Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
How to replace too much booze in the gay world??
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: Scott on October 22, 2007, 11:40:46 am ---...when I was younger, every gay person I came in contact with drank and used recreational drugs, but where was I coming into contcat with them? In bars and clubs. ] As I have grown out of that phase, the gay people I have come in contact show no greater propensity for alcohol or substance abuse that any other subset of society. So my empirical evidence would show quite the opposite.
--- End quote ---
When I was younger, all persons of our group/clique respectively all persons (or at least almost all) I met in bars, discos or pubs drank, smoked and used recreational drugs. I think that's connected to youth and the type of establishment, not to the sexual orientation of the persons.
But of course Jeff's question has to be included into consideration:
What opportunities for social interaction were (and are today) given for gay people to meet other gay people, that don't involve bars and the like?
Scott6373:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on October 22, 2007, 12:47:15 pm ---When I was younger, all persons of our group/clique respectively all persons (or at least almost all) I met in bars, discos or pubs drank, smoked and used recreational drugs. I think that's connected to youth and the type of establishment, not to the sexual orientation of the persons.
But of course Jeff's question has to be included into consideration:
What opportunities for social interaction were (and are today) given for gay people to meet other gay people, that don't involve bars and the like?
--- End quote ---
By and large, the opportunites for gay people to meet and interact are far more diversified than 20 or 30 years ago. When I first came out, you didn't tell anyone where you were going at night. Now there are all sorts of social groups that are readily accepted and available to gay people. Not hat long ago, I did a lot of work with groups aimed at helping gay teens come to terms tiwht their sexual identities, and I can say with great certainty that most fo those kids are head and shoudlers above where I was as a teen when it comes to understanding the ramifications of getting involved with alcohol and drugs.
Artiste:
Thanks all!!
I see that this subject is revealing.
I am very pleased with your comments.
Pray you will all keep on suggesting ways to communicate without booze.. at least!
Hope you see it as important as I do?
Hugs!
jstephens9:
I can see both sides here and I'm not completely sure which one I would agree with. I have really not been involved with the gay world much at all until I got involved with the forums and the BBQ after seeing Brokeback. And I can't say that these represent the gay world since we have just as many straight people. I was at one time involved with the bars and the gay world, but I got away from it for several years. I was in a relationship and after that ended I pretty well stayed clear. I pretty much lived my life based around work, family and home. I will definitely say that the guy I was in the relationship with destroyed that and himself with alcohol and drugs. He actually got away from the alcohol, but that only seemed to make the drug part worse. However, I do not consider him typical of either the gay side or the straight side as far as alcohol (or drugs) are concerned. He was a drug addict, plain and simple, and it took a long time and was hard for me to admit that to myself. I was wearing rose colored glasses.
Thinking about bars before I disappeared, there was a lot of drinking and there were more drugs than I ever realized. There were definitely a lot of people with major problems with both. Everything pretty much did center around the bars although I do remember getting involved with a gay hiking and camping group. Some people had drinks or beer when we got everything sat up in the campsite, but it was not like a drunken party or anything. People had fun, talked, it was not about drinking or drugs. It seemed that there were too many other things to do.
That has been pretty much the same way with the two BBM events I have been too. There was always lots to do so everything was not centered around drinking. People had drinks, had beer, but again I did not see the amount of drinking I remembered from the bars. And surprisingly I have not even seen a hint of drugs. They may be there, but I sure have not seen or heard of them being around. Of course, I was very naive of that in my bar days so who knows.
Sundance, the gay cowboy/Country Western bar in San Francisco, was the first "gay" bar I had been to in a long time. People were getting drinks or beer, but it did not seem to me that it was the main event and I didn't see the types of things I remembered like people who were incredibly falling down drunk. But my few experiences with the gay world lately may not be enough to make any kind of judgement at all. As I say I have seen people drinking socially, but that is pretty much it. Now if I would have went to a different kind of bar in SF I may have seen a completely different side of things. I remember thinking when I was at Sundance that here I was at a gay bar in San Francisco. At one point in time I would have thought that would be completely wild. Of course I do believe that Sundance has an older crowd, it is not a teen type gay bar, so that could make a big difference.
I'm interested in hearing more about this topic from people.
Jack
Phillip Dampier:
I think most of this topic would do much better as a discussion in Safe Haven. I'm not sure what most of this has to do with BBM's Open Forum. Maybe we can agree to split part of this topic into a new thread?
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