Felicia: That trauma that I grew up in as a child, all of that impacted my behavior and my need for time, and the voices and the noises to stop.

Voiceover: This is Rethinking Rock Bottom, a podcast that explores a complicated experience of loving someone struggling with substance use. Hosted by Reverend Jan Brown and Dr. Carrie Wilkins.

Carrie: For Dr. Felicia Pullens, everything goes through Harlem and she’s just fine with that. Sure, she had a 30 year career in advertising, and then she earned a PhD while in recovery, along with a bunch of other letters behind her name. But as she tells it, her real education came from life on Lennox Avenue in Harlem, New York.

Jan: So often race is left out of the discussion surrounding substance use, but not today. Felicia’s story highlights the unique challenges that people of color face in treatment. It also highlights the reasons why they turn to substances in the first place. 

Carrie: As a white treatment provider trained in a white treatment system, I can speak to this blind spot. In hindsight, I recognize all the ways I was trained to completely disregard or simply not see what was actually happening for communities of color and people of color as they approached treatment. 

Jan: This systemic racism makes recovery for people of color even more challenging than it already is. Felicia reminded us, however, that even in the midst of a drug epidemic, a community like Harlem is about so much more than substance use and treatment.

Felicia: So I remember the love in Harlem in the sixties and in the seventies. And so despite the fact that there were sanitation workers that would not pick up the garbage, and there were law enforcement officers that were not living in this community and were not particularly kind to Black people in this community, there was love. And so the structural racism and systems were there and very obvious. I remember that almost every woman in the building was like an aunt. There was nothing that I could do on 116th Street that didn’t hit my family on 119th Street before I did. So Harlem as a child was love and stark doses of reality.

Carrie: Do you remember those stark doses of reality? Did you feel that as a kid or did all that love succeed in protecting you from that? 

Felicia: I remember the Blackout in the summer in the seventies I was with my mother. I just remember sitting in the window and just watching mayhem unfold in front of my eyes. So that was a stark reality of danger in that community that I had never considered before.
I remember being really young and having a family member murdered. I couldn’t have even been 10. So that was a stark reality of being in the community. I remember standing in line for the government truck that gave us butter and peanut butter and eggs and cheese. Right? And that was a stark reality because I also had opportunities to leave Harlem as a child. And so I knew that that was not something that was in other communities. My aunt was a housekeeper for a family on Park Avenue. I did not see the things on Park Avenue that I saw in Harlem. So yeah, there were a lot of stark realities that were very apparent as a child that were not cushioned by the love.

Jan: By the seventies, heroin use across New York City had risen to epidemic proportions, and these changes did not go unnoticed by Felicia even at a young age. Yet as suffering flooded the streets of Harlem, Felicia’s mother taught her how to navigate her community with both kindness and understanding. 

Felicia: So I couldn’t have been more than, I don’t know, five I– I was walking south with my mother on 7th Avenue past the Theresa Hotel, and that was a time in Harlem where there was so many people that were heroin addicted. There was a guy standing in front of the Theresa and I, I could see, and I don’t even know how, I knew at such a young age, what that was, but I did. So he said “hello” to my mother, and my mother spoke back and I remember looking up at her and going, “do you know him?” And she said, “no, but let me explain something to you.
Anytime anybody in this community speaks to you, you make sure that you speak back because you never know on what day that individual may end up being the one to save your life.” I think that that’s really profound for me now as I realize my own journey with substance use and misuse and the business and the work that I am in, how impactful that was in shaping my internal compass about addiction at such a young age. Right? It was, you show respect for people regardless, and that was something that I always carried with me. 

Carrie: For Felicia’s mother kindness was more than just good karma, it offered protection. But through kindness, she also recognized the humanity of those around her, regardless of their current condition– something that we now know can be a powerful support to those in active use. Because whether it’s heroin, alcohol, cannabis, or cigarettes behind the substances, pain is hiding. And in Harlem there’s a lot of pain. 

Felicia: I don’t remember there ever being a time when substances were not in my life. There was rarely a block that you could walk on in Harlem where you did not see someone who was a person of color, who was using drugs. But also it was the hippie culture, if you will. So there was just this normalcy. You know, my father was a drinker and he didn’t go anywhere without his satchel. Cigarettes were a big part of the culture of my family and of that time. So I don’t get a chance to leave cigarettes out of the equation when I talk about drugs and drug culture. So I can’t remember a time when drugs was not a part of growing up or part of my story. 

Jan: Eventually crack entered the picture first in the streets of Harlem and later in Felicia’s own life. But with substances so interwoven into her lived experience, Felicia has trouble identifying first when it comes to particular substances.

