How to replace too much booze in the gay world??

[Artiste]

Thanks jstephens9, and thanks Scott!!

If you want to find out, then do so. I suggest you seek gay organisations and non-gay ones to find out if gay men booze more!! That should tells us something. I know that Coors could not keep those doors open after they fired gays for being only gays!! That is fact! Don't contradict me then if you find that out too!

Concerning booze, even if only a few lives were lost to booze, that would be too many to me, and to you too you two??

I lost lost many gay men friends to booze, and I wish I could still enjoy their laughs, their talks, their sharing, etc.; but can I as they are dead before their times?? !!

Booze, it is now noted by science destroy also brain cells, it seems to me that has been published lately. So, why like booze too much or at all? Is it not better to replace with it with good foods and good times??

Hugs, hugs!!

[brokebackjack]

On empirical evidence alone, just what I've seen I think it may well be true that gay community has a very high rate of alcohol abuse.

 It is endemic in both the straight and gay community and/but from what I have seen myself, there is a higher incidence within the gay community. The social life of many many gay men is bar centered. I am not saying this is not the case with straight men; what I'm saying is that by and large, the Gay Bar is where many many gay men center  their social life. It is where the younger, especially, members of the gay community GO. Straight young men do the same. They also have other outlets which gay young men often don't.

There is just SO MUCH abuse of alcohol in the gay community! Me, I am in recovery from alcohol, and the gay recovering people, men and women, whom I know will pretty much all agree and say the same,  that there is  more alcohol abuse on average within the gay community then the straight community.  I know many many young gay males who are in recovery and'at sea': they don't know where to go to have a gay social life, bars being too dangerous for them to go to. How dangerous? They are in recovery>>>you go to enough bars and eventually you will find yourself struck drunk. The ones who vehemently deny it within BOTH communities, are very often defending their OWN abuse of alcohol.

But when it comes to Coors Beer, I have found absolutely nothing online about its' anti-gayness <? clumsy sentence, I know>

[Artiste]

Thanks brokebackjack! Very much so, and hugs too!!

I find your revealing statement as appealing: the thruth, and I accept gladly your sayings and you!! You seek now real happiness... and you will find it, may I suggest!!

1- Concerning Coors, I guess not much is on the internet because that came before we used emails!! Maybe more will be known facts when some will read our questions on that!!

2- Concerning too much boozing in the gay world, I am SURPRISED that the young gay males are drinking that much!! WE older males had no choice but to go to bars... and be SAFER there too; it was our CHURCH like area! But the young gay males have many CHOICES now, I hope. At least, the young and olders like I, can now use the internet to find and communicate with other gay men; plus find others as non-boozers, non-druggers, non-smokers, non-violence, non-cons, hopefully!

There was a small article in the daily  a day or two ago that I glanced at while mother was reading the newspaper, as it headlined that: POLICE CHARGING GAYS IN PARK! Or something to that effect!
Here, even if the population is over 100,000, there is only one gay bar, plus it seems one gay park area!! I do NOT go to that gay park! I was told that it was gay... by a gay guy. Plus I read and was told that an older gay man nearly lost his life there as he went there often (all his life it seems), but was beaten and knifed and left for dead there, but he went to court charging the accused and returned afterwards to the park to have fun again and again!! I admire his guts!! His freedom!!
But such park activity are dangerous! So maybe gay bars LESS dangerous? A bit, but they are not and will tell you two stories about that if you like??

Must go get water from the lake, as the city main water line has been broken and this is the 2nd day!

Take care... brokebackjack!
Hugs! Hugs!

[Scott6373]

Thanks jstephens9, and thanks Scott!!

If you want to find out, then do so. I suggest you seek gay organisations and non-gay ones to find out if gay men booze more!! That should tells us something. I know that Coors could not keep those doors open after they fired gays for being only gays!! That is fact! Don't contradict me then if you find that out too!

Concerning booze, even if only a few lives were lost to booze, that would be too many to me, and to you too you two??

I lost lost many gay men friends to booze, and I wish I could still enjoy their laughs, their talks, their sharing, etc.; but can I as they are dead before their times?? !!

Booze, it is now noted by science destroy also brain cells, it seems to me that has been published lately. So, why like booze too much or at all? Is it not better to replace with it with good foods and good times??

Hugs, hugs!!

I am asking you to provide the evidence.  You made the assumptions, now I am asking you to submit the proof you have to back up your claims.

On empirical evidence alone, just what I've seen I think it may well be true that gay community has a very high rate of alcohol abuse.

This is what I was alluding to.  I have been an out gay male for almost 30 years, and 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.

[Jeff Wrangler]

This is what I was alluding to.  I have been an out gay male for almost 30 years, and 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.

I wonder whether what's happening here is that our culture is changing? I don't have any empirical evidence, either, but I wonder whether we--"we" being gay men--don't have more opportunities for social interaction that don't involve bars than we did 30 years ago?

[Penthesilea]

...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.

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]

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?

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?