Good As You

I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate with this one. For those of us out here in the sticks, gay bars are the main places in which we can gather and feel free enough to be ourselves. That's not about drinking per se, but it is a reality for those of us living in small towns in mid-America with few entertainment options. It stands to reason then that some in the gay community might have alcohol abuse issues, especially when combined with the stress of living a closeted, or even semi-closeted life.

Now let me jump back to the other side of the argument. Straight people have alcohol abuse issues as well. I've seen them show up at our local watering hole to watch some relative perform in a drag show, and make utter fools of themselves (the straight folk, not the drag queen) after a night of drinking.

In all, I guess I'm saying it could be a good idea to target gays for alcohol abuse, but there are probably just as many good reasons for targeting other minority or sub-groups of the general population.

Keltic: I too come from "the sticks," and I know how important gay bars are in places where you desperately lack for places of acceptance. I'm very sensitive to that.

I also get why one would have an alcohol-centric group that is dedicated to LGBT people. Again, it can be a comfort thing.

I think for me, my annoyance with this piece is about tone. But I don't need or expect everyone to agree with me on it -- I just needed to state, as an NYC-based gay, that my queer reality does not at all revolve around social drinking. And I say that as one who thoroughly enjoys good alcohol.

Ok I read through the article and have a couple of comments in response to it and your comments:

-First, I realize this article was in the NY Mag but I think the doctor was discussing gay society as a whole, but using NYC for its high concentration of gay men and women, and that’s how I took the article, and I can understand the annoyance from anyone living in NYC and reading this, it does not necessarily fit in with your life, anymore.
-Yes a high proportion of Gay people have an issue with alcohol, most likely due to several issues that the author brought up about it being traumatic to grow up gay in America.
-In NYC there is a vibrant and widespread Gay culture, providing ample opportunity for socializing sans alcohol.
-Outside of NYC and other big cities this is not the case, especially outside of the North East and California, in other words, the rest of the country. These places may have a gay bar for every 100-500 miles, and getting scarcer almost everyday with this economy. And that one bar is THE ONLY place provided to Gay youth in that area to look for other friendly people.
-So if we accept the data that gay people have a higher percentage of alcohol problems, and we have most of the country dotted with Gay bars and no gay cultural centers, yes it is possible to draw the conclusion that Drinking has become an integral part of Gay culture as a whole.
-The article could have used some polishing to make it more palatable, and less focused solely on NY, but its message is clear, we as a community need to continue the fight to make it ok for a small kid from Grants NM to look forward to something besides the gay bar in Albuquerque. It’s great that in NYC or Philadelphia (where I am) we have so many options to be part of the community without alcohol but what have we done to make it so for the small towns around us. Every time I go out to the bars, as rarely as that happens now, I always see a group of young gay men and women who came in from the towns far out in rural PA, they did not come to see our community center, or see the site of the first gay protest, or spend more than 5 min in one of the last gay bookstores, no they came to go out to the Gayborhood and hit the bars and clubs. I know I did not grow up in my alcohol use until I was in a city that had so many other things to offer a gay man to do, and got in a committed relationship. I could be an anomaly but I don’t think so.

Randy: Nice, fair thoughts.

I think most of our umbrage here is that the article just makes the blanket assumption that all gay men are alcoholics. Were there a quote or some dissenting opinion in the article, we wouldn't be taking so much offense. The article is specifically about gay alcoholics, which helps to explain the lak of dissent, but it also shows some poor journalistic standards on NY Magazine's part.

At least this program is about moderation, rather than creating some other dependency through total abstinence.

I'm reminded of the episode of The Simpsons where Marge goes to rehab: The Drinkers are smoking; the smokers are drinking; and the gamblers are sleeping with anything that moves!

What motivates a clinical psychologist to make such a sweeping generalization about a group of people? This Dr. Morgenstein needs to think before he speaks. I am a scientist, and I don't know a single serious academic researcher who would make a hypothetical claim as outlandish as this. He has obviously been caught making a flippant, off-hand remark and should be called out by his peers. His remarks also raise the question of bias in his methods. If I heard a grad student speaking like this in my lab, I'd ask him which scholarly journal he was citing.

As other people have said, people in small places mightn't have opportunities to socialise in the gay community that don't involve alcohol, and a lot of people (everywhere on the sex and gender spectrum) find themselves turning to drink to cope with stressful, frightening or just plain unfamiliar situations - such as coming out and attempting to negotiate the club/bar scene.

Having said that, I live in the UK (as far as I can tell, the drinking culture is even more pronounced here) and in a fairly small place and I don't drink - and I haven't seen any evidence that "nobody wants me around" because of it (there may be other reasons, but oh! the anxiety!). I also have another gay friend who doesn't drink, and he does okay.

I go to a gay bar less than once a year. Last week, I finished up the beer that had been in its carboard box holder in the refrigerator. On the lid of the box was stamped the date: 06/21/07. This means it took me 2 years to drink 18 cans of beer. Now, this does not make me better than anyone else. However, it shows that those who try to equate being gay with varying degrees of alcoholism are nuts.

I had a drinking problem and quite 4 years ago this month. There was more peer pressure from straight people to drink than there was gay people. Nobody much cared that I wasn't drinking. Course I'm on the other side of the planet here in Chicago.