The truth can be a tough pill to swallow, but the more openly we acknowledge our darkness, the brighter our light can shine.
If that sounds a bit cliche, it is. But it’s also real, and the LGBT community is no stranger to darkness — we’re more likely to develop substance abuse problems, suicide rates remain higher and we suck down cigarettes like there is no tomorrow.
Which is all just a way of introducing the following bit of news from beloved San Francisco drag personality Sister Roma. You may remember her at the forefront of the battle with Facebook over allowing artists (and everyone else for that matter) to use a preferred identity rather than what’s listed on an I.D. In an incredibly brave and personal post, she is sharing about her long use of the drug crystal meth and the health problems it may have caused her today. We are relieved that her prognosis is good.
We applaud Roma for sharing her story non-judgmentally, for not backing away from her truth, and in doing so, hopefully inspiring others who struggle with similar demons.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Below is the recent message she posted on Facebook, unedited:
I’m a firm believer that some things are too personal to be shared on Facebook. I seldom make posts about my private life. It took me forever to talk about my sobriety but I finally did because I realized that if I shared my journey it may help someone out there struggling with addiction. Once again, I’ve decided that it’s time to share something very personal that may help others out there going through the same thing.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension (PH). PH is high blood pressure in the lungs that forces the right side of the heart to work harder and become enlarged. Symptoms of PH include shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain and pressure, and fatigue. There is no cure for PH and without treatment the prognosis is not good. Just before Thanksgiving I felt my heart go into Atrial Fibrillation so I went to the ER. Because of my low oxygen levels they performed tests and found what they believed to be a blood clot in my lung. I was hospitalized for several days. They have given me blood thinners and oxygen to breathe at night (which is kind of fabulous by the way – I highly recommend it.) Tomorrow (Wednesday) I am going into see my top-notch cardiologist team at UCSF for an atrial catheterization. They are going to enter through my neck and and go into my heart to test the pressure and better assess my condition. Once this is complete my doctor will be able to better determine my course of treatment.
I don’t want anyone to worry – please. Honestly for the most part I feel pretty damn good. As many of you know I’m very active. I try to go to the gym 4-5 times a week. I watch what I eat – generally I feel like I’m in pretty good health. Realistically I am going to have to slow down a bit but let’s face it – you can’t keep an old queen down!
The reason I’m sharing this with you is because I want you to know what I suspect is a contributing factor to my Pulmonary Hypertension: crystal meth. I’ve been very open about my 15-year love affair with meth; I smoked it nearly every day. At the time I was young and thought I was invincible. I mean I knew it wasn’t good for me but all my friends did it. It was fun and we were glamorous. Then, when it wasn’t fun or glamorous any more, I stopped. I quit using speed about 8 years ago. I always thought that I made it out alive because I never lost my home, my job, my teeth, or my mind. What I didn’t know is that the drug took a toll on my heart.
I’m sharing this post because I want everyone to know just how dangerous and unhealthy it is to use crystal meth and cocaine. We all know it but many of us still do it. In fact I have friends – young, gorgeous, smart, amazing friends – who use meth and cocaine every day. I’m not judging you and I’m not begging you to quit. I’m just sharing my story as someone who has lived it and is now dealing with the consequences. I’m sharing this because if my story helps even one person then i’m glad I shared it because you matter and I love you.
xo Roma
Stache99
Sounds like Sister Roma was a functional addict. Never really understood how people could do that. When I did drugs it was more, more, more without stop until my body was just worn down. Till next time and repeat.
Consequences are always a part of it. The problem is no one ever things there will come that day of reckoning.
petensfo
“It took me forever to talk about my sobriety but I finally did because I realized that if I shared my journey it may help someone out there struggling with addiction.”
Umm… and she’s been using Meth daily for 15 years?! Gurrrrl, you were never sober. What you were, was in big-time denial.
But, yes, you help people struggling with addiction today, by making it clear that addiction is a bitch & addicts can’t be trusted.
Be well.
Merv
I understand that some people have additive personalities that make it difficult for them to stop once they’ve gotten started, but what is the thought process that makes them get started in the first place? It can’t really seem like that good an idea to start smoking meth. And it really can’t seem like a good idea to stick a heroin needle in your arm for the first time.
bbg372
I am fairly certain that no one who uses cocaine and meth every day is amazing, glamorous, gorgeous, or smart.
