Junkie Living & Dying

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Amy dead at 27, the papers have been full of it, but is she any different from a G overdose at Fire or a middle aged gayer on a crack pipe?

It’s easy to sneer at scuzzy street junkies, scuttling off for their next drop while gayers fix themselves up in A&F Muscle Fit, a bump, a line and serial sex. This observation illustrates how we all have a scale of snobbery when it comes to junkie behavior. Someone else is always a benchmark for addiction. If someone is talented like Amy it seems wrong to cuss but if a junkie makes home under a cash machine on the street it’s easy to sound off, look down and snear.

Bears often add to their profiles ‘No druggies’ while they sup 10 pints of Newcastle Brown a night without heeding that alcohol is the oldest known drug. When I was bang at it, junkies were smack-heads, horse dealers, scat boys, skaggies or simply “on the brown”. The lowest of the low after meth drinkers. Now heroin addicts are almost respectable living on benefits, methadone and 6 packs of Special Brew. What a turnaround, well at least it helps the crime figures. Thankfully most gay men don’t go round snatching bags and mainlining in parks but in some quarters gayers at home on the crack pipe is the new hubble bubble of fashion.

Glamorous addiction never lasts, the cheeks soon turn pale. It’s easy to think that gay men just do ‘hands in the air’ club drugs, that they never have to resort to dogs on string, but the reality is that many are out there using to oblivion, nicking to survive, just like a street junkie. Stealing from banks by maxing a credit card and moving on with no forwarding address is no different, the courts would say. We are all junkies on some level but the extra luggage of shame and low esteem that homos bring to the table reflect the present day consumption of goodies that we use to escape fearful feelings, realities of life and viral intervention. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Look where SILENCE has led us – the world of illusions.
The illusion that tight tops and big Muscle Bears are somehow different from the manic street junkie is an epidemic of denial. Whether you score from a phone box or have it delivered by Addison Lee is off no consequence when you use a drug every day. Daily drugs users are not always addicts but they are junkies. Using dry cleaning fluid as a stabilizer is junk. Drug and alcohol dependency is so insidious that no one knows where the magic line is that gets you hooked.
I have seen drug fucks use for 10 years and be able to cut back or cut out within a week while others become addicted to a drug of choice within weeks and can’t stop (and never stop till they OD). Most gayers sit in the middle of social using and heavy using without becoming addicts, but heavy using can still destroy what’s left of your relationships, bank accounts and sanity. Rehabs will tell you that you don’t have to hit bottom with a habit, you can get off at the 2nd Floor, so wise up while you can, the body will only take so much.Think how many times you have gone out without a drink or drug inside you. When was the last time? When did you last have sex without stimulants? ( . . and I’m not talking Viagra). When was the last time you pigged out on comfort food and went on a binge? The propensity for JUNK is everywhere and our lifestyle of no dependents can lead us to junkie thinking of instant gratification, I want, I must have, I WILL have – the illness of self obsession. Tempering our needs and knocking out the wants leads to balanced thinking, balanced lives and less emotional comedowns – which some of you may desire but have no idea about obtaining.
Amy had help thrown at her from all directions but the illness of addiction, blocked her ears. Addiction is not choosy, it hits up the super sexy and the mundane and it’s the illness that tells you you haven’t got it. Recovery starts with ownership, awareness and surrender.
Focus this week on your own junkie behavior, it’s easy to knock someone else’s (especially a partner), try recognizing where you relapse into junkie thinking, acting out and progressive denial. Then consider a game plan for reversal toward more conscious using, for as I’ve said many times before, chems are not the problem, the problem lies in the vessel that consumes them. It’s not what you take, it’s how chems make you feel, and at some point the romance ends and you flat line into oblivion.
Living with a partner with a habit is exhausting, even more so if you join them. They may not die in body but the brain and spirit is gone, taking logic and time with them. It’s easy to think you can help, assist or fix someone, you can’t. Amy is an example of this, for until the junkie shows the white flag the battle sadly continues for all, until death.
Sadly I doubt whether Amy’s death will allow LGBT users to think twice about their own using habits, since using Amy as a benchmark for what ‘real’ addiction is, is a game well played. It’s easy to blame fame as a co-conspirator, or talents beyond management, when the reality is we all believe this stuff happens to other people, not us.

Online Dating Demands

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Just before the year 2000 an American client of mine, early thirties, had moved from darkest Cheshire to London after a relationship had floundered, and since this was his second long distance relationship that had gone tits up, he decided to seek coaching so it wouldn’t happen again. He arrived in London knowing no-one and was eager to find new friends to socialise with. Due perhaps to the American way of doing things, he was already established on-line, and avidly surfed the web to find non-sexual, non-relationship friends to befriend, and went on to tell me that he had found a great site that did just that. All ears, I asked the name and he said ‘gaydar’. I remember it well as he told tales of meetings with organists at Westminster Cathedral, barristers at the Temple and other non-sexual liaisons that brought back confidence to his emotional esteem and body image. Not many people had internet at home then, only in the office, which explained the flurry of small internet cafes that sprung up in Central London but people really didn’t take notice until EasyJet Stelios saw the market prospects and created a chain of vast ‘easyeverything’ internet cathedrals, one of which was in the Strand, one minute from HEAVEN Nightclub in Charing Cross.

