No, they don’t -- unless they burst. Then it’s not just my chest getting scratchy. (Gravity sucks.)
After that, however, she asked me another question: Is drug use higher among the gay population? A parent, she found herself concerned that her son being gay might mean he was more susceptible to getting involved in drugs. That made some sense to me.
I should say right up front that I have never used recreational drugs, of any kind. Those older people that have crazy stories of their youth? I don’t have them. I’ve never even had an illegal drink, and I didn’t get intoxicated for the first time until I was 29. (And my friends having covered my car with self-adhesive maxi-pads while I was snoozing it off, it was a long time before I did it again.) Drugs don’t make any sense to me.
But I also know from working with students and living in all kinds of diverse communities over the years that many people do get involved in recreational drug use. And while I may wonder why anyone would get involved in what is often self-destructive behavior, none of us make the right choice all the time. I eat too much red meat. Women -- and a few of us of men -- wear high heels. Some LGBT people even vote Republican.
Accepting that, I fully expected to find that LGBT folks do have higher rates of drug abuse. If any group of people were to be involved in a self-destructive choice, it would be a group of people whose behavior and birthright have been unfairly labeled everything from dumb to demonic. Being oppressed by the world is hard to take after a while.
I was right, sadly. Drug use in the LGBT community is about two to three times higher than the general population.(1) I was also right about why: Coping with the everyday stress of social and personal prejudice is too much for some people.(2)
As always, however, it’s not as simple as that. I don’t know if that makes the whole thing sadder, or not.
Within the health care system, there are attitudes that prevent LGBT addicts from seeking help. (2) Makes sense: Are you going to feel safe talking to someone who may think you’re going to hell just for existing? Sure, maybe in Massachusetts or California you’re willing to take the risk. But South Carolina? Kansas? These are states that seem to spend their time and money making LGBTs feel hated.
Hippocratic oath aside, it’s hard to imagine popping into a doctor or counselor’s office in these more socially conservative places and feeling safe to bare one’s soul. More, it’s also a possibility that a non-enlightened health care provider will give “inappropriate or irrelevant service.”(2) So, even when you do actually talk to someone, they stereotype you, and send on your way, one more of “those people.” And while that may sound harsh, similar attitudes are known to pervade the medical care of all types of minority groups.(3)
Finally, many LGBT individuals have only felt safe socializing in “gay-safe” spaces, like bars and clubs. Here, heavily marketed products like tobacco and alcohol are easy to find, enabling those prone to addiction.(2) It also seems to me these would be easy places to find illegal recreational drugs, as well.
Well, that’s cheerey. No wonder my friend was worried.
At this point, let me say this column is not going into the perils of drug abuse. Not that they aren’t relevant, but there are other venues to discuss that: Afterschool specials, Malibu Passages commercials on CNN, and the life story of Lindsey Lohan.
I think the more important question is: What resources are there for the LGBT person who wants to get out of that world? On the surface this is simple: Just read that Passages Malibu book like all the straight people do. After all, that’s near Hollywood, and we know how well all those people are doing.
The truth is, however, like so many things in the LGBT world, what works for everyone else may not work for us. Recovery programs need to be not only tolerant of who we are, but affirming. They need people who are knowledgeable about the issues we face. It’s about the big things, like having sponsors in “Anonymous” programs that are also LGBT. And it’s about little things, like books and magazines in the waiting rooms that are specific to LGBT populations.(4)
On the surface, I thought this would seem like a pretty simple thing to accomplish. Figuring LGBT friendly hospitals might have LGBT friendly treatment programs, I was surprised to find there are more than 450 such hospitals across 47 states.(5) My excitement, however, was short-lived, and I don’t even live in Idaho, New Hampshire, or North Dakota.