Felicia: I often say “I do not remember the first time I,” and then blank, right? First time I smoked cigarettes, the first time I had a drink. The first time I sniffed coke. The first time I smoked crack. I don’t have a “aha” moment of this is what was happening and this is how I felt. Nor do I have an “aha” moment of discovery that the community was being ravaged.

But there are clear memories of watching the disintegration of the community in in very small ways that loo large. I am always very careful not to just really look at the behaviors of the individuals, but we need to tie that into the systemic neglect that happened that made people feel like they were oppressed and left behind and marginalized.
And so therefore, I need to make these noises in my head stop. That trickle down theory, it did not work. Right? The- the broken windows theory did not work. And so how often are Black people and people of color used as pawns in the political system and drugs are stood up to be the “aha” moment that it really has nothing to do with the drugs. Right? Let’s talk about what it really has to do with.

Jan: Felicia isn’t one to shy away from difficult discussions surrounding drug use in her life and in her community. But as with Harlem, her story has many more dimensions to it than just substance use. After high school, Felicia got her college degree and started a career in advertising, working in the magazine industry in New York City. Eventually, she was earning six figures. She also got married and started a family. 

Felicia: I have two beautiful children. They are the two people that keep me grounded in this life. I had a 30 year career in media marketing, advertising and sales, being one of a handful of Black women who were working for general market magazines and thrived. But I didn’t know what thriving really meant back then. 

Jan: So spend a little bit more time talking about that intersectionality of being a Black woman in- in your work in advertising. 

Felicia: I romanticized working in corporate culture in- in corporate America because when we are fed and constantly fed through the media that this is what success looks like. Working beside white people is the monument of success. No, it was a catalyst for navigating a very difficult space as a young woman. And I did not have it as difficult as others. I am a light-skinned Black woman who was accepted in a different way than my brown-skinned sisters, so I was extended privileges that they did not have or get. 

And I came to realize that working in white America did not mean that I made it. It meant that I made it when I came back to Harlem. It was the ability, the desire, the willingness to come back to the community that raised me. That really is the definition of success that I’m gonna hang my hat on.

Jan: Before recovery, Felicia had achieved a very different kind of success. One that looked good from the outside, but felt terrible on the inside. To cope, she turned to substances, but as time went along, she struggled to keep these two worlds in balance. 

Oh my God, living this two-faced reality is hell and it was hell. So I had achieved, if you will, and I’m saying that with a- a side eye roll, the success of working in corporate America and being very successful in the career that I had selected for myself. And then I had to maintain that beyond the Gucci shoes and the Jimmy Choo handbag and the expense accounts that seemed to never end, and the liquid lunches.
And so all of that had a role that it played into the journey of making the noises stop. It was not just about the drug, it was about making the noises stop. It looked like going to work, getting a very large commission check and spending it in six weeks on crack and smoking it. Right? I didn’t just buy it, I smoked it too. And knowing that I had children on the other side of the door. 

Now that I think about the insanity of that, it was the duality of wanting to be this great mom and not understanding the impact of my drug use. So how do you- how do you reconcile with this duality? Whether at work or at home, the mother, all that intersectionality that we talked about, how do you pick all those little pieces apart and put them together and make it make a picture that you can actually look at in the mirror and go, “okay, I like her?” 

Carrie: Felicia described her drug use like a heartbeat monitor full of peaks and valleys. There were times where she thought she had it under control, other times, not at all. Towards the end, it became impossible to hide. 

Felicia: I remember someone looking at me in one of my valley moments and said, “Felicia, you- you don’t smile anymore.” And I often go back to that statement with like such sadness when I recall it. I thought that I was hiding things, but it was just so obvious to so many people. So those were a lot of the moments in my use that really stand out, that were game changers for me to start to look at myself and go, “okay, well I need to make some changes.” So whether that change is I will fake smile when I see that person or you know, I’m gonna change my use. Other people were aware.

Anytime I got arrested, there was alcohol involved, so I don’t get a chance to leave that out of my story just because I think that it was crack cocaine that was the catalyst for me going into treatment. Drinking and driving can be deadly, so I don’t get a chance to leave that out of my story because it doesn’t sound as sensational as my story with a crack pipe. So there were many moments of, “holy crap, jig is up.” “I’m arrested again. Gotta call home,” you know, that made me take a look at my myself and my behaviors 

Jan: From the outside, these behaviors look so dangerous and self-destructive. How could they possibly make sense? From the inside however, these behaviors were a way of solving a problem for Felicia.
Felicia: It just made time stop. That trauma that I grew up in as a child and- and the community trauma that I grew up in as a child, all of that impacted my behavior and my need for time, and the voices and the noises to stop. So even as an adult, my trauma was undealt with, I never was allowed to acknowledge that I had it.