So as we celebrated millennium, the holy triangle of modern day cruising was created – gaydar, ‘easyeverything’ & Heaven. Heaven of course was established decades before, but the positioning of ‘easyeverything’ across the road from Europe’s largest gay club, meant that cruising continued on across the road, as gayers wacked up the megabytes. Stories were shared of guys going on gaydar and standing up beside the terminal to check out trade online, who was doing the same at the other end of the room, even though it was still a ‘friends’ site then with conservative profile graphics and pics, quite unlike the sodomistic displays on view today. What with the likes of gayromeo, manhunt etc, gaydar no longer rules the roost, and with grinder hot on it’s heels for instant gratification, I can see why many profiles consist of one sentence and a cockshot. Now all this flies in the perception that gays are creative, innovative and cheerleaders in the fashion stakes. God help us. Give a guy the chance to write his own press release in 70 words and he becomes as silent as a ventriloquists dummy put to bed. Not just that but a lot of cut & paste is going on with meaningless repeat copy, culled off other buff boy profiles. Even worse “ask me” seems to be gay writers block, or dumbing down to chav up the offer of knob action.
Think differently, to stand out from the scrum. I once placed an ad in a personal column that simply said ” Nosey cow seeks a peek in unusual homes. Dinner would be nice. ” Even I was surprised by the response and trust me, I ate well. Just as it’s easy to duplicate a gym look, club look or indie look in order to fit in, it’s even easier to duplicate a profile look. Just copy everyone else. No one ever asks for a total bastard, they always seek someone open and honest when the writer has knocked 10 years off their age and wonder why they get a cheating total bastard. Try to avoid that ‘good conversation, hot times & horny sex’ lineage, it’s a waste of words and means nothing. It only indicates you have nothing to say and expect everything in return. Don’t be afraid to list your defects. Quentin Crisp always said that the most interesting thing about a person is what your friends call ” the trouble with you is . . . and yes admit that you’re not looking for a saint. Deception seems to be the drug of choice on the dating net these days, so if the shag develops into a date then expect to tell the truth faster. London appears to be awash with ‘open’ relationships that seem ‘closed’ when it comes to telling the truth. On your profile avoid a list of “dont’s’. Bears have a habit of insisting on ‘no druggies” while downing 15 pints in The Kings Arms, and yes it’s amusing to write ‘no snobs”, when writing it down is acting out snobbery in reverse and maybe it’s best to forget about sex at all and get back to basics by returning to finding ‘friends’ instead of shags, as occurred on 90’s gaydar. Then you can converse before backdoor entry and learn to ‘date’ and make better choices about who enters your life.
But before you get to that stage you might consider a different profile to attract a different reader, someone who is more interested in your 70 word bio than a pair of tighty whiteys and an iphone flash in a mirror. What you write reflects who you really are and if you can’t be bothered then you are declining those who do bother. Just 70 words could change your life and change your perception of the internet meat rack. I also suggest you log onto chat at different times of the day, if you keep getting messy mishaps at your door, 4am is not the best time to seek a date mate. Publish your real age, not your gaydar age, put up pics with a date on it or under it and don’t be afraid to put forward an unusual request. Someone will love you for it, it’s just a question of waiting when quality comes before quantity.

Holiday Romance

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It’s that time of year for the holiday romance and time to feel the heat. For some it will be the birth of a long distance relationship based on a flurry of excitement, projection and great sex. Meeting the perfect partner on vacation is tempting but speed bumps need to be in place, before emotions override distance and logic. It’s easy to become a human ambulance wherever we live, or travel to, and romance coupled with a desire to rescue, can end in tears all round. Some of us already have experience of rescuing when it comes to relationships, or feeling the pain, plight, guilt and entrapment of others, especially if he’s young, hung and insolvent.

THE RESCUER is a role within the co-dependent model of relationships and is just as likely to occur with gayers as a str8 dad finding a visa bride. It’s in our genes. In the 1950/60’s torrid gay literature often explored the role between an older upper class gentleman rescuing the young working class ruffian into a differing opportune world, resulting in a father/son type union. The son grows into a man, leaves the father, much remorse, tears, tantrums and resentment (… after all I have done for you…etc ), resulting in the lonely twilight world of homosexual life that novels and tabloids loved to portray at that time before decriminalisation. Nowadays twilight has been replaced with highlighted hedonism as credit cards are spunked for survival, and older gays are no longer dependent on attracting youth. But the holiday romance in third world economics can turn the head for all the wrong reasons. Straight guys think they are seeking a loving lifetime relationship (after a week of scanning profiles) when in reality they seek regular sex with someone beneath them in economic scarcity, to control, demand and rescue. Modern 21st Century gayers can play the same rescue role at any age on the internet except this time it’s not about the class system on the printed page. It’s about wealth and like straight guys the power of the wallet reigns, exploitation in the guise of love, a credit card plane ticket for the new beau in an instant.

