I don't think I had a full-fledged substance abuse problem until I officially came out. I lived in a small, southern city when I left my male partner for a woman. My ex-partner told everyone he knew that I had a “gay affair” and people talked everywhere I went. Once I was at a restaurant and a friend of my ex said loudly, "That's M's ex. They had sex with the whole women's roller derby team and he had to move to get away from them." I kept my cool for about four seconds and then took a shot. And another. And another. Rinse and repeat.
I had had a lot of queer relationships before that, but I was pretty quiet about them. Being publicly outed in a conservative suburb was traumatizing, and I started partying constantly. I used substances both to escape and to explore my new life. I didn’t know what it meant to be here and queer and I was definitely not used to it, so I used drinking and drugs as a buffer. Eventually — almost two years later — I realized that even though I had come out to everyone, I still wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. All the parties in the world weren’t helping, and it dawned on me that if I didn’t get sober I was going to end up as a very sad statistic.
