Bart currently works with Rafiki Brandymoore House under the auspices of the Black Coalition on AIDS, of which he was a part founder.

Q: When did you first start with The Black Coalition on AIDS?

When did I first start? 1986, I was their first employee.

Q: How did you get lined up with them?

I was working with Bayview Hunters Point Foundation (BHPF) and the city had nothing targeting black people with HIV/substance abuse/mental health and AIDS. That is basically why The Black Coalition on AIDS came up.

Q: What did BHPF do at that point?

It was a foundation targeting the black community around health issues. BHPF is where all the shipyards used to be- it is where all the black people used to come to work back in the 40’s and 50’s. It just developed there.

Q: Tell me about Rafiki Brandymoore House.

When we first opened the house, I opened it to begin with. It was out at Bayview. It was open to IV-drug users still actively using. Actually, we started the needle exchange out of that house because there was a crack alley right across the street. Ever since then, it has been targeting those recovering to come into the house. This house here [at the location we are interviewing in] opened in 1998.

Q: How about yourself, how are you connected to these issues?

I’m clean and sober for 20 years this year. I am a former IV-drug user. I am a veteran And I am also a person with HIV, twenty years this year as well. Actually, I became infected by sharing needles. I know that’s how I would have been infected in 1983. I didn’t know for a year until I got sick and lost 30 pounds in two weeks. I was told I had six months to live. So I went into treatment in 1984.

I have been clean and sober ever since. I went through the VA because I was a Viet Nam vet. In order to get in to treatment, I could not admit I had a drug problem. At the time they would only let you in if you had an alcohol problem. Until 1990, the VA would not accept drug users. But then it got into the methadone business and started to let drug addicts into the program. Methadone is a very big business.

Q: What was it like facing drug addiction in a VA program for alcoholism?

There were other people in there that also had drug problems.

Q: Did that staff know?

No, most of the materials and things were about being an alcoholic.

Q: And was this your first treatment program?

Yes.

Q: Why do you think it was successful for you?

I don’t think that was so successful, it was what was after that was successful. I was able to work the system. I knew if I had stayed in San Francisco I wouldn’t have made it. I left the VA in San Francisco because there was a residential program up in Mendocino that contracted with the VA in Martinez. So I put myself in the emergency room in Martinez in order to get in the program.

I was in the residential programs for six months and then the VA said- the VA paid for it- they said, “Your time is up.” I said, “If I leave I am going to go out and use.” So they kept me there for six more months. Then they said, “Well, your time is up.” And I said, “If I leave, I am going to go and use.” So they made me the house manager and they kept me there as the house manager. I spent two years there.

Q: How long was the original VA program?

Thirty days. And then a week in the Martinez VA Hospital.

Q: Where did you go after being the house manager?

I came back to San Fran and got involved, my first job was the intake coordinator for a substance abuse program called 18 th Street Services. I got certified through UC as a substance abuse counselor in 1986-1987.

Q: How did your – how did your thoughts about what was happening in your life change after being in some of these programs?

That staying clean and sober is really up to the individual. There is no treatment to me, still, I still feel this way, there is no program or treatment that can help you stay clean and sober, it has to be upon your own will. You also need a spiritual awakening. I think that happened to me in Mendocino.

Q: What was the difference between the approaches of the VA program and the Mendocino program?

It was smaller. There was individual one on one. There’s a really incredible experience. We had people come and go, people relapsed, but the intimacy and the personal trust that developed was a factor in keeping people healthy. I have yet to see that anywhere else here. I used to go back every year just to help, but the place finally closed.

Q: So what was the – you talked about a spiritual awakening- how did that play a role?

Well, I began to, there’s a lot of elderly people who are in AA. There wasn’t NA at the time, it didn’t exist. The older people there who had been in AA for 14, 15 years did not want us to talk about our own drug use. Finally this woman told me, this older woman told me that why they didn’t want to hear about it is because a lot of them were on prescribed medication, like Valium and tranquilizers and that’s drugs. That’s how they were able to stay clean and sober. Some people in AA smoke pot because they feel like they don’t have a problem with pot. So…

In terms of the spiritual awakening, I was told to do the steps- the steps of AA. That’s where I began to find my own spiritual awakening. The first step is to admit that we are powerless over drugs and alcohol and that our lives are unmanageable. I began to look at that and began to realize I wouldn’t do this mantra for the rest of my life- that my life was unmanageable and that I was powerless.