I’m sure you have known of guys on Gaydar in London who have flown to Brazil a week later to “fall in love”, then manipulate every angle to bring the lover home, all within a month. But you don’t need a holiday romance to be the rescuer, plenty of relationships back home start because one has less than the other, less friends, less money, less confidence. Finding a stray dog with no friends to possess or someone with chem habits that need fixing are par for the course for the codependent of any sexuality. Paying your partners credit card bills as an act of love and devotion only enables your partner to be rescued yet again, rarely breeding personal responsibility for themselves. Clients and friends often bemoan that “they have been ripped off” when THEY handed their pin number to their significant other in the hour of need. At the time it was a good feeling to be of value, to help, assist and nurture, later developing into resentment when the investment failed to pay off and the relationship ends. Helping someone out is not rescue or a human ambulance but we all know someone who makes a people-pleasing career of it in order to be liked and loved. If you can’t afford to lose it don’t give it. Helping a lover out is a good thing, but not adding boundaries or payment review is not. Love needs to be practical when it comes to money.
Nurturing a holiday romance in order for it to continue has great value but you need to give time, time, and be realistic. Starting a long distance relationship needs equality and responsibility on both sides. Bringing a lover to the UK or flying off on a whim sounds romantic but it doesn’t mean it’s realistic. I know couples who met this way and have created good solid union through facing realism and shared responsibility, though a holiday romance often remains simply that, a chance to let our fences down, to flirt, to live in a dream space. Remember how many clothes you bought in the sun that look faintly ridiculous on the grey streets of London? Draw your own conclusions. 
Some things are just meant to be temporary.

Bugger Politics, let’s party.

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Having witnessed the aftermath of London’s PRIDE event, rinsed of any LGBT suggestion in it’s title, many Stonewallers will echo Cameron’s mantra ‘We’re all in this together’ as a badge of progress. Str8 actings on gaydar, str8 acting marriages at the altar and straight men ( who have sex with men ) indicate that the gay sensibility is no longer in vogue. Thank God for drag queens I say, and twinks like Harry on The Only Way Is Essex, to carry the fierce flag of gay individuality. I fear waking up to find a gay scene styled by NEXT, but thanks to those fashionistas in the East End who certainly know how to cause a stir : geeks are  now in, muscle mary’s certainly are out. Thin is in. Before dress code clones in the 70’s, styled by America, London swinging sixties gayer’s had their own stylist hero. Not many realise as they do the cottage in Carnaby Street, that the street’s fame was started by outrageous John Stephen, a scottish queer who created the swinging sixties peacock revolution for men. He sold women’s knickers and created see-through lace and chiffon shirts for males to strut in, and high stacked collars to wear in clubs like La Duce, a gay mod club in ’67. How many of those ‘marchers’ blowing whistles down Regent Street were even aware there IS a gay history? Thanks to Thatcher’s Clause 28 & Minister Gove it’s not taught in schools so much.

However, current gay shame was alive and well in the streets of Soho over the weekend as vomit and pinned pupils were common markers of FREEDOM to be who you are. Many on Facebook updated, that PRIDE is now just an excuse for a piss-up and that Compton Street was beyond sanity by dusk. We have been soaked in shame for centuries, and each same-sexer is still tainted by this genetic lineage. Check the history boys. Sodomy became an English civil crime in 1533 and then became a criminal offence in in 1592, although it had been a capital crime under ecclesiastical law long before this. Cases could be tried through the Assize Courts or the Quarter Sessions and, if convicted, the accused was hanged. In order to prove sodomy, however, several elements had to be demonstrated and both penetration and ejaculation had to occur – one in itself was insufficient and there needed to be two witnesses who could attest to both factors being present. Legal jargon meant that if one man grassed on the other, both would be hung, (not what you think) so 16th Century gayers played the game of silence. However, courts usually passed a pillory sentence if intent had occurred, bummers were placed in stocks on public view (in London: on the Strand outside The Royal Courts of Justice) where the throwing of rotten fish, mouldy fruit, doggy doo and stale piss from piss pots were thrown our way. This became standard public humiliation for the likes of us, way before we were called homosexuals in the Victorian age. Blacks were treated as slaves and we were treated as shit, black history reclaimed the past with pride and we need to go back way before Stonewall to quell the shame.The genetic shame of these events remains tightly inside every English gay arse. So giving yourself the GIFT OF HISTORY can assist you in recognizing that you are a small knot in a trail of collective energy, but joined together the rope is strong enough to hang ourselves. The rope we can hang ourselves with today is internalized homophobia and apathy.

