Michael Henry released a new YouTube video this week that tackles drinking in the gay community, and even if you don’t personally relate to it, chances are you know someone who would.
The lines between indulgence, overindulgence and addiction can get awfully fuzzy when it comes to alcohol, and not just because you’re so drunk your vision’s completely blurred.
Related: ‘Dangerous When Wet’ Author On Alcoholism, HIV And The Bond Between Gay Sons And Their Mothers
In what’s become his signature style, Henry takes an uncomfortable truth — various studies show LGBTQ people are twice as likely to struggle with substance abuse than straight people — and turns a serious conversation into something of a manic fever dream.
In one exchange, someone asks, “Should we all just blurt out the reasons we’ve intertwined our gay existence with alcohol?”
“Sure!” the other two excitedly agree.
“I don’t know how to have sex sober,” says one person.
Related: Five Ways To Reclaim Your Sex Life After Booze, Meth And Other Substances
“Nobody likes me when I’m not drinking,” says another.
The sketch is chock full of little truth bombs like these, which simultaneously made us shoot milk out our noses (we weren’t even drinking milk) while also feeling some heartache for everyone struggling with these difficult and dangerous realities.
Watch the video, which stars Henry, Chad Westbrook and Travis Cole, below:
Bonus — Here’s another great video from Henry that broaches another challenging topic:
thisisnotreal
Love his videos and been subscribed for a while. He’s great at taking uncomfortable subjects and little snippets of truth and turning them into easily digestible moments that make you laugh and think at the same time.
PinkoOfTheGange
Great more pressure for heteronormality, now coming from within the tribe.
Being gay use to mean we didn’t have to live like the rest of the world, we had less responsibilities so we could work longer and party harder. Now we have our own clucking at us like Enid Strict about the way we are living our lives. If someone wants to live with their partner in a monogamous relationship, have the picket fence, a dog, and 1.8 kids: great, I’ll bring a fantastic gluten free desert to the BBQ and stick around for the 7 hour game of Monopoly. But don’t ridicule me because that isn’t my ideal too. There is a dungeon party that doesn’t start till midnight.
Alcoholism is not restricted to the homosexual. There has been no shown causal link between homosexuality and addiction. Some people can’t handle the freedom that out lives give us. But we shouldn’t shame them or pity them…we should support them.
tnguy
I am shocked that my comment was deleted.
Contrary to your assertion, gays are two or three times more likely to have major substance abuse issues , And yet we try to present a façade of perfection and seamless integration.
Underneath the mask, there is a tumultuous tempest of self-hatred, drug abuse, and sexual promiscuity which is slowly eroding the content of our souls.
I have done it, which is why I know that life can be lived in a better way. I care not if I get banned from this site for refusing to drink the Kool-Aid.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/reports/2012/03/09/11228/why-the-gay-and-transgender-population-experiences-higher-rates-of-substance-use/
Stefano
@tnguy : yes it is sad but so true. Here is a good article about that too :
https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/gay-loneliness/
Heywood Jablowme
@tnguy: “And yet we try to present a façade of perfection and seamless integration.”
We? Maybe that’s your problem (Keem-o-sa-be). Personally, whenever I try to present a façade of perfection I can only hold it up for a week or two, lol.
Okay, your link adequately describes it: gays use alcohol & drugs more than straights do because straights discriminate against us, and there are so damn many of them. Whoop-te-do, big surprise.
I’m sure the heteros are very impressed with you now that you’re sober… i.e. your new façade of perfection!
Donston
I’ve always been about living your life the way you feel. However, it is refreshing that we’re getting to the point where more “queer” people are moving past agenda and sentimenal phrases and are talking more honestly about uncomfortable topics like substance abuse, sexual abuse/assualt, depression/anxiety, self-destructive instincts, internalized homophobia, self-loathing, etc. At the very least it lets people know there’s people out there going through similar stuff. It also lets known that there are multiple ways to live your life, and you don’t have to succumb to a sociology.
Donston
Furthermore, this is a generally problematic perspective and represents what I’m usually talking about when I say too many attach orientation to sociology. A “gay lifestyle” shouldn’t equate to anything more than wanting to be with someone of the same gender romantically and sexually. That’s all. The fact that many still see it as something beyond that is the very nature of a significant amount of homophobia. It’s also the base of a lot internalized homophobia, self-resentment and self-rejection.
