More and more the medical community is discovering that the reason some drug treatment facilities do not work for minorities originates in the lacking understanding of the specific culture minorities bring with them to the facility.  Some of the modules used in rehabilitation centers are foreign and more than improper suggestions of how to deal with addiction.  The various twelve-step programs that all at their core urge addicts to say they are powerless to their addiction and must submit to a greater being are actually more harmful than helpful, especially to those in the African American Community.  Counseling with people who are strangers to them is also unhelpful.  Because these steps do not fit their culture, many African Americans often feel tentative and uncertain about approaching addiction treatment.

Solutions to this timidity come in the form of pretreatment interventions and other methods that aim to help in easing addicts into a treatment for drug addiction. Not only does it help addicts to enter the facility, but they also stay longer.  Of course, there still needs to be more research done on what methods work well and which don’t, and which work together the best as this research is still in its infancy stages.

In a study done in North Carolina using the idea of a pretreatment as the foundation for drug rehabilitation entry and maintenance.  Finding substance abusers took more of street approach, using peers to do a chain campaign and also allowing regular self-referrals.  People eligible for the program had be at least eighteen years old and the applicants had to say they considered the African American identity their identity.  They could not have participated in another rehab program for ninety days prior, and had to have abuse crack cocaine for at least thirteen days in the past three months.  With such criteria, the researchers were able to provide themselves with a good background for their study, which proved hopeful and showed that the way minorities are given drug and alcohol abuse intervention must change.

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