Not many are aware that Oscar Wilde went down ( to the cells ) because of shit on the sheets, evidence of sodomy provided by his housekeeper, soldiers during the wars were accused of “taking it up the Marmite” if emotional boundaries were crossed and fondness occurred. Now str8s have gone gay on the anal front, it’s all the rage apparently boy on girl. Twenty years ago in America ACT-UP speared homophobia by reclaiming the word QUEER within the shamed shadow of AIDS. In the UK the queer movement started just before LOVE MUSCLE hit the Fridge in ’92 and ended up dissolving itself with New Labour promises for equality. GAY PRIDE was everywhere so we started ‘parading, not complaining’. Now the new UK Queer Resistance Movement : Queers & Allies Against the Cuts and fighting hate stickers in East London has created our own ‘2011 Gay uprising” bringing politics and social network ‘complaining’ back to the community.

About time too.

We are in no doubt that London remains the queerest capital in the world with the broadest table of amusement but we might as well be back in 1533 when it comes to GAY SHAME. For centuries we were judged and now we need to judge ourselves, it’s time to take personal responsibility laying down, for if we don’t release the many forms of gay shame from our antics and our compulsive behaviors the party will end before time and we will not deserve to feel a pang of GAY PRIDE. As I have said many times before, freedom comes from inside – not from a flag. No one is suggesting you halt bum stuff or chem feasts, but your lifestyle could be a celebration of unity, history and PRIDE, a glorious tribute to those same-sexers hung at Tyburn Gate, Marble Arch in the 16th century for the sin of sodomy. In homage to these brave warriors,respect your body and those who invade it, respect your own personal history – it is as unique as DNA – and give yourself the GIFT OF HISTORY by checking out your defects of character that defend your actions, regular comedowns that increase in addictive cycles and lifestyles that stop you from feeling proud. Somewhere along the line you are still connected to the stocks, the public shame and suppressed secret desires. Next year is WORLD PRIDE in London, it’s a tough call to be a role model to those gayers struggling around the world, but for once we must bring politics back to the party and honour our gay sensibility, past and present.

Freedom

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In some quarters to admit “being in therapy” is as shaming as owning membership to the Jan Moir Fan Club, so you might wonder why gayers seek it, pay for it and continue the process of on-going examination. Coming out as “being in therapy” is the new celebrity ring-a-ding these days, going into REHAB is so over, unless your recording contract insists on it. In order to experience real freedom most need to sacrifice something, including the freedom to be reckless in our lives. You may think that having a freedom flag mouse mat while you lose 6 hours on Gaydar, is the freedom to be who you are but REAL freedom comes from inside – not from a flag.

To find that freedom, a sense of balance and a wake up call is the reason many smart gayers choose therapy, counselling or coaching of any kind as a route to change. In decades gone, it was all about “accepting yourself as gay”, now it’s about “accepting yourself as a crack whore”, serial debtor, codependent, a boozer or someone who just CAN’T find a relationship. I blame Thatcher. It was the mad month of March 1988. Thatcher brought in Clause 28 and free newspaper Capital Gay said “unless you get out on the street, Thatcher will close the Gay Bars. Until that time I had never seen 36,000 gayers and their str8 friends in one place, but I remember looking back on the march when we reached Piccadilly Circus, and all I could see as far as the eye could see, was US. Now that’s REAL freedom, and instead of controlling gays Thatcher was actually responsible for the 60,000 people who turned out for the 1988 Summer Gay Pride March that same year. Yes we marched then, not celebrated. How times change.
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In the late eighties and just after, you only “had therapy” if you were close to someone with AIDS, had AIDS or had received an HIV+ diagnosis and told you were about to die. It seemed we weren’t affected by other diseases aside from the dis-ease of being a gayer, we had no other mental or physical health issues. In 1998, a decade on, I was invited by EUROPRIDE (that year in Stockholm, Sweden) to present my own series of seminars I started in London in 1994 called QUEER LOVE QUEST, to be the first Gay Personal Development Programme ever to be part of the official Europride festival itinerary. The tide had turned and a claxon of gay issues like homophobia, ageing and addictions were being addressed in an open political way. Thatcher had long gone, Nu Labour was the flavour, combos had arrived and our freedoms began, but without that vile attack by Thatcher, we would still be simpering and apologising, sitting on the fence.
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Many different forms of therapy exist, but the purpose is the same, FREEDOM from the past and present habits, resentments, toxic shame and guilt. Watching ITV’s Loose Women the other day I was shocked that half the panel saw therapy as “self -indulgent “. Codependency has often been described as a pattern of behaviour where you lose your own sense of self while caring for, parenting, worrying, rescuing or taking too much responsibility for others. Along the way we have been told that others come first, so I can see that within this context caring for yourself would be “self-indulgent”. Prompted by some gay activists we have been told for so long that we are just like straights now and should not have “gay issues” anymore, we are just humans not defined by sexuality. Unfortunately the “issue” is still that you can’t walk down an average street holding your same sex partners hand in complete freedom. Until we can do this with ease we have no cause to wave a flag. Until we can safely get off a bus and not hear homophobic abuse from feral youth or be beaten to death for standing our own ground we will not feel free. In order to handle these outside interferences therapy can teach you to feel free from attack, free from the judge and jury in your head, and free to live in the world of extras. I call it this because when you reduce a habit, or change an unhealthy routine you find extra time, extra interests and extra pride in yourself.
So while you fiddle with your mouse mat consider where you feel FREE today – is it on grinder for a spontaneous shag, or having a purse of disposable income, a chance to be yourself in a relationship, to speak honestly avoiding people pleasing, or do you think that you still have “issues” that cost you more than money. Maybe you think that being political is only for activists, that your voice and vote don’t count. All forms of therapy create awareness and in a lot of cases a realisation that we are not as free as we think. The usual escape routes we encounter encourage procrastination and denial. Are you going to sit back when a vigil takes place in Trafalgar Square, to fight against energies that hate your very existence? Are you going to stand in a bar or make a stand in a square? While you ponder that, consider the 36,000 that marched that winters day in 1988 for the right for YOU to feel free and ask yourself how political you are, what you do about it and how loud your voice is. The recent events in East London have spurred the young into reality, marching, shouting and proclaiming against hate. To do so with such vigilance is a combination of freedom and therapy. Join them and see how therapeutic it is. Then wave the freedom flag.

