Sober at the gay bar

[xchrom]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/mark-twain-letter_n_5268842.html



“We have to keep drinking,” my friend said, “or our personalities will get worse.”

Four of us sat at a high top in Big Chicks, a gay bar/restaurant/euchre-tournament venue within walking distance of my apartment in Chicago. All around us, porn-stached men looked past each other, trying to find their friends or their potential friend-for-the-night. My table ordered pitchers of Blue Moon while I sipped on Diet Coke after Diet Coke. If my friend’s drinking theory was true, it meant my personality had been getting worse every day (and I hadn’t started with much to spare).

Nearly two years earlier, I visited a therapist to talk about the end of my first love, and she suggested I was an alcoholic. I thought therapy would be about bashing my ex, not my own problems. Many people had told me I had a drinking problem, so just let me talk about the jerk who broke up with me. Nope, she was having none of it. She said he did me a favor by breaking up with me, because I needed to get my drinking in check. Rude.

Instead of putting down the bottle, I decided to give up men and therapy for a year. Taking my newly single, non-therapied self off the market for a while sounded way more reasonable than sobriety. About a week after the therapist’s proclamation, I met up with a friend at a gay pride parade, and later in the day, we ended up at a hotel party. Things I remember about this party: smoking a cigarette after playing beach soccer, bumping into a staff member from my university, the haze of a gym teacher’s rented room. Within 24 hours, I failed my no-boys decree. And this broken promise shook my core. I don’t know how to explain it. My drinking had already gotten me arrested (DUI), nearly kicked out of my university, fired from a job, and spoiled countless relationships, but I had never considered it a problem. When I finally shook off my hangover, I went back to therapy — and gave up drinking at the age of 24. But I didn’t want to stop going to bars. I still wanted nights out on the town.

From my very first fake ID and backdoor club sneak-in, I loved going to gay bars. I mean: GAY and BAR. No two words next to each other ever made me happier. In those neon-lit gay bars, where men swished their hips and kissed each other, I found my people. Growing up as a Southern Baptist, I dealt with the residual fire-and-brimstone feelings that came along with homosexuality. Fun times. Gay bars with colorful lights and muscle-tee men gave me a glimpse of a different life than church hymns. What I first learned about gay culture formed in those moments when I held another man’s gaze and danced until sunrise. Those nights taught me how to dress, talk, flirt and love.

[pipoman]

1. I am regularly sober in a gay bar...

My wife and I have many lbgt friends and I am usually the dd. I have never loved drinking, I like going out and gay bars are often more fun than straight bars. Straight bars are more meet markets, gay bars are meet markets too but there are also many devoted couples. ..Most of our friends. .That said, bars always look different from a sober perspective. Especially as the night wears on...

[Fearless]

2. Alcohol is a hell of a drug

In the words of Homer Simpson (couldn't resist): "To alcohol, the cause of, and solution to all of life's problems."

[WillParkinson]

3. I used to drink...

I was a very friendly person when I had alcohol in me.

That all changed the day my mother got upset because of a hangover and told me, "You're just like your father."

Nothing sobers you up faster. I haven't had a drink in 32 years, one month, and twenty-one days.