Lvng1Tor
@petensfo: She states that she quit 8 years ago. That is the point of the share….things like this that even if they were some sort of “functioning addict” that these things can come back to you years later.
I work with addicts and am sober from meth for years now myself….this idea that all addicts can’t be trusted is BS and a dangerous ridiculous judgement that hurts people trying to get sober. It also stops people from helping and having compassion for those who are struggling. I never stole, I never had to lie, I payed all my own bills and I kept a nice life. Not the average we are used to hearing but more common than you would think or even consider.
@Merv: You are right, it does seem that people would stop before they do something that is so damaging. When I started doing meth it was something I thought was new. I wasn’t a “party” type person. I was more of a good book and coffee shop is a great time person. I had tried a few party drugs early in my 20’s when I lived in NYC. I had done coke once and ecstasy 2x. I had smoked marijuana a couple times and hadn’t drank any more than 1 drink more than 2x a month. I hadn’t been “drunk” in more than 10yrs. I was in my 30’s when I was approached to do “t” as it was introduced to me I thought, why not try it, everyone I knew who used it seemed to have a great time and nothing had ever triggered an addiction in me before. I I was wrong. It started right away. I craved it like nothing ever before after the first night. I made a huge mistake and I own that. Judging others that you have no idea of their circumstances is also dangerous and not a good idea.
BTW…shooting up usually comes well into an addiction….not the first step.
I applaud the good sister for highlighting that it’s not only when you are in the midst of use that can hurt your life but the ramifications years later. It’s something we don’t talk about enough.
Lvng1Tor
@petensfo: I will give you this…people who are using or are newly sober should have to prove their honesty and good intent and should not just be taken at face value. While that is true of all people who may come into your life, regardless of being a user or not, it is more true of addicts.
Stache99
@Lvng1Tor: Meth hit SF bigtime in the 90’s I. I moved there in the late 90’s and we all were completely unprepared for it. It came with cute names like Tina and Christina whereas drugs like Heroin and Crack rightly never got labeled that. Looking back OMG. Wrong place and the wrong time in history for me.
My first experience with the club scene in SF was why are all these people so full of energy at 2 in the morning. Talk about clueless. Sooner then later someone offered it to me and I felt like I had just been handed the keys to heaven itself. I went from my normal wallflower to the A-list overnight. I was in. Yah. Lol. Lots of great memories though at place like the Pleasure Dome and Club Universe and the crazieness of the Endup afterwards.
This was the 80’s version of coke and crack and studio 54 and whatever. CMA and NA hadn’t even started yet. Plus, the community had just come out of a long history of the Aids darkness with the pro tease inhibitor drugs. People just wanted to forget and party.
Stache99
@Merv: In hindsight of coarse. Then there’s the “indestructibility of youth” as Sister Roma put it. Rarely do people start sh*t like this when their middle aged. The problem is that ending it after that phase and the carried over consequences. There are some things in life that you just can’t easily walk away from and this is most definitely one of them.
Stache99
Lastly, drugs like crystal meth is absolutely the worst drug out there. In every category. Tell me what other drug that has the power to turn your brain into swiss cheese when they x-ray it.
Lvng1Tor
@Stache99: I feel ya brother!
Geeker
Over and over it seems like gays are their own worst enemy.
Doughosier
I find it hard to believe anyone could survive doing Meth every day for 15 years. I lost a lover to Meth and know how terrible it is. It’s worse than Heroin because it attacks your mind. The worst drug out there.
semtex
It never ceases to amaze me how people are so willing to lay all this crap on meth. The worst drug “out there” is more likely to be caffeine or one of the other drugs not considered a ‘drug’ by the masses. The issue is not with the drug but with the user, the drug is constant it is the user who can or cannot handle the drug. Trying to place blame on a drug is equal to shouting at a wall.
Just say know!
lykeitiz
Kudos on this article! This is something that absolutely doesn’t get discussed enough……The functioning addict.
Most conversations center around the “rock bottom” cases, but long-term use by functioning people is equally devastating.
