| How did you start using meth?
I was an executive with Macy’s here in L.A. I was managing the men’s store at the Beverly Center. It was a really high-profile, high-stress job. And I also was HIV-positive. So there were a lot of stresses in my life. During a six-week leave of absence from my job to help alleviate those stresses, a friend of mine very innocently said, “Here, why don’t you try this?�?And he gave me a little bump of crystal meth. It instantly became my new coping skill. It relieved all of my stresses and all of my pains and all of my worries. So I started using it periodically, and the use just progressed and progressed and progressed. At what point did you realize that you had a problem with meth use?
One day, a friend of mine literally said to me that he thought I had a problem. And I said, “I can stop if I want to.�?And so he said, “Well, OK, why don’t you try stopping for just 30 days and see what happens.�?I made it only about a week. It was in that moment that I realized I had a very serious problem. You often hear about how meth use ultimately destroys so many facets of a user’s life. By the time you realized you had a problem with meth use, had you experienced any major setbacks or losses related to your use?
It took a total dismantling of my life to realize I had a problem and I needed to stop. By that point I had lost my relationship, I had lost my job. It was really quite devastating to me. Are your experiences common among meth addicts?
I often say that I am the typical meth addict. The first time I used it was at age 34. I had never used drugs prior to that. I very quickly became addicted to it, and it took me to my bottom in about two to three years. That’s pretty typical for a meth addict. Crystal meth has a short ‘shelf-life’—it takes only two to three years for people to hit bottom, where with other substances you typically can use for much longer periods of time and be functioning. What was your life like when you were nearing bottom?
Eventually, I was using on a daily basis. Early on I would plan to use just on my days off from work, but toward the end I would plan to come down on my two days off and use the other five days of the week, causing me to be consistently late for work. In my first 18 years of working in retail, I had just three jobs, but once I started using meth, I changed jobs three times in just two years. I was constantly running from termination or being demoted. I just wasn’t functioning at work. What did you do to get help?
A friend of mine, over Labor Day weekend in 1997, said, “Look, when you’re ready to stop I know where you can get help.�?And I said I was ready, so he gave me a phone number to a counselor. I called that person and started talking to him, and it was really interesting—he started finishing my sentences as I was talking about my life. It was in that instance that I realized I wasn’t so alone with this. He suggested next going to a 12-step meeting, which I did. And that was the beginning of my recovery. How would you say your life has improved since you’ve stopped using meth?
I often say that everything I was looking for when I was out there using I’ve found in sobriety. My life has such meaning and purpose today. I would never have thought my life to be this good. What is it about meth that’s so appealing and gets gay men to keep coming back after trying it the first time?
It hits the pleasure centers of your brain. It makes the sexual experience so much more intense. It alleviates any social fears. It allows you to feel as though you’re a part of the community. It helps you feel like your life has meaning and purpose. It alleviates a lot of the pain and stresses that gay men deal with in terms of internalized homophobia, heterosexism, social issues with families, the coming out process and so many others. That’s why it’s so appealing, so powerful. What are some of the physical consequences of meth use?
It can cause severe heart damage and damage to the liver and the kidneys. It can cause psychosis. Most drugs have some sort of organic base to them, but not meth—it’s entirely made out of chemicals. It’s got some really nasty stuff in itbattery acid, lye, acetone, hydrochloric acid. Just horrible, horrible stuff. You can only imagine what those things do to your body. And yet while you’re using meth and doing all these horrible things to your body, you’re thinking it’s making your life so much better, so much more pleasurable.
That’s just because you’re in such a euphoric state, your life is crumbling down around you, but you’re not aware of it. You’re not seeing anything bad. It doesn’t seem to be a problem. But it is. And often it’s a very, very serious problem. You say meth heightens the sexual experience. Does that lead some users to engage in riskier sex or to even forego using condoms?
Crystal meth definitely lowers your fear of catching HIV. It lowers your inhibitions. Some of my clients who say they always practice safer sex also say they’re very tempted to not have safer sex while using meth. Also, one of the ways people alleviate stress in their lives is through play. And in the gay male community, a lot of times we equate sex with play. Sex becomes our playground. Combining the idea of sex as play and as a stress-reliever with a substance that heightens the experience and may lead to unsafe sex creates a very serious problem for our community. | There seem to be a lot of people in the LGBT community talking about the dangers of meth use. But at the same time, some data—including data we’ve collected here at the Center among men who are taking HIV tests—show that more gay men are reporting meth use, particularly recent use. Why aren’t the messages about meth’s dangers sinking in with gay men?