Gay Pokies

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Do gayers get excited about pokies? You might think it’s just a Facebook thing, a sexual flirt, when in fact pokie addiction is destroying lives worldwide.

In Australia & New Zealand the problem is out of control and in Northern Europe countries like Estonia have more casinos than theatres and cinemas. The old one arm bandit has progressed to buttons but the endgame is the same, the longer you play a pokie, the more likely you are to lose all the money you put in the machine. Now we all know someone who can’t handle their booze, their G or Tina but how many GAY GAMBLERS do you know?

When you look at the gay lifestyle some may say we gamble every day with unsafe sex, drugs, pick-ups and the threat of homophobic abuse. But it’s true that admittance of self-fisting has more merit than owning up to debt caused by games of chance, such is the shame around gambling your life away. When I finally gave up booze and drugs (before they gave me up I might add), I thought I drank heavily because I was gay only to discover that I drank alcoholically not homosexually. My sexuality lifestyle encouraged an addiction but was not the cause of it. A gay alcoholic is the same as a straight one and the same rings true for gamblers. I had mentioned in a previous blog elsewhere on Internet Addiction: “Think chinese plate spinning, think tight concentration, think edging. Much like the addictive gambler who sits at the table for hours, lost in the spell of playing the game, net users can spend long periods of time in a trance like state…”

This trance like state is part of gaydar attraction, fixated on what’s gonna come up rather than what’s sitting on your plate, chinese or otherwise. Notice how high street gambling spots now look like social meeting places, we have 3 in a short stretch of Camden High Street with rows of pokies plus refreshments. You are likely to easily spot an alkie down Camden High Street but can you spot a gambler? They remain more closeted than closets. How many gay men do you know who enter the doors of William Hill for leisure? The law of average suggests they do. How would you know if your flatmate, partner or friend is a compulsive gambler since secretive behaviour is part of the deal? Gambling, like using, can be recreational but when when you start to lose more than money it may be time to get real. Like other escape routes, gambling doesn’t start as a problem, some use it to avoid feelings of depression or see it as a pleasant way of escaping life’s responsibilities. Others see it as a stimulator, a mode of excitement much like a drug high. Eventually it becomes the norm and because the addictive personality demands so much more, it’s automatic to play harder with higher stakes, no different from the average clubbers weekend cocktail of substances, highs, lows and justifications. Same meat, different gravy.

It’s easy to think that this blog doesn’t apply to you but look further. You don’t have to roll a dice to deceive. Switching credit cards, robbing peter to pay paul, cheating, lying and focusing on the future and not the present moment are all components of active addiction. Most of us have no idea what we owe, we just avoid the issue of payback time. Debt is the new bareback. Another gamble.

When you think about it, gayers are more inclined to be self sufficient, we don’t hunt in gangs like straight lads for sex, we are prone to secretive sexual antics (things we would NEVER discuss with our mates), are best placed in careers where we act alone, risk chem abuse more often and act quickly on sexual impulse. Older gay men are becoming reliant on the web rather than risk face to face in a bar. On-line sex and the need for instant gratification are seedbed practices for online gaming – real poker instead of pokies. It is the fastest growing addiction and you can see why, you don’t have to look your best for starters and with a couple of grams for companionship and a fist full of cards, your dreams can come true. Except no one knows about it. Especially when you can’t remember what you spent. It’s a bit like signing up for a porn site off yer face and 6 months later you still can’t understand why this monthly figure from nowhere keeps appearing.