I began to find that the manageability of my life is in the universe... I don’t talk about this too often… People still can’t relate to that. The power that I get is from the source of the breath of the mother of the universe. All of that to me is very spiritual. I am totally convinced of that today after 20 years. I have seen people, I have sponsored people, and if you don’t have a spiritual awakening or a spiritual awareness, you can’t stay clean and sober. No program that I knew of really focused on the spirituality of recovery.

Q: Why does that allow success? Why is it needed?

It has a lot to do with infinite belief- that the physical state that we are in is temporary. There is a vastness that is much more powerful, much more important, that we are connected to.

It is a matter of recognizing that while we’re here.

But I also admit to you, prior to this, I had another life. I have a Masters in Theology; I was studying for the priesthood. I consider myself a recovering Catholic- because I don’t do guilt. Aha ha ha uh.

Q: Have the folks you have worked with, have they been able to find that spiritual awareness?

As long as people understand that they have to trust themselves and that they have to teach themselves how to think rather than be influenced by all the bad thoughts about themselves they’ve received from other people.

Q: Like what from other people?

Family influence; environmental; “You’re a shit;” being abused; growing up in alcoholic families, mental health families. It’s learned behavior and it carries into adulthood.

Q: Is it common with people with drug addiction problems?

Yes, with black people especially, yes.

Q: Why black people?

Because of internalized racism. Classism... Opression. I don’t know if you are familiar with Walden House. Walden House is one of the largest residential treatment centers in San Francisco. I was a therapist for them for three years after I went back to school and got a Masters degree in clinical psychology. A lot of the clients were mandated by the courts into treatment. A lot of them were black men getting out of jail. I began to deal with these issues with them. I remember the first time I asked a black man, “How do you deal with being a nigger?” And this 40 year old man had been in jail for most of his life and he just looked at me and said, “I am 40 years old and no one has ever asked me that question.” It’s about dealing with oppression.

Q: So are blacks more likely to have problems with substance addiction?

I think it feeds into problems that already exist. There is a segment of society that may have the same problems, but they are able financially to seek prescribed medication- legal medication- those who can’t afford insurance, they self-medicate. What do they self medicate with? Illegal drugs. And we’re at the worst. It is the worst I have ever seen in this country. Crack is lethal. Crack and amphetamines are just… I am so glad I am clean and sober because I know I would be hooked on them.

And I have worked with a lot of gay men and I refer to it as co-factors. The co-factor of that is depression, oppression, and homophobia; especially among black gay men. It is two fold. The culture of the black family- black men have to be someone they aren’t in order to be a part of the family. And nobody talks about it.

Q: What does that mean?

They have to be black but not gay.

Q: They are mutually exclusive?

Yes.

Q: How did that happen?

I guess… the “machoism” of the black man... When this epidemic with HIV started- why I got involved- there were so many black gay men who came out to their family and became ill and a week later they were dead because they didn’t know they were HIV infected. That I attribute to the stigma and denial of who you are.

Q: And they came out because they realized they were dying?

Yes, yes. And then the family would have nothing to do with them. We took care of a lot of black gay men who came to San Francisco simply because their family would have nothing to with them. The men would come from all over the country, mostly the Midwest- Ohio, Kentucky… From the 80’s to the mid 90’s even, black funeral parlors wouldn’t accept people who had died of AIDS. And of course a lot of HIV is attributed to substance abuse because of unsafe sex and sharing needles.

I used to work with the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention through the CDC. We went all over the country and did organizational development training. It was cultural diversity training.

Q: What was that experience like? What did you find?

The resistance to so many different facets of society- “Why can’t people just be the norm? … Why can’t people just be heterosexual?”

We had a two year contract with different states. For example, Nebraska- we worked with the Department of Health. Ohio, Indiana, Baltimore- Baltimore was just incredible.

Q: Why?

