Why so many gay men drink, and what helped me stop.

Eleven years ago, I made one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made, and it changed my life.

Since then, I’ve never felt freer. The decision to quit drinking didn’t happen overnight. It was something I thought about for a long time. But there were excuses, reasons not to, and the fear of what life would be like without drinking.

I remember a few nights having an almost out-of-body experience while drinking, like I was watching myself from a few feet away. A voice inside said, “This isn’t going to end well—your story won’t end well if you keep this up. Stop while you’re ahead.”

I didn’t listen, and I kept drinking. I spent more days beating myself up than not.

I used to hate myself for the time, money, and energy I gave to something that caused so much suffering. There were nights I couldn’t remember. The guilt that followed was heavy, and it became the very thing I tried to escape. Drinking and using drugs provided a temporary way out of feelings I didn’t have the tools to manage. Numbing was easier than facing the parts of myself I didn’t know what to do with.

My path to sobriety happened in phases. The first phase was private. I told people I was quitting “for the month,” because it felt too vulnerable and I didn’t know how they’d react. I wasn’t ready to hear their opinions or jokes or projections, so I kept it to myself.

The second phase was sharing it with the people closest to me. This phase was harder than the decision itself because I watched a lot of my friendships fall away. I also had to develop new routines and learn who I was outside of alcohol. I started asking myself questions that I had avoided for years. What did drinking give me? What did I think I needed from it? And why was I holding on to something that never brought me true joy?

The third phase is where I am now—grateful, proud, and confident in the life I have since letting alcohol go. A friend of mine recently got sober, and something he heard helped him consider sobriety for himself. He told me, after feeling hungover after a night of drinking, someone at work the next day said, “You know, you can keep drinking if you want, but you don’t ever have to feel like this again.”

Why Substance Use Is Common Among Gay Men

When we talk about substance use or addiction among gay men, we have to be honest about the landscape we grew up in. Many of us came of age without safe spaces, without healthy models of connection, and without language for the things we felt most deeply. By the time we found community, substances were often woven into the fabric of our socialization. Many of us never learned how to socialize around other gay men. We have all kinds of complicated emotions going on inside us—excitement for being with men we can relate to and maybe even find attractive. We might feel nervous or uncomfortable being in touch with parts of ourselves we suppressed for so long. It makes sense that many of us turn to substances to cope.

I worked in a bar for eleven years, seven of them sober, and I saw how alcohol and drugs were part of the atmosphere—familiar, available, and even celebrated. Substance use, especially in gay bars, is less a choice and more an expectation. In recent years access to drugs has only grown. Substances that once felt underground are easy to find now, and apps make everything immediate, so certain drugs are readily available at parties, gatherings, hookups, and nights out like they’re just a regular part of the evening. Many of my clients who struggle with substance use jokingly refer to apps like Grindr and Sniffies as their dealer.

Whenever I hear someone recognize that their substance use is starting to cause negative consequences, yet they have difficulty making any change, what I hear is that the pain they have outweighs the negative consequences. Shame on top of shame is just more shame and so for many gay men, we might drink or use drugs to numb the shame, conscious or unconscious, and then we feel even more shame because we don’t like where the drinking or drug use leads—blacking out, spending money we didn’t have, risky sexual behavior, being late to work, the list goes on.

I meet many gay men who feel unsure about their relationship with drugs and alcohol, but think they have to wait until something dramatic happens before changing anything. That isn’t true. We’re allowed to question our relationship with drinking or using drugs long before it becomes a problem. We’re also allowed to want a different relationship with ourselves without substances.

If you’re sober-curious, or thinking about cutting back—or quitting altogether—here are three things that helped me:

• Understand what the substance is doing for you. There’s a reason you drink or use, so what is it giving you?

• Explore your relationship with it the way you would with a person. Does it support you, or does it lead you into choices you wouldn’t otherwise make and later regret?

• Ask what story you’re telling yourself about why you drink or use—like, do you tell yourself you’re more confident with it?

These questions helped me understand that, just like anything in our life, we have a relationship with substances. Unless we stop to question our relationships, though, we’ll sometimes stay in one longer than we want to.

My own journey of sobriety and learning that I don’t ever have to feel hungover again set me on the path to where I am today—a therapist and advocate for gay men’s mental and spiritual health. I’ve lived both sides of the story and I know how unfamiliar it can feel to turn inward when we’ve spent so long looking outward. I also know how liberating it can be to tell the truth.

If you’re struggling with substance use, I want you to know this:

You don’t have to feel like this again.

You don’t have to do it alone.

Featured on:

The Good Men Project

Chris Tompkins is a gay male therapist in West Hollywood (Los Angeles) who specializes in working with adult gay men, individuals and couples. He supports clients navigating identity, relationships, religious trauma, addiction, and self-esteem. To learn more, explore therapeutic services or schedule a free consultation.