Gambling alone is one thing but gambling within a relationship is the biggie. We all read the stories of the husband who has gambled away the house without the wife knowing. There must be a gay version. Not everyone who gambles is compulsive, not everyone who uses is an addict but it is clear that gayers are spending more pro rata web time than straights and this will increase as habits develop. Getting your own house in order with regular review is as wise as gym work. Great tits, shame about the court judgements does not make a great T shirt nor will it impress your new lover, unless he is a babysitting, parenting, fixing, rescuing codependent. And there are plenty of those around.

Drowning in Booze?

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For most gay men on the lash, the thought of abstaining from booze fills them with horror, even if their present lifestyle is horrific in chaotic content, to the outside observer. Judgement never worked for me when I was bang at it, so don’t expect it in sessions. However it’s wise at some point to judge your own behaviours with experienced guidance.

When a client has an alcohol dependency, they usually “do too, too much” on a regular basis, which doesn’t always mean they are alcoholic. Although I have been clean & sober since the early eighties via 12 Step programmes I don’t use this material in my work, they can go to meetings if they want to pursue this path and abstain, a day at a time.

One of my clients was asked by ATTITUDE MAGAZINE to write his experience of getting off booze for the September 2010 “ISSUES” Issue, a dedicated spread of 12 pages around addictive & compulsive behaviours that affect gay men.

KEITH, 42, Project Manager, London.

” When I stopped drinking in September 2007, having been an alcoholic all my adult life, people started to ask : ” How did you know you were addicted?” It’s a difficult question to answer as everyone is different, but a good indicator is when any addiction you have starts costing you more than money. My illness, or to put it another way, my inability to cope with alcohol, was responsible for me fucking up in every job I ever had. I maxed out credit cards, had no sense of perspective and my life was a heady mix of addictions and chaotic living.

Most recovering addicts will agree that you have to reach rock-bottom in order to wake up from the coma ( of alcohol, and in my case drug dependency as well ) and it was for me although, unlike many others, I’ve never entered any treatment rehab or attended AA/NA meetings as yet, to pursue recovery.

I’d been on the lash in the Two Brewers one night. I couldn’t remember getting home and when I woke in the morning, I called work and concocted some spurious excuse for me not being able to come in. Maybe I’d had enough as my excuse was flimsy, see-through and fooled no-one. All the years of having to build lies to cover up my using ( which everyone saw through at once – the only person who believed the lie was me ) had taken their toll. Another job was hanging in the balance so I decided that I was too tired to carry on living this way and did something about it. I picked up the phone and called David Parker, as he had come recommended and was known as ‘Clublands Therapist ‘ on the scene.

We started working together in October 2006 and I set out on a path of  “purposeful using” as David calls it, which in a nutshell means using ( alcohol & coke ) on special occasions only. This was for me to decide my level of dependency. There were hits and misses, and in this first year I didn’t define myself as alcoholic, but there was plenty to unravel as the alcohol had been masking a whole raft of issues, including co-dependency, and low self-esteem. It was only after a year in therapy that I admitted to myself and everyone that I knew that I was alcoholic, and in many ways it was a relief to label myself as such, as it was proof that I was unable to deal with alcohol and would never be able to safely drink again.

It would be a lie to say that I haven’t been tempted but given where I am now compared to three years ago, going back simply isn’t an option. The vast majority of my friends have been wholly supportive of me. True, there have been one or two who resented me getting well but I guess that’s bound to happen. It’s one thing getting sober but the real test is staying that way, so I observe my thoughts and actions on a daily basis. I’ve been sober and off drugs for almost 3 years and there will ( I hope ) be many more ahead for me. The key to success is remembering what made me drink and how it made me feel so I’m not tempted to pick up a drink again – in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years time. “

http://www.attitude.co.uk/

As my client discovered, being coached into booze solutions leads to other areas of opportunity and improvement. In the timespan I worked with him he also stopped smoking ( and has stayed stopped ), gained emotional esteem, lost weight, created a regular gym regime, dealt with debt and is now in surplus, started dating again, gained career growth and started his own business. What’s not to like?

Sacrifice

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Before chems became the main course and not the starter, GAY MEN’S HEALTH was all about not catching the lurgee, the gay plague bestowed upon us by an unknown force and according to Donna Summer in the ’80’s, it was the Lord himself shouting down from above – no more bum fun for you lot. Sacrifice your pleasures. While we are on the subject of anal temptation, ask any straight boy how they like it and it’s up the botty every time. Not their own of course, that’s for late night net chat fantasies, no it’s how they like to feel the force with a lady, so it’s not just prime homo territory as people assume. In the 1930’s anal penetration was grounds for hetero divorce in the courts and I gather was more popular than adultery when it came to sealing the deal.