My decade affair with cocaine didn’t leave me homeless, but toward the end, I felt my body shutting down….slowly. I’m one of the lucky few to escape without any lasting health problems (that I can see so far), but toward the end I felt myself aging well past my years. Overweight & lethargic with irregular heartbeats…….things weren’t going to end well.
Sister Roma needs to keep spreading the gospel……..Good for her!
Curtispsf
No addict, and that includes alcoholics, starts using a drug thinking he/she will one day be addicted. Even when the hints are there that you may have a “problem” the thinking is “this won’t happen to me. I’m better/stronger than “THOSE” people. I’m the exception to ‘the rule’. I won’t become an addict”. And then one day, you wake up after smoking meth for weeks on end and realize “I AM that person”.
You fall in love with meth; the problem is that meth will NEVER love you back…not the way you NEED to be loved. The powder drugs are poison, plain and simple and for certain personalities one hit is enough to set the stage for addiction. I realize this may not be the case for every person who tries meth, but to my friends who ask about it, my response is the same “Not even once” and I repeat it until it sinks in.
And although the potential for long term harm is great with meth, let’s not forget that Alcohol causes far more death and destruction all over the world than ALL of the illegal drugs combined.Meth just has a special hell of its’ own.
mikeyinSF15
Hey! I’m new to the Queerty “family”. First of all, I’m so glad that there are media outlets like Queerty around.
In reading the article that Sister Roma posted, it made me realize that I have been ignoring things about myself and ignoring things that, just recently, my body is telling me. Like having shortness of breath just walking up flights of stairs and such. I feel like I’m still young, not as young as I was in my youth, but young enough where I need to stop and totally re-evaluate where I am taking this life of mine and if I want to continue to take my friend “Tina” along for the ride.
Wishing you all “Peace and Happiness”.
FLOGGERDADNYC
I lived through the LSD times of the 60’s – 70’s…then the HORSE & COKE times of the 80’S & 90’S, and when METH came, it had such horrors I couldn’t even dream of dipping my foot in that pool. Have you SEEn what meth does physically to a person? YECCCCCCH!
OurOwnWorstEnemy
“Don’t read the comments” is something a few famous gays told me after writing an open and honest piece featured on Queerty and other sites. I did and my family did and the woman in my family wanted to rip some of the anonymous commenters balls off. I have more straight friends it seems than gay friends these days and they all ask the same question “Why are gays so nasty and unsupportive to other gays”. I don’t have an answer. I wish I did and I’m sure psychologists can offer theories, Sister Roma is an amazing person with a heart of gold. Spending holidays feeding the homeless and visiting sick patients are the run down hospitals who have no one. He took me with him once and I had to leave the room I was so overcome with emotion. It’s easy to play the holier than thou faggot, yes I said it, you are a faggot not a gay person if you take cheap shots at those actually living life and helping others. Blaming an addict is like blaming someone who has HIV. Life is meant to be lived and new experiences tried. The penalty shouldn’t be death or pain. To advocate for such is the mark of a truly disturbed soul. Addiction is an illness, it’s not a moral decision. Some people can just stop, others can’t. No one would choose to be an addict. If you haven’t gone through the suicidal lows and the highest of highs you can’t understand it. It sucks. Roma is a hero in disclosing what continues to be a stigma. So called gay rights activists who get praise for helping those with HIV but shunning those with addcitions as it being a choice is something out community needs to face and gain more compassion. I’m completely non-religious but I’m reminded of my catholic school upbringing when I see the nasty gays attack those who put themselves out there. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Compassion guys and girls, without it we have no community.
Clark35
A drag queen on meth? This is not surprising at all.
But I know lots of people who are LGBT and hetero who are into meth some who have been addicted to it for decades, been to rehab multiple times, and still use it.
Black buns
Sister Roma is Bold, Brave and Beautiful, God Bless her beautiful soul and pray all is going to be well for her.
You know coming into a new year (Happy New Year to All) it’s important to let bygones be bygones but not knowing where you been and what you did is so vital for your survival for the new year and beyond.
Living in one’s truth is an important journey that all of us take on a daily basis but it’s hard to relate to someone else’s path, as it would be our own.
I know by reading this article, I was moved, touched and determined to look at myself and make some much needed changes in my own life.
