MUTUAL AID IN RECOVERY
Recovery Awareness Month Campaign
gc2b is dedicated to redistributing resources to uplift and support LGTBQIA+ individuals and organizations. Through various campaigns and fundraising efforts, our company has been able to illuminate the richness of our community as well as provide tangible resources and support to folks on the frontlines of various causes. In continuation of these efforts, we are proud to make a commitment to donate $2.47 for every original style Purple, Gray, and White binder we sell this September in honor of Recovery Awareness Month. Substance abuse and addiction impacts our community disproportionately. However, we are worthy of support, healing, and recovery to live full, vibrant, joyful lives. 100% of proceeds from this campaign will be distributed to 4 BIPOC-led organizations and individuals working in addiction and recovery. Scroll down to learn more about each of them and be sure to donate directly!
Gray represents the first 24 hours of sobriety. Purple is the official color of National Recovery Month. White represents the chip given to folks who have newly started Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or who have recommitted themselves to sobriety.$2.47 represents 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Each day is an opportunity to commit to sobriety and recovery. One day at a time.
sober black girls club
ABOUT
Khadi A. Olagoke (she/her) is the creator and founder of Sober Black Girls Club - a collective that focuses on health, wellness and sobriety among Black womxn and non-binary folks. Khadi created Sober Black Girls Clubs in October of 2018 after noticing her own struggles with alcohol and the lack of support for Black folks working towards sobriety. Today, SBGC provides consistent motivation, support and resources to Black folks looking to pursue wellness and sobriety through community and social justice.
Q + A
Why do you focus on providing sobriety support for LGBTQIA + BIPOC?
The Black community cannot survive without queer folks. We are the driving force behind the movement. Thus, our health and wellness is important. We deserve support and resources.
How will the financial support from gc2b support and extend the work you are doing?
The support will be used to replenish our medical fund (used to pay for out of pocket expenses - deductibles, copayments, travel, etc. - related to rehabilitation treatment).
What do you hope to see in the future in this work?
I hope to see a safe sober community created for queer Black mxn and non-binary folks.
ABOUT
La Espiritista aka Goddexx (They) is a word conjurer, writer, and performance artist. They are the author & creative director of “Butterfly: Una Transformación,” a collection of poetry which provides a spiritual framework around the process of inner transformation through four phases of metamorphosis: release. renewal. retreat. rebirth. They support individuals ignite and TRANSform energetic wounds through various healing modalities such as their poetry, performance art, tarot readings, ritual altar work, energy cleansings, and hosting healing spaces.
Goddexx has been co-hosting a Queer Trans Black Indigineous People of Color space for sober and sober-curious folx which centers a harm reduction approach with La Conextion for 1 year. The group is held bi-weekly on Wednesdays at 5pm PST.
Q + A
Why do you focus on providing sobriety support for LGBTQIA + BIPOC?
I focus in providing sobriety support for LGBTQIA + BIPOC because I believe that as we heal, we gain access to the power we have repressed within ourselves. As we commit to our sobriety practice we send a message to spirit that we are ready for clarity around our life purpose. As clarity, arises we commit to using our unique power + gifts towards creating a sustainable & interdependent world where we all can thrive.
How will the financial support from gc2b support and extend the work you are doing?
Financial support from gc2b would support in creating the first in person retreat for folx who have been attending the QTBIPOC Sobriety Group.
What do you hope to see in the future in this work?
I hope to see more virtual offerings centering our collective needs beyond sobriety and recovery, because a sustainable recovery requires healing through many layers. I hope to see more ritual spaces where we can process our traumas and emotions. I hope to see more in person connection gatherings which center joy and pleasure.
recovery for the revolution
ABOUT
Carolyn Collado (they/them) is a writer, decolonial dreamer, and founding steward of Recovery for the Revolution. They are a queer, non-binary Afro-Taino neurodivergent human in long-term recovery and believe recovery from a decolonized, anti-oppression lens can point the collective towards liberation. They name how intergenerational colonial trauma and the pressures of capitalism impact our relationship to self, each other, the planet, and the divine. They believe bringing to light what we have hidden in shame and fear can bring about transformative healing and community.
Recovery for the Revolution reframes narratives around addiction, sobriety and recovery through a trauma-informed, anti-oppression lens and offering decolonized approaches for our liberation. R4TR holds recovery as a revolutionary practice that brings about revolution through our individual and collective liberation, and something that grows our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual capacity as we live into these revolutionary times.