Stephen
More gay drunks and substance abusers in a gay bar compared to a straight bar any day!. Coming out in the 1960‘S or 1970’s was hell. Being pelted with rocks or rotten food waiting in lines outside a gay bar by straight guys driving by. Police refusing to intervene or listen to us for another 20 years? Bottle clubs because the city would not give gay bars a license.
We struggled with family, friends, co-workers and had a love/hate relationship with how well Anita Bryant’s campaign to fire gays from teaching and other occupations back fired on her. Hit with a whipped cream pie in national TV she replied, “I hope it was a fruit pie!” Her pastor wrenched hand down to their knees to prayer for the “sinner”. Outrageous! Hilarious! Fired by the Florida Orange Growing Ass’n. She lost every sponsor.
But the toil of handlin* homophobia has always been the bain of our existence.
It breaks more people struggling to find well-being than straight counterparts.
More teen suicides die over suicide over sexuality issues than any other cause except drug deaths. Youth! So afraid they are killing themselves at record levels!
We fought back to survive and made it an art form!
Drag Queens were the forefront of Stonewall riots not men w/ties and casual wear.
Days before Judy Garland had died and an icon was dead who spoke out 4 us.
The world changed. And yet some of it remains the same in many ways.
Too many designer drugs. Too much gay on gay crime.
We have chosen to live, love, learn and like living outside the box. There is freedom and a price in that. Some people handle it better than others. How many men give up on sex after 50?
Youth that are face to face insulting older gay men can be soul crushing. I have been called a troll more than a sexy hairy daddy bear in good shape.
I cannot count.
In Asia I am treated with such sincere interest, kindness, attraction and respect. Istanbul is amazing!! So when gay youth don’t know on who’s shoulders they stand on and the darker parts of losing the majority of a generation on the front lines of living through ARC then AIDS’s in the 1980’s and 1990’s … it’s a loss and a price we all pay. It’s harder to be gay now then ever before. We open our lives and doors to anyone LGBTQI in the 60’s an$ 70’s. Now we are a marketing target group mainstreamed. We are in different times, In different ways,
That’s is unless you are young. Because the self loathing of aging is the same self loathing of the decades bef.ore we were ‘cool.’
Great video. Hysterically funny, rivettingly truthful. Now this is not that different from ‘Boys in the Band’. 1000 performances off and on Broadway.
Revival of AAA gay out actors doing it at the NYC Booth Theatre until August 12th. So good it stands with four other plays as the best theatre ( published in decade editions ) of the 1960’s. Best of the entire decade! It’s worth viewing the 1970 Film! Or in revival threatre productions.
“Be kind to one another!” Ellen Degeneres
Vince
Haha. He reminds me of a younger Stanford on Sex and the City. I wonder if that’s where you got the idea for the character.
Smith David
I watched this clip earlier this week and had such a good laugh after a long hard day.Michael Henry’s videos are so smart and witty. He is a wonderful talent. Most independent networks don’t really pickup short sketch comedy spots anymore. However, I think the network execs are loosing out on a lot of great work. It’s wonderful that this new generation of gays have such a good variety of gay films and sketches to draw from. I love it.
o.codone
When I’m sober and I get with my friends they are giggling within 20 minutes, they’ve checked-out of any kind of conversation we may have been having and they don’t understand how significant the differences between them and me actually are. So, sobriety isn’t worth the commitment. I am young and want to have a good time so yeah, I have to go with the flow and have a shot or a glass of wine or a beer. No problem for me.
ElPillo
HIV video is excellent, drinking one is sad
metta
Agree
tham
I find video shorts to be well…a waste of time.
Unless they are strung together into lenar content of 30 60 or 90 min.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good short, adore Randy Rainbow, but….like Randy Rainbow…who’s been around for years…but since he only does (for the lack of a better word) artist version of “potato chips” (yummy, but not a meal). Well…he’s plateaued. He’s the king of potato chips!
You guys seem to have a voice. Use it in a format that’s…a meal. Instead the f doing 10 three min videos, do one 30 min video
tham
With that said, on the booze topic…
Gays do not drink more than Straights (a total myth), the only difference is older straight men tend to be married with kids at a higher rate than gay men (duh) and do their drinking in the privacy of their home (or depending on what part of the country—garage).
Gay men on the other hand did their drinking away from home in public.
This dynamic gave the impression that gay men drank more than straight men…
There’s a reason why we now call Beer bellies, “Dad bods”. Cause there are the same things.