So whether it was the sexual trauma, the verbal trauma, the physical trauma, like it just was unyielding and the unrelenting, even as an adult, that it got to the point where I knew that I- I just needed relief. Right? I-I just needed- I needed a break. I needed a minute. 

Carrie: Thank you for sharing that, because I- I just think that’s the- one of the most important things for our listeners and people as we address this problem, to just be constantly focused on that- that pain that people are walking around with that is unbearable. And you’re using the word trauma again and again and again, and I know as a treatment provider that trauma shows up in your thoughts. It shows up in how you feel in your body. It shows up in how your emotions, it shows up in how vigilant you are, you know, in different spaces. You know, like, can you ever settle down or is your body completely vigilant all the time, which is exhausting.

Felicia: There were times in my life where the depression was so bad, the anxiety was bad and usually not at the same time. I knew that this job was killing me, if you will. I needed the noises to stop. There was a time when the depression was so bad that I wrote notes to my children, attempted suicide and laid down to die because I just couldn’t take it anymore. And the drugs gave me relief from that, and hopefully I would still remain alive, right? 

Jan: As a woman in long-term recovery, I very much relate to what Felicia was going through. It’s a very powerful process and there is so much pain along the journey. While the Invitation To Change approach, affectionately known as ITC, challenges the necessity of hitting rock bottom for many like Felicia and myself, it can still take a lot of suffering before the idea of treatment can outcompete the solutions offered by substances.

Felicia: So it had gotten so bad for me, that I had a morning dealer, and then when my drugs ran out from the morning dealer, I had the evening dealer, and I don’t care if it was three in the morning and I needed to meet somebody, I could do that. It was just relentless and basically that was all I was doing at the end. And so, the end I could really pinpoint probably about six months of just constant use. So any modicum of any former life was pretty much gone. I was like “yep, ready to go.” And I remember getting on that plane. I remember being scared as hell, someone being there to pick me up and going into the facility for the first time. And I do wanna talk about that recovery journey and that experience there, because it really became a blueprint for the work that I came back to Harlem to do.

Carrie: Felicia told us how prior to treatment, recovery wasn’t talked about much in her community. When it did come up, it was very much associated with the church and usually left in God’s hands. 

Felicia: No, we didn’t talk about recovery. We didn’t talk about treatment centers, and we didn’t talk about that. “Go to church, pray it away, and we gonna pray for you and hopefully everything’s gonna be fine,” right? And so some people do go to church and they do pray it away and it is fine. But that was not a part of my journey. And so I didn’t know what help looked like. I was able to stop using for periods of time, but I didn’t know that I was trying to stop. Right? It was, “you know what? I think I need to take a break.” I didn’t think, “oh, I’m going into recovery.” 

Carrie: Well, and I’m curious, when you became so committed and the Felicia drive got focused on recovery, what are some of the things that worked for you? Different things work for people at different times along the journey, right? 

Felicia: Yeah. I think that getting out of my natural environment was crucial for me. Going to Florida, not being able to run outta there and be like, “okay, you know what? My dealer is down the block,” was helpful. Taking suggestions. That was so foreign to me, to take suggestions. To listen to what people were telling me to do. I thought like, “I’ve been away for 57 days and I’ve got this, and I’m gonna go and work with other people now.” and I look back and I laugh now ’cause I was so naive. 

Jan: Even though Felicia’s experience in treatment was transformative, the facility did have its limitations. Particularly for a woman of color. While the care was excellent, there were few other clients of color. In addition, her program, like many others, failed to honor the fact that their so-called alternative modalities are actually traditional healing practices for communities of color.

Felicia: I was in a sweat lodge. Interestingly enough, a sweat lodge is akin to a teepee and there are heated rocks that are fed with water that creates steam and it is devoid of light. So you journey spiritually, there’s music. I’m in the sweat lodge with white folks. Where- where was the Native presence? So many practices are co-opted by white folks in this country. And deemed to be developed by them, which is so untrue. And it robs people of color, of their authenticity, the determination to know that we too are inventors and creators and healers, and we have been since the beginning of time. 

