“The stress of dealing with stigma and bias also manifests in high rates of substance abuse among gay and transgender people of color. A study by the Center for American Progress found that 43 percent of Black gay respondents, 33 percent of Latino gay respondents, and 21 percent of Asian American gay respondents reported abusing alcohol — all rates much higher than their straight counterparts. Gay and transgender people of color are also more likely to smoke cigarettes than their straight or white peers. Further, unemployed transgender people of color abuse drugs and alcohol at twice the rate of employed gay and transgender people.”
– Excerpt, “The State of Gay and Transgender Communities of Color in 2012,” Center for American Progress
“Over a quarter of the respondents misused drugs or alcohol specifically to cope with the discrimination they faced due to their gender identity or expression.”
– Excerpt, “National Transgender Discrimination Survey Report on Health and Health Care,” National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
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Freshman year, I came into this university thinking I wasn’t going to drink, do drugs, none of that. I was straight edge (you should definitely laugh), and I made it through freshman year sober, despite being surrounded by party culture. All the qpoc house parties I went to were thick with smoke, featuring people passed out high, drunk or both, talking about tripping on this and dropping that. It was exciting at best, alienating at worst.
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The summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I studied abroad in a country where the drinking age was only one year away instead of four. I stood inside an Aldi, nervously checking out with four bottles of alcohol whose labels I couldn’t read. The cashier didn’t card me, and I couldn’t stop grinning, even after I met my friends outside. The first time I got drunk, it was on an entire bottle of off-brand Irish cream and some swigs of strawberry gin. I cried for six hours, from night until morning and slept for maybe an hour before I had to go to work. I woke up and got hangover tips from my coworker, who had gotten drunk and ended up in a neighboring country, making it back just in time for work.
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The sophomore slump is real. I was still experimenting, asking people to watch out for me, to tell me when they thought I was getting maybe a little too fucked up. But I was starting to drink — really drink. Traveling abroad had distracted me from my depression — I worked during the weeks, sure, but another trip to a new country every weekend meant I was constantly having fun. I didn’t slow down — didn’t need to. When I got home, I missed traveling, missed excitement and new places and new things. Instead of day trips and weekend trips, I went to parties and parties and parties and parties — four nights, five nights a week. It wasn’t a problem; I was frustrated that my friends couldn’t keep up. It was fun — Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, repeat. Even when I didn’t go out, I drank every night of the week.
x.
Depression and anxiety flayed me. I disintegrated into a raw nerve, completely without coping skills, without boundaries, without any ability to “deal.” I felt alone and isolated (a function of the illness). It was not glamorous; it was not romantic. My friends were loving and supportive and gave and gave and still, I felt alone. Of course, I had to go to class. In class, people said racist things and asked me why I got angry. They told me they weren’t racists because they watched Oprah. They said trans people didn’t exist, that we were jokes. Then, we openly debated whether queerness existed —whether I, in all of my facets, existed. It was aggression after aggression — they were micro, I knew that, but they felt macro. I’ve never been good at feeling. The aggressions, like shrapnel, lodged in and wore me down.
I dreaded class while my white classmates looked on, not understanding. You know that feeling — I don’t need to explain microaggressions to you. I started spiking my coffee with vanilla vodka in the mornings, bargaining with myself: I can get up and face my fucking professors if I have a shot. Two shots. Two to three, three to four, four to “a generous splash.” I would get an iced coffee and pour half of it into a jar to put in the fridge for later, fill the other half with vodka. I know people smelled it. I showed up to an exam so drunk I struggled to bubble in the Scantron, and I did better on it than on any of the exams I took sober.
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Parties became opportunities to start fistfights. When fratty dudes sexually harassed my friends, I more than willingly stepped in. I became everyone’s bodyguard. I took it too far — often — but my friends stuck with me. They’d try to calm me down, but I was, I thought, powerful. The pain I experienced in the classroom and in my communities bled over into my social life. Don’t tell me what to do. I can do anything I fucking want to do. I already had a high pain tolerance while sober; when I was drunk, I couldn’t feel pain at all. I was strong, unfeeling. A vigilante. Invisible, except when I became lethal. I fought to matter.
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One of the times I look back on with the most shame is when one of my friends invited me to a talk. It was supposed to be for grad students, I think, but I went and sat in anyway. I brought a 16-ounce water bottle full of straight Everclear. People turned around to look at me when I opened it. I reeked of it. One of my friends came up to me, breathed in, whispered angrily, “Go get some food.” His friends stared at him, at me.
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I want it made very clear that I did not drink because I hated myself, I drank because I hated everyone around me, and the systems and structures they so blithely represented and endorsed. Looking back, it’s so easy to see how I was helping them destroy me. Then, it felt like taking back control. It terrifies me.
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I drank until I couldn’t put off getting treatment for depression, then kept drinking after starting treatment for depression until I went to treatment for drinking. It took me a year and a half, on both sides of treatment, to get where I am today. I didn’t want to stop. I earned the right to deal however I wanted to, I thought, even if that looked like a handle of vodka every three days. I hated the idea of self-care, resented it at its core. The only thing to do with a raw nerve, I thought, was add layers of insulation. Like a rubber coating over a live wire, alcohol made it so that I could stand me, so that I could stand everything around me. My friends told me how much I hurt them by hurting myself. I am still learning to think about — to come to terms with — what this must have been like for them. A lot of times, I don’t understand why people who loved me then loved me at all or why they continue to love me.
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I have hundreds of stories like the ones I just wrote. I don’t have to tell all of them for you to get the picture. It’s been a year or two, and I am only — just now — far enough away from it to engage it in a thinkpiece. Point is, I’m not done with this. I’m not going to be done. I would like to wrap this up with a pretty takeaway, but I can’t. It’s tough. It fucking sucks. I’m lucky in that I’ve been able to avoid relapse, but I have years and years to go. I still have panic attacks about the fucking awful shit I did when I was drunk. It is part of who I am, and it is not a pretty thing. I am trying to tell this story honestly, compassionately, and maybe — as if it weren’t me. Even that is so hard. I am so ashamed. Still, I am not writing this in the interest of forgiveness, I don’t think. Maybe I am. I’m not too good at feeling, like I said. I am writing this because dependence looks so different when you’re queer and when you’re trans and when you’re a person of color. It looks like self-care, it looks like a much needed rest from experiencing pain and more pain. I am not here to tell you what I think you should do about it — get help, if you’re ready. You won’t regret it. But if you’re not ready, I understand. I understand. I understand.
Michigan in Color is the Daily’s opinion section designated as a space for and by students of color at the University of Michigan. To contribute your voice or find out more about MiC, e-mail michiganincolor@umich.edu.