BACKGROUND & HISTORY

In October 2003, Sohan Sahota along with Gladstone Hibbert and Manjit Singh Johal arranged a get together of all individuals he was supporting and created a nucleus, a voluntary self-help support network, which became known as BAC-IN (Black & Asian cultural Identification of Narcotics)

BAC-IN is a unique and innovative recovery programme run by and for people from the African Caribbean and South Asian communities across Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire.

Based on Mansfield Road in Nottingham, BAC-IN is a peer led service created and developed from a ‘grass roots level’ by recovering individuals, supporting those who are affected directly and indirectly (users, families & carers) by substance misuse.

The Bac-in organisation acknowledges and empowers their service users cultural, traditional, religious and spiritual values. Furthermore, the group addresses and supports such issues as the absence of cultural empathy, lack of cultural identification and issues with trust, stigma and confidentiality.

Traditional recovery programmes are unable to offer a culturally sensitive model of support. This combined with the shame and stigma associated with drug and alcohol abuse in some African/Caribbean and South Asian communities, leaves those seeking help unsupported and isolated.

The active principles of BAC-IN encourage its service users to take responsibility for their own path to sobriety, to self-empowerment and to a commitment towards a meaningful and productive life. Self-honesty, willingness to change, openness to take creative suggestions are also key in developing a solid recovery foundation. The Bac-in programme shows its service users that they can achieve freedom from addiction, a life beyond limitations and become useful members of society.

Many BAC-IN members have faced racism, ostracism, experienced cultural displacement, cultural/familial shame, societal oppression, mental health difficulties and multi-forms of abuse as well as economic and institutional barriers throughout their long struggle to be free of their addiction.

BAC-IN provides an alternative, which acknowledges diversity, recognizes and values difference and welcomes a wide range of cultural, psychosocial and psycho-spiritual perspectives in drug and alcohol treatment and offender rehabilitation.

Bac-in is bridging the gap within the existing support services by addressing the culturally sensitive/specific issues which are crucial for ongoing client recovery, this in turn is vital in supporting and complementing the work being undertaken by other service providers.

BAC-IN has succeeded to create an environment of safety and trust for its service users to talk about and explore sensitive cultural issues. In this environment, the service users are supported in re-connecting with those cultural aspects many of them would deny, suppress or feel unsafe to talk about with friends, family, other groups, at other self-help meetings and with staff from non-African/Caribbean and South Asian backgrounds.