And so I’m in the sweat lodge, right? I didn’t bring a sweat lodge back, but well, I’ll tell you what I did bring back Reiki. Reiki is often attributed to Asian culture, you know, European culture. Well, Black folks have been laying hands on- laying hands on –we called it laying hands on– healers, since the beginning of time. We no longer get to hand that over to other cultures as the originators of some stuff that we have been doing forever. Things that we have been doing as Africans, people of color, that get co-opted and given the power over to other people of other cultures. And for me, that needs to stop. I need us to empower one another to understand how we come to the table with strengths and knowledge and fortitude that is often robbed of us as a people and given over to others.

Jan: Felicia is so right about this. When traditional practices are rebranded as alternative practices and divorced from their cultural history, the communities who generated these practices may lose access to their own modes of healing. Culture, race, tradition: these are elements that the treatment community has struggled to integrate into its practices. Even though drug use, especially in Harlem, has its roots in systemic inequalities. 

Carrie: We have failed to give credit to communities of color for the origins of these healing modalities. And we’ve also failed at providing equitable resources in and to these communities. When the heroin crisis was in Black and brown communities, it was treated as a crime, but once it hit white communities, we started to treat it like an epidemic that required everyone’s attention. And with that attention, came funding. 

Felicia: Yeah, that’s- it’s been ongoing since drug enforcement policies were–

Carrie: Yeah. 

Felicia: –first implemented, right?
Jan: Absolutely. 

Felicia: Since the DEA was– 

Carrie: that’s right. 

Felicia: –Even before, pre the DEA, we saw the Chinese Opium Act. Right? People were smoking opium before, but when we are talking about implementing policies that impact others, the other-ism whether it is economic sanctions, political sanctions, sanctions that impact negative recovery capital, mass incarceration, drug laws have been used as a tool against other races forever.

Carrie: Absolutely. 

Jan: And we know that. I think that’s the punctuation that that needs to be added, that we see it and we know it.

Felicia: And it’s not over. 

Jan: Correct. 

Carrie: Race continues to be a blind spot in the treatment community. Understanding systemic factors like race and class is hard, especially for white treatment providers like myself. But acknowledging these issues is essential for effectively treating communities of color.
When Felicia returned to Harlem after treatment, she was eager to address these blind spots in her community, but she also realized that she would need further education to support her new calling. 

Felicia: I have this love hate affair with my degrees because it is, you know, the license LMSW or the PhD that often perks up people’s ears and get them to listen. To things that I have been saying pre LMSW and PhD. My degree is not about what I learned in the classroom because I am a hell of a student. So yeah, my education degrees, I hold on more to my degree from UCLA, university of the corner of Lenox Avenue, more than I hold onto my degree from Fordham. 

Jan: Yeah, it sounds like that, that the degree, kind of the piece of paper really just allows you access to some tables that you might not otherwise have access to. 

Felicia: And funny enough, a lot of those tables I was already at, because of who I am. And I don’t discount the skills that I learned 30 years in media marketing, advertising and sales, and being in corporate America because I’d learned how to navigate that world.

Carrie: Felicia’s unique mix of life, work and education has empowered her to serve her community with a tremendous amount of compassion. But at the same time, Felicia still struggles to extend that compassion to herself. I asked her how she’s doing when it comes to giving herself the compassion she deserves. 

Felicia: I make mistakes every day, right? And that’s okay. I make mistakes every day. But growing up in the home that I grew up in and hearing constantly, “you are not good enough,” “you are not enough,” “you’re not smart enough,” “you’re not worthy, you’re backwards,” you begin to internalize those tapes, and then you don’t wanna admit when you fall short because it’s, “ah, look, I’ve proven them right.”
The self-compassion comes forth in accepting my shortcomings. And go, “okay, what’s the learning moment from this?” And I can show it to other people. That doesn’t mean that I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not worthy enough. It just means that I’m human. So I- you know what, Carrie, I’m- I’m getting better at it in more ways than I really care to admit. Right? A lot of it is just kind of not saying the words, “I am being self-compassionate,” but just kind of doing and being in ways that- that are not intuitive for me. 

Jan: What is allowing you to do that? What is the driving force of practicing self-compassion and self-kindness?

Felicia: I really think that having the right other voices around you is key. So when the voices around me are saying, “you’re backwards,” “you’re not good enough.” “You’re ghetto,” “you’re- you’re boughetto.” I’ve heard that one too. “You don’t stick with anything.” “You’re not a good leader.” So you begin to internalize other people’s stuff. That’s my stuff. That’s your stuff.

And so when I changed the voices that were around me, I changed the way that I thought about me. I’m grateful now, and I realize that I am a beacon for people to come toward and to leave when they get what they need. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t need people to stay with me the whole time. My abandonment issues don’t get a chance to control me anymore. So that’s self-compassion, and thank you for making me say that out loud. 

