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Gay Men and The Serenity of Acceptance, Courage, Wisdom

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One of the most rewarding parts of my long (28 years!) career as a gay men’s specialist therapist and coach is the variety of guys that I’ve had the pleasure to work with.  There is so much variety to their initial issues or challenges that they are presenting to treatment with, and yet often I … Read more

Of Potions, Pills and Powders: Gay Therapist Describes Approaches to Drug Use in Gay Men’s Relationships

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Drug use in gay relationships is a common, if controversial, topic to discuss.  Regular readers know that I’m not one to shy away from controversial topics about gay men’s lives, and today I’d like to discuss this.  In the privacy of therapy, even when I work remotely with guys on webcam sessions, we use the … Read more

Gay Men in Recovery: 4 Tips to Cope with HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired)

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Sounds dire, doesn’t it? Here you are, doing the good, hard work it takes to get clean and sober.  But on top of your daily struggle, you’re warned (usually in AA) that you may have four other demons to confront: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. These are the unsettlers that may tempt you to head back … Read more

Gay Men and Alcohol: The Relationship with the Bottle

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Today I wanted to write about gay men and alcohol, and what I call their “relationship” with the bottle.  Over my many years as a psychotherapist, one of the most frequent issues my clients bring to me is a concern about their drinking, or perhaps their drug use.  There is a wide range; some people … Read more

Crystal…Clear? (Substance Abuse Recovery for Gay Men)

In considering the combination of gay men, sex, and crystal,  a number of considerations come to mind for mental health professionals and researchers. For the first part, discussing gay men and sex, care must be taken to avoid generalizations, just as care would be taken to demonstrate cultural competency and absence of prejudice in discussing any subgroup of the general population. Why is it that gay men (excuse me, “men who have sex with men”) are still subject to a certain scientific, distancing condescension that is widely recognized as off-limits (rightfully so) for any other American minority?

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