Sober Stories: Angel
TW: Suicidal thoughts What led you to enter recovery? I had known for a long time that I was an alcoholic; I was just never ready to do anything about it. But then when alcohol wasn’t working as well as I needed it to—and I couldn’t cope with my life circumstances […]
Sober Stories: Charlie
What led you to get sober? There was a series of thoughts. The first was I was starting my medical transition, and part of getting on hormones is having a psych evaluation. I did the psych eval and they identified that I had an alcohol abuse problem. By the time I saw my therapist for […]
Holly Whitaker
Holly Whitaker is a recovery advocate who created sobriety blogs The Temper and Hip Sobriety, as well as the digital recovery program Tempest. Her book, Quit Like a Woman—which details how her own experience in sobriety informed her work with Tempest—is a New York Times bestseller. Whitaker has been sober since April 15th, 2013. 12-step […]
Eileen Myles
The poet Eileen Myles—who reached some mainstream fame as the inspiration for a character on the show Transparent—has been sober for decades. “I remember the first spring I wasn’t drinking; it was 1983,” they said. “My friend Tom and I were walking around the West Village, and we were staring up and pointing. ‘Isn’t that […]
Sober Stories: Bailey*
How’d you decide to get sober? I knew that my drinking had gotten heavier in the pandemic. As I started getting better with my eating disorder, I didn’t have an outlet for anxiety. When COVID hit, I had recently started my business [as a therapist]. I had to change everything to telehealth and figure out […]
LGBTQIA Pride
Happy LGBTQIA Pride Month! I am a queer person in recovery, and of the sober people I know, most are LGBTQ+. My communities might skew queer—but it’s also true that there are many LGBTQ+ people in recovery. An estimated 30% of LGBTQIA people struggle with addiction, compared with 9% of the general population.[1] Addiction and […]
Happy Transgender Day of Visibility
Today is Transgender Day of Visibility, a time to honor trans folks’ experiences. Visibility is important and often lacking for transgender people, even within LGBTQIA spaces. When I look up statistics on addiction for the different categories of the queer umbrella, it’s hard to even find specifics for trans people. Minority Stress, Internalized Transphobia, and […]
Addiction and The LGBTQIA Community: Top Reasons for Risk
The LGBTQIA community reports more cases of substance abuse and addiction. This can be the result of a number of factors, including stressful relationships with family members, past trauma, and stigma from the social environment. Many individuals in the LGBTQIA community don’t seek help for addiction, as they feel their options can be limited. Learn […]