The hard part would be the consequences and the fallout for making changes because sometimes when your on this self-discovery path, others are still doing the same ole’ things. Some of the things you used to do and partake in, where things that you knew were wrong but now you have come to a roadblock and you have to surrender. I have this notion that when Sister Roma came to that road block, it was needed and necessary because some people will not come have the privilege to live to tell as she is.
Mainly for myself, I needed to get honest about a great deal of things I would be addicted to and running from for all these years now.
When Sister Roma mentioned “us” and “we” you know she wasn’t using by herself, so when your attempting to clean out your own closet, sometimes that is intertwined with someone else’s closet as well.
I even read someone mentioning about how can you feel “fabulous” or “glamorous” when your using and that might be the misconception of addiction and alcohol and drug use. For some, it’s getting out of their own head, for others it’s trying to escape or hide, then you have those that feel that they need get out of their own way because nothing is going the way they want and by using or picking up, it makes total sense for them at that time.
There are a 1,000,000,000 reasons to use but only one reason to quit and this the hard and cold facts that anything your doing that can kill you, will kill you but it destroys you slowly.
All of us have that moment in our lives, where we long for something to happen that is greater than us. We want and desperately need some kind of change and I know for Sister Roma that time happened so fast, that maybe it was instantly forgotten but then realized how huge of a deal it really was.
When your someone like Sister Roma that literally carries others on her shoulders, regardless of what most think she has fans and followers that might never knew of her addiction. There are people that are looked upon to sometimes be our voice, when we can’t speak and to walk alongside of us on this journey. Even though it’s wrong to idolize people and not for nothing but the facts that we are all human and designed to make mistakes. When you consider someone a role model or a leader most of the time, they have a slip-up or something goes down that doesn’t sit well with you. Even with that written I know that in a small way we have a responsibility to be one another’s keeper, even if we don’t want the job. It’s like someone having the cure for AIDS/HIV or Cancer (which would be so incredible) and not sharing it with others because then you would have to open yourself up for not just rejection from others but facing and dealing with and in your own truths.
You can’t leave out or forget your guilt, which is a monster within itself. The feeling of guilt can ride you all the days of your life and that is like having some of cancer to your soul.
Your own flaws and mishaps is always something that most of us don’t want to really look too deeply in because then we are now open for ridicule or judgment and no one wants to be judged harshly or unfairly.
It’s funny how all of us loves to laugh but no one wants to be the joke or laughed at or talked about out-of-school and in a negative way.
I don’t think that LGTBQ (especially gay men) aren’t waking up in the morning and intentionally going out of their way trying to be hurtful (some of the awful comments I have read), I truly believe that it’s more of a response and a reaction to all the pain that many of us have endured over our lives. There are some people that are just naturally filled with joy and I would love to think I could be one of those people but the struggle is real.
Mind you, some of the younger set in the LGTBQ (I’m a bit seasoned so I can write this) would have it a bit easier because there were times that there weren’t any kind of positive outlets to meet, vent and even get to know one another. These guys and girls now have sites like this one Queerty, Facebook and the 1,000 of sites to fulfill whatever needs or inquiries they would have within the walls of the LGTBQ community.
Sometimes you have to allow people to be themselves but you have to remind them that compassion, sympathy and empathy truly doesn’t cost a think but these are attributes that should be learned, taught and passed down with every moment that we live on this earth. Everyone doesn’t have to like one another but we should have the decency to be respectful.
Clark35
@Stache99: NA has been around since the early 50s and for sure by the early 60s.
Did you wind up HIV+ or with HepC the way a lot of people who use meth did because it lowered their inhibitions, and they had unprotected sex?
@FLOGGERDADNYC: What was so bad about LSD in the 60s and very early 70s? I took LSD and mushrooms in the late 90s and early 00s and loved both drugs.
Clark35
@Stache99: Yes the LGBT community in and around SF did know about NA; but they made the choice to use meth then, and the 70s and 80s too, and many people still use it today. The whole PNP (party and play) thing is not new at all as it’s been going on for decades.
Stache99
@Clark35:Yes. You’re right about the NA. I meant CMA which started it’s first group in the late 90’s.
You’re also right that meth has been around a long time. However, all you have to do is follow the CMA groups starting up around the country. Clearly somethings happened that’s never happened before.