The heavy population of blacks- and there was just so much drug use there. I think because of drugs and alcohol, we are not going to win the War on Drugs because of the policies that exist, the lack of treatment on demand, it’s just not appropriate.

Alcohol is legal. You’re not going to make much progress in laying out the problems of alcoholism because of the money that it makes because of all the bars that exist. It is self-medicating. Friday night, every bar is packed. How do you get into that? It is too powerful.

Q: If the legal option with alcohol is always present, why would someone choose to use illegal drugs instead?

They use both.

Q: But what is the need for breaking the law?

It is more accessible to those living in poverty. Those in indigent situations, it is more easily accessible. Go to Union Street out in The Marina [an upscale area], which is heavily straight bars and clubs, you find alcohol, not crack. Go to the Tenderloin though… The Haight is a very heavy crack area, too.

Q: Why do you feel like crack and methamphetamines are at the worst now?

The effects on people. They are more addictive than anything else.

Q: This is a change? From 20 years ago?

God yes, yes. And people can’t get into or stay in treatment. When they come into treatment, the counselors don’t know how to deal with them because of the intensity. I think it is damaging people’s brains.

Q: Why is it people don’t go into and stay in treatment now? Is it different than 10 years ago?

I think the big difference is that crack- and amphetamines especially among gay men- it destroys rational thinking. I think it takes rational thinking in order to have some success in staying clean and sober.

Q: So are more people picking up, or because people aren’t going into treatment as much, there are more active users right now?

I think given the state of the nation, a lack of jobs, lack of education, people become board and they find a total illusion in crack or amphetamines than life … I think it is this vicious thing, that if you take crack, you think things will change. But when you come down you realize nothing has changed so you want to go back up. You take it to get rid of a problem, but you realize the problem is not going away, so you want to get high again. I call it insanity- doing it over and over expecting different results. It’s insane, totally insane.

Q: What was your drug of choice?

I did heroin twice when I was in the military. But cocaine was my drug of choice.

Q: And you injected?

Yes.

Q: With many years of professional experience now, how have your thoughts changed about why you were using drugs?

My disappointment in life. I never did drugs until I went into the military. I had never even had coffee or cigarettes. But it was the military and everyone was doing it, so I did it too. It was a total escape. I was a paramedic in Viet Nam for two years. This is where I developed the concept of self-medication. It did help. Otherwise, I probably would have been dead by now. It took the edge off. You know, it’s like every nerve in your body is screaming at you because of the anxiety, because of the tension. My first duty after training was at an Air Force base. Every morning we would drive underground to the Pentagon and from 10 o’clock until noon we would dispense Valium.

Q: Why so much Valium?

It was the Pentagon. Don’t ask me why.

Q: To the people who work there?

Yes.

Everywhere I went, we made sure we had sufficient amounts of Valium.

In Viet Nam, our supply order had more pain killers in it that we could ever shake a stick at.

In the state of today, I look at my internal environment and the external environment. And it’s not easy. My internal environment is not contaminated, but I have to keep protecting myself from the external environment. It’s toxic.

Q: Your friends from the military, or those from your days in San Francisco, have you-

Most of them are dead. Dead from HIV or drug use. Overdose. I have one friend from the military in Albany, New York. We still stay in touch after all these years. I don’t question it. I guess in reality, my life, my point is to be here with you today.

What society and what the policies don’t understand is that this is steady crisis and steady progress into chaos- there is so much ambivalence to treatment funding.

Q: Does treatment work?

Let’s say it can work. If treatment was funded to be developed, individualized the way it should be, it would work. But it’s nowhere near that. I am just one person. What I tell you is just my own experience and process. Ten thousand times my experience is what we’re confronted with. I went to Switzerland when they had the park with the needle exchange, one of the most successful programs ever developed- the HIV rate just dropped. They had this medical van there and people could get clean needles and the infection rate was totally reduced. But, it was so hard to get going here, because of the illegal nature of IV-drug use.

Q: Anything else you would want the average American citizen out there to know?

It is a health issue. It is not a crime issue.

Q: Why has it been treated as a criminal issue for so long now?

When you look at the population in jail for drug use, you will find it is mostly men of color. The means are justifiable…