"LGBT clients struggle with both substance addiction and society's opinion," summarizes an addictionologist who won over alcohol
You work as an addiction therapist, you run a therapeutic sanatorium - and you also state that you have undergone addiction treatment yourself. How has this experience influenced you professionally? For example, has it changed your approach to patients and therapeutic solutions to their problems?
Of course. When you experience addiction, you know what it's all about. You experience its pain firsthand. It's been 25 years. I realized then that I was living a life that wasn't fulfilling. I was actually living other people's lives. I do what I'm asked to do. I started running away from that way of life to alcohol. I also understood that if I wanted to save myself, it wasn't enough to just "ban myself from drinking alcohol", it was about changing my life, changing my attitude towards it and also changing my attitude towards myself. I felt then that I had received a really important life insight. No one was dealing with the depth of the addiction problem at that time. The treatment was just about retraining inappropriate behaviors.
And so I took my knowledge as a challenge. I turned my empathy for people in the right direction, I graduated. I started working with addicted clients using a depth approach - in the spirit that "changing myself leads to no longer needing to drink or use addictive substances". I founded the first private sanatorium for overcoming addiction and I am now in my fifteenth year of helping addicts with my team. The experience of addiction, years of healthy living and professional expertise is an amazing combination that gets people out of addiction and in the right direction. I have similar therapists on my team. We show everyone that recovery is possible. Clients have confidence in us. We have a high success rate. And what else is important? We help with sincerity and heart.
The data and research is quite clear - LGBT people are a particularly high-risk group when it comes to addiction. In your experience, what types of addictions are most common in the LGBT community in the Czech Republic - and why ?
The most common escape we encounter in the sanatorium is alcohol. Alcohol is also commonly consumed in the community, so it is the closest a person comes to getting addicted to it. For LGBT people, like other addicts, we deal with relationship problems such as misunderstanding and miscommunication and also psychological problems, classically anxiety, depression. For LGBT clients there is a strong incidence of problems finding their own identity or having difficulty coming to terms with their identity.
Negative feelings of stigma and discrimination by the environment are very difficult issues for LGBT people, which are usually at the origin of alcohol addiction, but also of all other addictions. Of drugs, for example, cocaine addiction is the most commonly encountered. It is usually resorted to by people with low self-esteem and a need to perform at a higher level. But, again, it is really about not accepting one's own identity. By achieving higher performance, the person is asking for love. It is not rare that over time, another addiction is added - workaholism.
On the website you state that "addiction is related to a person's need for a psychological transformation of their personality and that the addicted person escapes from their normal life by using their addictive substance because they have trouble living their life". I can imagine therapeutic work on many levels, but the fact is that, for LGBT people specifically, it is not infrequently the external environment that causes the 'problem of living one's life'. And that can hardly be changed by therapy. So how is working with LGBT addicts different? And are there, for example, any therapeutic methods that have worked best for you specifically in these cases?
The LGBT group of people is under high stress from stigma, discrimination and prejudice in society. This "abnormality", which is often not understood by society, is very demotivating for LGBT people. In fact, one could say that in the case of LGBT clients we are working with two addictions - addiction to a substance and addiction to society's opinion. Using depth therapy, we go to the root of the problem over a period of time from adulthood back to childhood, often even further. The client comes to know themselves in a new way and begins to understand the context of their life. He learns to accept his "setting" and his identity, finds his needs, his value, his self-worth.
When a person finds his or her own path in life, he or she does not need drugs to relax and does not look to the opinions of others. It is a process of inner liberation, of defining oneself, which leads to the realization, "This is me and I have my life!"
Have you encountered any specific patterns of addictive behaviour in your practice with LGBT clients?
What was interesting to me was the pattern of behavior of a gay client who was extremely concerned about his appearance. He wanted to achieve a state of some kind of masculine ideal. He controlled his body curves, his muscles, and had various aesthetic modifications. And he still wasn't satisfied. It was this constant dissatisfaction with his appearance that drove him to alcohol. Eventually we addressed three addictions - alcohol addiction, appearance addiction, and also addiction to supplements and vitamins.
Do you have experience working with LGBT clients (or even the straight population, though the latter is not as often associated with this practice) who are dealing with chemsex? How does this issue differ from other forms of addiction?
If we are talking about addiction, there is only one. And it doesn't matter what substance (or behavior) it is based on. The reason is always the same, the drug acts as a "help" to relax, to cope with work, to prolong endurance in exercise, to self-esteem or even - in the case of chemsex - to have quality sex.
Again, it is essential to focus on the cause. Why do people need a drug for sex? There is an addiction. That's obvious. Psychotherapy is in order. And gradually it is necessary to uncover the causes and set up cooperation with other specialists, specialists, sexologists. I see this problem in the hetero population.
Nowadays, the search for help (also due to insufficient capacities) is a separate problem that addicts encounter. However, the barriers to seeking therapy can multiply for LGBT people - does your experience suggest this? And if so, what barriers do LGBT people face most often when seeking help for addiction?
People are different, so I imagine that sometimes LGBT people can really struggle when seeking help. But the straight population also faces prejudice many times. The solution then is universal: there is no choice but to turn elsewhere.
On the other hand, I think that any professional, therapist, specialist, as long as he or she really helps others and does not resolve his or her ego through helping, has no problem if someone from the LGBT community or someone from the hetero population comes for help. If someone has prejudices and refuses to work with LGBT people, then they are not the right professional. It is good to find another professional right away.
The previous question can then be followed up with the example of your own therapeutic sanatorium, where people have to pay for their own stay. Apart from the possible "capacities" that publicly funded facilities have limited, what "extra" do you offer that people should want to pay for? How is your therapeutic activity different?
We are professionals, addictionologists, therapists. We have self-experience with addiction and years of abstinence. We are also an example that change is possible if you want it. We are interested in the person comprehensively, in honesty and openness. We have many years of experience and also a very high, 83% success rate. And our team also includes people who know the LGBT issue very well. As far as payment is concerned, I believe that putting your own money into health also increases the motivation to get well.
What needs to change in society so that LGBT people have less risk of developing addictions, or so that these risks are at least comparable to the majority population?For example, would some specific prevention of addiction among LGBT people help?
I know that the answer offered here is that society's attitude towards these people should change. But it is better to change what can be changed, and to start with ourselves. So addiction prevention, different conversations about addiction with LGBT people, with interest and openness, that would be a nice step.
I think it's even more effective to give people the opportunity to talk about what's bothering them. What they are personally struggling with. How they perceive stigma, prejudice, relationships. And to show them that they are the most important thing in their lives, for themselves, partners, family. Then they will understand that they don't have to worry about what others say, addictions will diminish and everyone will be free to live their lives the way they want and need to.