I guess the optimist in me asks the question, “Are the numbers increasing because we’re doing a great job of raising awareness of the importance of HIV testing, and what we’re really seeing is not necessarily an increase in the numbers of people using meth but an increase in numbers of people seeking HIV tests?�?But the pessimist in me also worries that the meth problem is indeed getting worse. I don’t think we really know for sure yet which is true, but whether or not the numbers are going up, we still see a very significant amount of meth use in our community. How well is our community doing in general in fighting this problem?
I think there’s a lot more we can be doing. I think we talk a lot about the issue, and I’m not sure we’re acting enough. I also don’t think we’ve done enough in actually talking with former users and current clients in terms of actually asking them what their needs are, what they think is working out there and what’s not working out there. At what point in your recovery did you decide that you wanted to focus on helping others who are struggling with meth use?
I wanted to work in a field where I can be of service and help people. I ultimately decided to go back to school for drug and alcohol counseling. And from that point, there’s been a really natural flow to this. My first internship was with Alternatives [a gay-owned and -operated program offering drug and alcohol rehab, mental health, and dual-diagnosis treatment to LGBT adults in L.A.], and I got hired as a program director there as a result of that internship. It was all very validating for me—that this was absolutely what I should be doing. What was that attracted you to the Center to help coordinate our crystal meth recovery services?
It just sort of seemed the logical progression for me and from my work at Alternatives. And it’s a great opportunity to me to be able to reach out to my peers in the gay community. Your work at Alternatives focused on all different kinds of substance abuse, but here at the Center you’ll be focused specifically on meth use. Why did you want to make meth use the core of your work? Because it’s so crazy out there and because meth use is such a huge problem for my community. I’m watching the lives of so many young gay men being destroyed as a result of it, and I wanted to commit myself to preventing that from happening. What are your goals for fighting meth use in the LGBT community through your work with the Center’s Crystal Meth Recovery Services?
I have four main, long-term goals. - One is to work with existing meth addicts.
- Another is to identify potential meth addicts and teach them coping skills so they don’t need to turn to the drug.
- A third is to work with friends and family of people that are using. A lot of times they feel helpless and not sure what to do. I think if we can teach them effective intervention techniques, they could help get their friends and family members help much earlier than they normally would.
And the fourth area is training—training staff, training the community, and continuing to build a heightened awareness of the drug. In the shorter term, what are some of your goals for the program? One is to reach out to people early in their addiction—when they’re just starting to contemplate that they may have a problem. This helps them avoid a lot of significant consequences from long-term use, whether it is the loss of a job, loss of family, loss of friends or loss of relationships. It’s not uncommon for people to totally wipe out their savings and their retirement savings while they’re chasing this drug. Meth is also so highly addictive that the earlier you can catch somebody, the better your chances of preventing them from really doing some significant physical and mental harm to themselves. One of the groups you’ll initially be reaching out to is LGBT youth, particularly homeless youth who seek services through the Center’s Jeff Griffith Youth Center. Why is it important to make youth one of your early priorities?
Meth is becoming a rising problem among our youth, especially among homeless youth. Because these young people are on the streets, they use the drug to stay awake at night to be safe. They also use the drug to stave off feelings of hunger.
Some homeless youth also are sex workers, and meth allows them to engage in sexual activities they normally wouldn’t. The use of the drug and the psychological problems it causes also can create a barrier to getting off the streets. What services do we have available at the Center for meth users who are considering seeking help?
We have ongoing crystal meth support groups and individual counseling as well as drop-in harm-reduction groups. The Center’s HIV Stops with Me initiative is doing some work around sober sex, which is a major concern for meth users who may have become accustomed to having sex while using. The Center’s Positive Images program also conducts workshops on substance abuse. I’ll be working with all of these programs to bring them together into a more cohesive unit. And I’ll also be doing a lot of one-on-one work with clients to refer them to other Center services—like individual therapy, the Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic, HIV/STD testing and others—and to outside treatment facilities as needed. What is it that you would say makes you uniquely positioned to help consolidate and grow the Center’s Crystal Meth Recovery Services?
Because of my own addiction, I understand the drug like I’ve never understood anything else in my entire life. I understand all the underlying issues as to why gay men use crystal meth. I know what meth users are going through, and I know the importance of stopping using. I’ve made it my mission to do whatever I can to help people get off the drug or—better yet—never start using it.
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