You would think by the amount of HIV related material rammed down our throats for over 20 years, that it’s the only disease we suffer from. All government funding around HIV/AIDS began to dry up in the mid-nineties from the HIV pot when combos came in in 1996, it was combos or support services, not both, so fundees hunted around and found excess cash in the Mental Health budget to continue filling the AIDS industry coffers. PACE popped up, other agencies appeared but still the main focus remains HIV/AIDS. Even PACE’s strapline still says . . . sex, relationships & HIV. This serves to collude with the notion that HIV is the main issue for gayers when in fact (as any prison or hospital will tell you) alcohol and drug abuse is the REAL issue for individuals. So in order to serve the PC world of funding, we put the cart before the horse. No one dare speak of the elephant in the room, the love that dare not speak it’s name: we take too many drugs.

The amount of gay addicts around is very small compared to a majority who know they do “too much”, and it’s this grouping that maybe needs to consider a more purposeful approach to getting trashed.

No one wants to stop the party – just leave earlier, it’s an easy sacrifice to make. Many Doctors remain frustrated that recreational drug use is compromising the work of combos, that gay mental health is only brought up when a G overdose is mentioned, that Hep C amongst gay men is rising fast within those with positive status. Places like PACE can attract those already interested in the healing process, and it’s good that they exist but that big majority who do “too much” would rather eat a snakes cock that present themselves at those hallowed doors, or enter a support group.  If this was not true, PACE would not need a big ad budget to promote and sign people up for FREE workshops – the queue would already be there.

The reality is that groups are just not AD FAB enough, nor is the concept of self observation of any kind. The scene is being dominated by induced emotions via chems, unsafe sex is being acted out via alcohol, dry cleaning fluid, horse tranquilliser and home made meth factories : not really what Oscar Wilde had in mind is it?. Doesn’t it make sense to reduce the stuff we put in our bodies before we stuff someones brain out?

Just because I haven’t used chems or alcohol since the early ’80’s, does not delete me from debate. In order to stay alive I needed to sacrifice, let go, wake up and create my own place in the gay arena without chemical support.

It was hard at first, living with Chronic Active Hep B, a virus 100 times more infectious than HIV, as an unknown supercarrier infecting other gay men for 12 years without any symptoms myself. When I finally stopped using and drinking, my cirrhosis scarred liver worsened into liver failure again and again. My eventual recovery without medication of any kind, plus a lot of personal development and breathwork therapy, released the Hep B virus in 1996 from my body, the same year combos arrived for those suffering with the impact of the HIV virus.

So I know it’s possible to change lifestyle, thought patterns and habits.

The keyword is SACRIFICE. Now I know that sounds a bit religious but the truth is that if we reduced our intake of chems, became consciously responsible enough to wear condoms and drank less, the HIV figures would tumble. Yet the services available and the funding required for drug & alcohol support agencies, especially gay ones, is a piss in the ocean compared to the HIV gravy train.

The cart before the horse is not going to win the race. No one is suggesting stopping the booze or avoiding coke but jesus, look at yourselves. Without checking out yourself and taking action, denial will remain a constant companion and its a difficult friend to drop, but without the concept of sacrifice we will not survive the turmoil. The credit crunch has woken us up to debt and if banks carry out the threat of hiking up the minimum payment for credit cards then many gayers are going to have to change address, gone away, address not known.

If each gayer reduced intake of substances, relationships would change, depression and comedowns would be lessened and people could stand a chance of finding themselves again. I can’t safely use again, I crossed that magic line into addiction, but you can check out your habits and reduce party pleasure before the future need to checkin to a rehab. It just takes a little sacrifice on your part, a little practice each day to create a big result. Start making a list now of where to begin this worthwhile journey of consciousness and personal responsibility.

Living in balance

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It’s ironic that most of us choose or have chosen a stimulant to balance us ; booze, gear, puff or nicotine for example, at first it works then it starts to get out of hand, it gets too much and then we are hooked into being taken hostage, kidnapped until we set ourselves free. Recognizing that we are not the most important person on the planet is a beginning in unfurling the freedom flag. Freedom comes from standing back and making informed choices rather than letting the ego run amok. It’s easy to think we are missing something if we don’t join in. Many people don’t possess a mobile phone, an ipod or have access to a computer, and more than survive. Many have learnt that it takes courage to be with yourself, to sometimes dispense with the demands of others or living the “gay lifestyle” whatever that means. In other words, it’s OK not to fit in.
” There’s just too much – too much to learn, too much to see, too much information, too much technology, too many techniques, too many ways to pleasure, too many ways to pain. Too much! How can we be expected to take it all in and deal with it? Perhaps we don’t have to take it all in OR deal with it. What a relief to know that we can go deeper and deeper into whatever we wish, and through that exploration come to understand the everything. Since all of creation is a whole and the oneness of all creation is a reality, our world is indeed a holo-movement or hologram. In exploring the depths of one thing, we gain wisdom about others. Our task, then, is to see what calls to us, what piques our imagination, what stimulates our being and asks us to delve deeper and deeper into it. When we follow this calling, we will find balance. “

These wise words of Anne Wilson Schaef remind me that my current intuition has value. When I was bang at it, using chems every day, I thought that spontaneous thinking and acting out was intuition. What I discovered with therapy was that I was addicted to imbalance and that this spontaneous acting out was unhealthy, unfounded in wisdom, and detrimental to my health. Basically I couldn’t trust myself and conned myself that I could. Most of us come into a recovery space, therapy or personal growth to find balance but the moment we start searching the net, self help books or lists of therapies we can easily become overwhelmed with too much knowledge or choices. Best if we leave it another day then.

