Sober Queer People Face Unsupportive Community
Noel Stevens in conversation with Sarah, who runs a queer and sober meme account and chose to keep her identity mostly confidential in keeping with sober tradition.
Sarah throws a party at her Bushwick apartment for one of her roommates. She came out as queer a year ago, and her large, queer friend group attends the party. Sarah also became sober last year. But her friends have not quite caught up to her lifestyle.
She overhears one of her friends talking about her to another, so she walks over to him. He says, “yeah, I’m so proud of Sarah, she’s nine-months sober!’’ He immediately bends over to do a line of cocaine.
“There was no thought to their drinking and using in front of me,” Sarah said. Presently, three years later, she is still sober and works as a playwright and arts manager for children’s programs in Brooklyn. She asked that her last name be omitted as is standard in the sober tradition.
Sarah’s experience is not unique. It is the perfect example of how sober people are misunderstood and how queer culture fails to support its sober members. Queer people face a community where substances are prevalent and maintaining their sobriety can be a challenge.
The LGBTQ population is more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to struggle with substance abuse and addiction. They are more likely to use alcohol and marijuana, and according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, queer individuals use illicit drugs at a rate almost three times that of the rest of the US population.
There are many reasons for these numbers. Queer people face a disproportionate amount of social stigma, stress, and discrimination. Lack of resources can also play a major role. However, an often-overlooked part of the problem is gay culture itself.
“I think that drinking and doing drugs is such a big part of what the queer community does on a daily basis, especially in (New York City), and that’s how they connect and have fun,” said Sarah, who runs a meme Instagram account on the topic.
At Pride events, for example, sober people are confronted relentlessly with drinking and bar ads. Pride Month provide one of the foremost opportunities for the LGBTQ community to come together as one, but the larger festivals, concerts, and parades have come under criticism in recent years for a lack of inclusivity and reliance on corporate partners.
“The queer community, in the mainstream, is so rooted in capitalism and patriarchy that of course (Pride events) are sponsored by Svedka or whatever, because it’s about money,” Sarah continued, “it’s not about supporting the queer community as a whole. It’s about making as much money as possible for these corporations who don’t actually give a f*** about queer people, and unfortunately, a lot of queer people feed into that.”
As seen on Chicago's Pride in the Park website.
In Nashville, Tennessee, 10 of the top 47 Pride sponsors are either alcohol companies or bars, and the only three sponsors of Chicago’s Pride in the Park concert are a tequila brand, a beer brand, and a hard seltzer brand. In Texas, the #1 sponsor for Pride Houston is Bud Light. Many grassroots efforts across the country, such as the Queer Liberation March organized by the NYC Reclaim Pride Coalition, seek to create more inclusive Pride celebrations, but these major, corporate-backed events dominate the scene.
However, the problem extends to individuals as well, and there is a significant lack of understanding from many queer folks.
“My friends who were immersed in the queer community and not sober were probably the least supportive, for sure,” Sarah said, “(they) were annoyed that I wasn’t going out anymore or were pretty insistent that it was a phase, that I would be drinking with them again in a couple of months.”
Sarah says she faced ignorance and obliviousness more than anything. Some of her friends have come around and supported her lifestyle more meaningfully, but some never did.
“That was one of the hardest parts of that first year of being sober, the feeling that I had lost that community that I had just begun to be really immersed in,” she said.
Sarah’s relationship with alcohol began early in her life.
“I won the DARE award in middle school, but I was always very interested in the idea that drinking and doing drugs was cool,” she continued, “as soon as I drank and got drunk for the first time, my first drink was also my first drunk, I was like ‘oh I get it, this is so fun, I love this!’’
She was a daily drinker and drug user for about 7 years before her sobriety. Things started to turn around in her mid 20s when she came out as queer and got sober in the same year.
“I got to a point in my life where every time I was drinking, I wanted to self-harm or had suicidal ideations, and it wasn’t a safe place for me to be anymore,” she said.
She credits the help of her sober friends, saying, “I was motivated by shame and embarrassment and by the desire to keep relationships in my life. I realized I couldn’t do that if I kept drinking.”
Since committing to a sober lifestyle, Sarah has managed to find those like herself and has even gotten married.
“I have tons of friends who are sober and queer and that’s a super incredible community to be a part of,” she said. “I kind of really lucked out because I met someone at work when I was a year sober, and they are now my spouse. I got married in sobriety and my spouse is also sober. That did make it a lot easier.”
Sarah’s Instagram account, @nodrankmemes, has accumulated over 8,000 followers in 3 years. Whether that is considered a lot or not, engagement is huge.
“What started as a silly funny little page has grown into something that’s really connected a lot of people and is something that I’m really proud of and have a lot of fun doing,” said Sarah.
Credit to @nodrankmemes
If you are queer, sober, and in need of support, Herren Wellness has compiled some excellent resources. Also, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration offers a help line to the general public.