For one thing, most of the hospitals are in larger cities. If you’re like me, and live just to the left of nowhere, you have a problem. Worse, however, just because a hospital has an LGBT friendly reputation, doesn’t mean they’ll have an addiction program. Like seemingly everything else in America, funding for drug treatment programs has been drastically cut.(6)
But here’s the best part: Even if you manage to find an “LGBT friendly” drug treatment program, it may not matter. According to the website Addiction Professional, of the 854 agencies they contacted offering LGBT-specific services, only 62 actually had specialized services.(7) Worse: They were all in California and New York. That’s right, when it comes to LGBT addiction recovery, Miami is the sticks, too.
Now, this is only one survey, done 18 months ago. Just surfing the web, I found a major treatment center, The Pride Institute in Minneapolis, that seems to offer such services. So, there is a little bit of hope. Indeed, having been to Minneapolis, I can tell you its a very nice place, even in winter. Even better, I’d have to think it’s very hard to do drugs when you’re freezing to death.
All kidding aside, however, this takes us right back to where we started: What resources are there for the LGBT person who wants to deal with their drug addiction? (Assuming you don’t have the means to get on a plane and drop out of your life for a few weeks.)
As there has been for years, the “Anonymous” programs do offer hope. Google them along with your city and “LGBT” and see if there are chapters nearby that can help. If there’s not, Alcoholics Anonymous at least has a printable pamphlet.(8) Other groups may have similar resources online. No, that’s not even close to the same thing, but it is a start.
As a teacher, I’ll always recommend that if there’s a teacher you trust, speak to them. Ideally, if they are a guidance counselor, that’s a plus. But I think it’s more important that they be supportive and understanding of LGBT issues than the degree they have hanging on the wall.
Well, that was a bummer of a column. Truly, I had no idea how messed up this was until I started looking into it. That “ignorance” and “bliss” thing is starting to make a lot more sense now.
If it helps, however, I would like to think things are going to get better. With society’s increasing acceptance of LGBT people, hopefully, people like ourselves won’t be as inclined to get involved in self-destructive behaviors.
Also, as LGBT people feel free to live their lives in public, they won’t have to hide themselves in bars and other places where the drug culture is more prevalent. Indeed, there is some indication this is already happening. Some gay bars are going out of business as their clientele find they can be themselves in more and more places that used to be off limits.(9)
Will these changes eliminate the problem of substance abuse in the LGBT community? Of course not. But if the incidence of drug abuse among our population could drop to that of the general population, that would save a lot of lives. Even in Kansas and South Carolina.
1) American Progress http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/report/2012/03/09/11228/why-the-gay-and-transgender-population-experiences-higher-rates-of-substance-use/
2) Think Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/03/12/442903/making-sense-of-the-lgbt-communitys-high-rates-of-substance-use/
2A) These stresses are still no excuse for voting Republican. Seriously, this is a party that voted to put discrimination IN its party platform.
3) Does race affect health care in America? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6144808
4) Addictions Counselors’ Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Clients http://hivdatf.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/addictions-counselors-attitudes-toward-lgbt-clients.pdf
4a) Note: If you enter the doctor’s office, and the television is playing FOX News, turn around and leave.
5) These Are The Most LGBT-Friendly Hospitals In the Nation
http://www.advocate.com/health/2013/07/11/these-are-most-lgbt-friendly-hospitals-nation?page=full
6) The Impact of Federal Budget Cuts on State and Local Public Safety
http://www.navaa.org/budget/13/docs/NCJA-sequestration.pdf
6a) Yes, this is the Democrats fault, too.
7) The Pitiful State of LGBT Substance Abuse Treatment Availability
http://www.addictionpro.com/blogs/michael-shelton-nalgap/pitiful-state-lgbt-substance-abuse-treatment-availability
8) A.A. and the Gay/Lesbian Alcoholic http://www.aa.org/pdf/products/P-32_AAandtheGayLesbianAlcoholic.pdf
9) Shifts in attitude kill off suburban gay bars
http://articles.philly.com/2013-07-30/news/40874287_1_bars-suburbs-lgbt