
“Folks don't understand that the more you drink, the longer you drink, day to day, your body’s going to crave more and more alcohol to the point where when you want to stop, you're not going to be able to stop or you're going to have difficulty stopping. And I learned that firsthand in 2018,” says Olagoke.
The Sober Black Girls Club offers a range of resources to its women-identifying and non-binary members, offering virtual meetings, an active mentorship program, a private support group, and a blog. As vaccinations are becoming more accessible and cities begin their reopening phases, the SBGC is even expanding offline, holding meet-ups in New York City, Los Angeles, D.C., and London. There’s also a medical fund that helps members who want to seek rehab receive the quality healthcare they deserve.
“I am a lawyer, I know what that looks like, I know the injustices in our medical system,” Olagoke says. “And we're just really big on giving our girls, our folks, members, the opportunity to get quality healthcare. And that sometimes looks like going to California and going to a private rehab, and when you don't have insurance you're going to need [the] money, so we use that fund to send folks.”
Olagoke shares that she is intentional about making space for all parts of her members’ lives within her club. She works to construct an atmosphere that allows members to feel safe talking about and connecting over anything they struggle with, anything that complicates their lives, and thus, their relationship to alcohol.
“We don't say you can't talk about race, we don’t say you can’t talk about something that happened to you or you feel like you need to get off your chest,” Olagoke expresses. “We just allow folks to talk about anything that they feel they want to share with the group, as long as it’s not harmful to other people.”
As a young person, there is pressure within our societal culture to drink in both social and professional settings, and even at home, through advertisements or social media trends. As a young Black woman, there can be even more societal pressures to drink, with drinking becoming more and more normalized in popular culture and the chronic stress of racism wearing upon our mental health. But even still, drinking culture just seems to come with the territory of being young. So what does it mean then to be a sober young person?
“I think it's a game changer,” Olagake states. “I want to be able to listen to Megan Thee Stallion and twerk and have fun and do things with my friends, who, we all have the same interests. We love hip-hop, we love rap music, we love trap — however, I no longer can deny the effect that alcohol had on my life. I think we sometimes think that alcohol [use disorder], or even drug use, like there’s spectrums. A lot of times I meet people who they might not [have a substance use disorder], but drinking is causing some effect, some type of negative consequence in their life. I think for me, just being vulnerable, putting my life on display, I want other people just to know that we have to be the change that we want to see. So if you could acknowledge that your drinking usage is interfering with [your] quality of life, it's okay to acknowledge that… I don't want people not to drink, I'm not anti-alcohol. I just think that we have to be really considerate.”
This vulnerability was part of the reason why it was so important for Olagoke to appear on this particular episode of Red Table Talk.
“The club really admires Jada, Gammy, and Willow. They are one of the families, [some] of the few people in Black culture that we see that [have] had some type of experience with alcohol, and not only did they do something about it, but they also shared with the public,” Olagoke says. “It's a no-brainer that in hip-hop culture and Hollywood, [substance use disorder] is a prevalent thing. We would be very silly to assume that the actors that we love, the rappers that we love are not going through [that]. That’s just silly. But now, day by day you're hearing about celebrities going into rehab.”
Olagoke emphasizes that the SBGC is open to all forms of recovery, and supports its members through whatever recovery process works best for them. She cites Pinkett-Smith and Banfield-Norris’ different recovery methods as an example of the different routes one can take to sobriety.
“Gammy went through a 12-step program... Jada went cold turkey. I think that's just so important to understand: that we all have different needs, we all have different wants,” Olagoke shares. “We've been conditioned to think that we're all just the same and what works for one person will work for the other. That's what this club embodies. If you need money to join an online course to get sober, we will help you pay for that. If you want to go cold turkey, we would support you. [To] go see a doctor, get better medical advice, or a 12 step recovery program... we will accept you. Just come as you are, and we will figure out how best to serve you and your needs.”
Over the course of the past year, the Sober Black Girls Club’s presence on social media has grown, with over 18,000 followers on Instagram. Within the next year, Olagoke says that she hopes the club can take advantage of this growth and create a brick-and-mortar space for their members. Her dream would be a recreational space for connection that also provides resources that aid recovery, like a gym and a kitchen. The Sober Black Girls Club has only just begun its journey in helping its members, and has already made such an impact on those seeking sobriety.
“[When] I created Sober Black Girls Club and really got my story out there, my face out there, other girls were literally emailing me and DMing me telling me that they're experiencing the same exact story,” Olagoke says. “The most valuable lesson I’ve learned is that we have to be honest with each other. We have to tell the truth about what we're going through.”
And that truth is the lifeline that many young people and young women who are struggling with alcohol use need — the truth that help exists.
“There is hope out there and there's help out there,” says Olagoke. “You just don’t need to do it alone, you really don't. There's nothing to be ashamed about. When you look at the numbers of people in America who suffer from [substance use disorder], of any kind, it's high… there's no need for you to be ashamed or feel guilty. There really is hope. I think every member of the club is testimony that there's hope.”
You can now watch Khadi Olagoke on the latest episode of Red Table Talk on Facebook Watch.
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