Jan: For those who have been othered or feel unsafe in their communities, letting your guard down is risky and self-compassion often needs to be actively practiced and normalized. Trauma is exhausting, but it is also insidious, layered and shape-shifting. Its impact can be difficult to fully identify. 

Felicia: And people of color, right, from the communities that we just described are also not only living in this community trauma, but generational trauma that is real. And- and it’s funny because in- I knew it was real, right? I- I look back on my own family system and the structure of matriarchal relationships among mothers and daughters in my family, and they are all, except for mine with my daughter, dysfunctional. And so that generational trauma is- is embedded in my DNA. And how do I find compassion, when it was not shown to me. It was not shown to my mother. It was not shown by my grandmother. It was not shown by my great-grandmother, nor my great-great-grandmother. So who begins to do the lesson of learning and then sharing what self-compassion looks like? And so I’ve taken that on as my job. That was nobody else’s job before me.

Carrie: Felicia’s new job looked very different from the old job she’d left, but her characteristic drive remained, and it didn’t take long for her to start having an impact in her new field. 

Felicia: While in rehab, I knew that I could not go back to media marketing, advertising and sales. I knew it, right? I’m like, “they trying to kill me, y’all. I can’t go back to doing that. She’s going back to school and I’m gonna learn how to work with other people in addiction.” 

Jan: The second Felicia finished her training, she began bringing positive non-prescriptive options for treatment to her community in Harlem.

Carrie: She also acknowledged that though she’s been able to help others, the voices in her head have not stopped. Instead, she’s changed how she responds to them, and she’s learned how to use her own voice to support her healing. 

Felicia: Yeah, I learned that the voices don’t have to overtake me. ‘Cause I still have the voices that I wanted to stop before. Right? They’re still there. I wake up in the morning, I do a morning report and now I can go, “you know you need to knock it off, right? You just arguing with yourself, honey. They don’t even know you mad at them.” Right. Having this whole argument in my head, and it’s just me. 

Jan: Felicia’s passion is a gift. It draws attention to the systemic challenges that are so often overlooked in the world of treatment. Race, culture, inequality, drug use; these are all part of the same picture for Felicia, something that an outsider might easily miss. Even though she understands all of this and speaks with such authority, Felicia also recognizes that her own healing must be ongoing.

Felicia: I’m still a work in progress. I don’t have all the answers. My answers today may be different after experiences tomorrow. Self-compassion, loving myself, allows me to love other people, and that’s something that I’m still learning. I don’t have to be loved or accepted by people who don’t have the capacity to do that for me, it’s okay. That doesn’t mean I’m unlovable.
Carrie: Is there a hope you have for the listeners in whatever journey they’re on, what wisdom would you offer them?
Felicia: This journey is different for almost everybody, right? I don’t know what it’s like to walk in the shoes of a parent who is loving a child who is using. I don’t know what that journey is like, but what I can say from the other side of that, being a child who was loved while in use, that love was invaluable to me. Somebody else loved me until I could get to the point where I could love myself. Then being able to turn that back around and show the appreciation for my mom. And my mom and my mother are two different people, right? So I’m just gonna say from my mom who loved me unconditionally, that gave me the strength, the desire, the will to want to get better and to be better, because I wanted her to see that before she left this earth. The blessing was that I put that out into the universe. And then the last thing I wanna say is that there are all of these ways that recovery can be measured without the definition of abstinence. I need people to open their lens so that they can see the possibilities of recovery for the people that are in their circle, in their community, and their family, themselves. Maybe that means I ate today. So, yeah. 

Jan: Yeah. We say we are in recovery, if we say we are. 

Felicia: Absolutely, however we define it. 

Jan: In ITC, we say that “behaviors make sense.” Felicia’s story shows us that it is also true at a community level. When substances enter a community to the degree that they have in Harlem, what is revealed is the enormous amount of pain that is being self-medicated. 

Carrie: Unfortunately, when these issues show up in the press or the political arena, the focus tends to be on the drug user and the problems they cause, rather than the reasons they turn to substances in the first place. We thank Felicia for sharing her story as it brings to light the very real and painful impact of systemic racism and generational trauma. 

Jan: We also hope that our listeners will continue to have conversations that bring attention to this pain. When we start attending to these wounds, our need to self-medicate the pain lessens and the healing can finally begin. 

Carrie: Together, we heal. 

Jan: Our hearts are with you.

Voiceover: Rethinking Rock Bottom is a production of CMC: Foundation for Change. If you’re looking for more support, visit cmcffc.org