Delving deeper into yourself, to check where you harbour imbalance takes investment. It’s not cheap to hire a therapist, coach or counselor but then we cheapen ourselves by NOT delving deeper into what makes us tick, continue to hold resentment or end up with lost weekends, mobile phones and dignity. Think of all the ways you hide from your true self by getting trashed, buying clothes you don’t need with credit cards you have no idea what you owe, using coke to get the party started and deceptions that linger within your soul. All this costs time and money.
Taking the risk to dig deep into your patterning and re-balance your mind proves to be a wiser way to deplete your bank account and create balanced living. Anne Wilson Schaef continues ” In exploring the depths of one thing, we gain wisdom about others. ” What most of us find in therapy or coaching is that we are quite mad. When we get clearer about our own madness we see that the world is madder than first thought. No wonder Antony Newley sang ” Stop the World – I want to get off “. But the result of any therapy is to decide which world we want to live in so ask yourself that question, take stock and seek balance. What perception of the world ” out there ” do you have “. It is after all only a mirror image of your inner world view. Think sanely in balance and the world will change around you.

Empowerment

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In the ’80’s Empowerment was bigger than big hair, and our Joanie as Alexis Carrington led the way. Big hair, big power shoulders and big drama on Dynasty had us hooked and at the same time our m8s were going down like flies to AIDS so the buzz word was EMPOWERMENT. At this time I was undergoing my own drama’s – recovering from active addiction, personal bankruptcy, cirrhosis of the liver plus living and dying with chronic active Hepatitis B Virus that had no cure. This is how I came to empower myself.

Every AIDS movie had to have 2 props, one was a token screaming queen and the other a copy of Louise L. Hay’s YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE on the bedside cabinet. If you don’t believe me watch Philadelphia, the 1993 Tom Hanks movie.

When the book was published in 1984 she began creating and leading support groups for people living with HIV/ AIDS – she called these ” Hay Rides ” – for around 300 gay men who were told they were about to die. I got sent the book in 1984 from a friend in San Diego along with an AIDS tape with a guided meditation which I used every night for 3 years. By 1990 I hit the big 50 mark of people I knew who had died of AIDS, many gay recovering addicts and alcoholics with immune systems too weak to withstand longevity, then I stopped counting cases and going to funerals. Between 1994 -96 I worked with people who had a CD4 count under 10 and many in single figures. I assisted those dying in completing this lifetime but many are still alive today with combos, but combos are not empowering unless you HEAL YOUR LIFE alongside it – habits will return unless observed with intent for change.

During the 80’s you only had therapy if you had AIDS or experienced breakdown. Now we talk more about harm reduction rather than waiting to crash and burn. Therapy is now the stuff of glossy mags and pub talk but many still see therapy as fashionable nonsense rather than EMPOWERMENT. Look at Alexis – she powered herself on the outside – Big Shoulders, Big Eyes, Big Ambitions. Well it may get you noticed but it won’t get you sane. The birth of Muscle Marys came out of AIDS when young men became skin and bone before our eyes so we began to bulk up & beef up, but Empowerment comes from having the courage to look inside and not being concerned with the wrapping. Aussiebums never healed ANY life to my knowledge, but therapy has saved millions to balanced thinking & living.

Although parts of the book may feel too New Age and dated now, you cant deny that it has sold 35 million copies in over 30 languages and is still on the New York Times Best Seller List 25 years later. Louise wrote about Empowerment as a natural act and rather surprised that people hadn’t cottoned on to this simplicity – that thoughts are creative. If your mind or lifestyle is crammed and speedy look upon therapy of any kind, including bodywork, as a speed-bump that slows you down to a code of observation. Only by observation can you empower yourself or to put it another way – you can’t get well until you realise how sick you are.

You may ask yourself whether you are a grab-it-all like Alexis powering through with rancidity, swinging those big shoulders to the left and right barging through. Perhaps you have chosen to sound like this but the power is all show because when it comes to saying NO to someone, you always say YES to keep the peace. Maybe you think you are empowered being in a VIP area or on a guest list. You may also may want to check the fuel you use to power the engine.

This weeks REHAB exercise is to ask friends how they see you. Quentin Crisp always said that the most interesting thing about a person starts with ” the trouble with you is . . . So don’t ask your friends how good you are, cut to the chase and ask ” so what’s the trouble with me . . .?  Learning not to take criticism personally and taking it on the chin as constructive feedback is real empowerment. So take a breath, listen & learn.