Gay Men and Alcohol: Drinking, Sobriety and the Scene

For many gay men, the first place they were openly gay had a bar in it. Alcohol and gay social life grew up together, and the link has lasted. Gay and bisexual men drink more often and more heavily than straight men on average, and Stonewall’s 2018 health survey found that one in six LGBT people in Britain drank almost every day.

The amount matters. In my work, though, the more useful question is what drinking is doing for a man. When alcohol is quieting anxiety, numbing shame or making sex possible, cutting down brings those feelings straight back. And getting sober as a gay man comes with social problems straight men rarely face in the same form.

Why gay men drink more

For most of the twentieth century, bars and clubs were among the only places gay men could meet one another openly. Pride events have long been sponsored by drinks brands. Drinking became part of how gay men found each other, and the habit has outlasted the necessity.

Minority stress adds a second layer. The model developed by Ilan Meyer explains higher rates of anxiety, depression and substance use among gay men as a product of living with stigma, separate from anything about sexuality itself. Alcohol is a fast, legal way to switch off the vigilance that stigma trains into people. Many men describe the first drink of an evening as the moment they stop watching themselves. I wrote about the model in minority stress in gay men.

Alcohol also does a specific job around sex and dating. It lowers inhibition, which helps men who find flirting, intimacy or sex difficult sober. For men carrying shame about sex, a few drinks can be what makes it feel allowed.

Signs drinking has become a problem

There is no single line, and plenty of men who drink heavily do not see themselves in the word alcoholic. These are the signs I would take seriously:

• You drink more, or more often, than you meant to.
• Socialising, dating or sex feel hard or impossible without a drink.
• Hangovers regularly affect your work or your weekends.
• You have tried to cut down and found it harder than expected.
• People close to you have raised it, or you find yourself hiding how much you drink.
• You have done things while drunk that frightened or shamed you.

The UK guideline is no more than 14 units a week, spread over three or more days. The NHS uses a short questionnaire called AUDIT-C, which takes a minute and gives a useful sense of where you stand.

One safety point matters a great deal. If you drink heavily every day, stopping suddenly can cause dangerous withdrawal, including seizures. Talk to a GP or an alcohol service before stopping, so they can plan a safe reduction.

Sober and gay: the social problem

Straight men who stop drinking still have work, family events, sport and a hundred other settings where social life happens. Gay social life is more concentrated, and much of it still happens in bars, clubs and at parties. A man who stops drinking can find that most of his friendships, his dating life and his sense of belonging were organised around alcohol.

Some friendships survive the change and some do not. That is a real loss and it deserves to be treated as one. Dating sober can feel exposed at first: no drink to hold, nothing to soften the first awkward half hour. Sober sex can be the hardest part. Men who have only ever had sex after drinking sometimes discover a level of anxiety they never knew was there, which I wrote about in gay sex anxiety.

The picture has changed in recent years. Sober and sober-curious LGBT events now run in many cities, from running clubs and morning raves to dry club nights, and plenty of younger gay men drink much less than the generation before them.

What alcohol was doing for you

Few of the men I work with who drink too much are chasing the taste. Alcohol is doing one or more jobs for them: quieting the watchfulness they carry into every room, making sex feel permitted, providing belonging, or numbing something they would rather not feel, often shame or grief.

When alcohol is quieting anxiety, numbing shame or making sex possible, cutting down brings those feelings straight back.

That is why stopping can feel so much worse than expected. The first months of sobriety often bring a rush of feeling that alcohol had been holding down. Men describe social anxiety they thought they had outgrown, old grief, and shame about sex that turns out never to have gone away. That rush means the material the drinking was managing is finally available to work with, and it says nothing bad about how sobriety is going. I wrote about the shame part of this in gay shame, and about anxiety in anxiety and hypervigilance in gay men.

Getting sober as a gay man

The right approach depends on how much you drink and how dependent you are. For some men, cutting down with a clear limit works. For others, stopping completely is simpler and safer.

Practical routes in the UK:

• Your GP, who can assess dependence, arrange a safe detox if needed, and refer you to local alcohol services.
• NHS and local alcohol services, which you can often refer yourself to.
• Mutual support groups, some built on the twelve-step model and some on a more practical, non-spiritual approach, many with LGBT meetings.
• LGBT-specific drug and alcohol services, which exist in some larger cities.

Therapy sits alongside these, and it is particularly useful once the drinking has eased, when the feelings underneath become clearer. If drinking is also tied to drug use around sex, see poppers, PnP and chemsex and chemsex and gay men.

Sobriety and relationships

Getting sober changes a relationship. If your partner still drinks, evenings out, holidays and sex can all need renegotiating. Some partners feel judged by the change, or miss the person who was easier company after a few drinks. Some relationships turn out to have been held together partly by alcohol, and sobriety brings long-avoided conflicts to the surface.

That can be painful, and it is often useful. Couples who come through it usually find they are dealing with each other more directly than before. If you want to look at what drinking has been doing in your life, you can read how therapy with me works.