Q + A
Why do you focus on providing sobriety support for LGBTQIA + BIPOC?
LGBTQIA and BIPOC folks have been actively silenced in sobriety support communities, with folks denying our lived experience and the impact that the struggles we experience today and historically impact our relationship to substances as we cope with capitalism, colonization, ableism, and patriarchy. Elders in recovery space often also tote that there is one right way to do sobriety, which doesn't account for meeting our communities where they are. Too many of us are struggling to be on the planet, and I believe that if we are able to not only be on the planet, but able to thrive and fully be present, we can change the world. Historically, queer, trans, and two-spirit BIPOC have been critical in our communities before colonization because of our living beyond binaries. Now, our communities are continuously impacted by our loved ones struggling and potentially dying from substance use. I believe that if we individually and collectively can heal, we can increase our capacity to be here by supporting each other and mirroring our worthiness, and increasingly change our internalized traumas and the external oppressive forces that perpetuate them and make life so challenging at times. As a sober drag performer, I experienced worlds of possibility for QTIBIPOC from the liberation and pleasure we experienced in community in and off stage. We are worthy of full, present, joyful lives, and our full living can bring about the change to make that more possible for us collectively.
How will the financial support from gc2b support and extend the work you are doing?
I'm birthing a QTIBIPOC recovery community. We will begin online, bringing in different healers and speakers to discuss different topics as related to struggles we have faced in our lives and intergenerationally and offer different healing opportunities related to decolonized recovery and putting into practice mutual aid, economic justice, and transformative justice practices to help uplift our communities, promote our wellbeing, and divest individually and collectively from these harmful systems. The financial support will help me to keep the sobriety support financially sustainable and accessible while also helping me compensate healers and speakers. From this recovery community online, I hope it can branch into local sobriety communities and also retreats and large gatherings for QTIBIPOC and hopefully land of our own. This financial support would also help me to get support to keep this work sustainable long-term and expand Recovery for the Revolution's capacity.
What do you hope to see in the future in this work?
I hope to see QTIBIPOC benefitting from recovery that centers our experience, helping us tap into healing that hasn't been accessible to us and making it widely accessible. I hope that healing from the impact of colonization, capitalism, ableism, and patriarchy frees us up to being in community and growing our capacity to divest from these systems. I hope that healing from systemic oppression becomes a globally accepted and supported practice. I hope that more sobriety stories of QTIBIPOC, especially queer, trans, Black folks and two-spirit folks, can be centered and supported with resources. I hope that we can uplift our communities economically/resourcefully so we can have ease and give folks more space to heal. I hope we can empower folks to return to spiritual and somatic practices (if they feel called) that were stolen from us during colonization. I hope that we cultivate communities that can practice community care and support as we experience and bring about change. I hope that we can be in movement with the land and restoring the planet from climate crisis by having capacity to push back on these systems and also centering our self care, and that the community building helps us grow our capacity to do that. I hope that we can mobilize as community to navigate the changes that are present and coming. I hope that we can experience so much pleasure that has been denied to us for centuries instead of the self-harming patterns we navigated during substance use and experience that through gatherings and community building where we can be free of harmful socially imposed norms. I hope to accomplish this by speaking the truth through decolonial education, being in community, and bringing folks in to create this change.
Lazarus LETCHER
ABOUT
Lazarus Letcher (they/them) is an academic and artist living on Tiwa Pueblo land. Laz’s academic research focuses on transphobia’s roots in white supremacy, Black and Indigenous liberation movements, and the legacy of Black music in our freedom. Laz has toured domestically and internationally as a solo musician and with ensembles. Laz runs Tempest’s BIPOC group processing calls, and dreams of a world where minoritized people have access to safer and holistic addiction recovery. You can hear about their sober journey on the podcasts Sober Curious and Recovery Happy Hour.
As a full time recovery coach at Tempest, they work to make more recovery spaces accessible to minoritized populations. Their academic work examines the ways that white supremacy and colonization impact the mental health of minoritized populations and why racism, transphobia, and homophobia cannot be ignored in our healing.
Q + A
Why do you focus on providing sobriety support for LGBTQIA + BIPOC?
The Traditional recovery wasn’t built for us - but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve the chance to thrive, not just survive. I never thought I’d have the life I do now, and I want to help other folks get here. Black trans folks have a place in recovery. When we heal ourselves we heal our communities.
How will the financial support from gc2b support and extend the work you are doing?
I’ll turn over whatever funds I get to my local harm reduction collective.
What do you hope to see in the future in this work?
Healing for all!