Diversity
One Love
The best way to tackle the stigma of gender stereotyping
is with an open heart. DDN talks to Beck Gee-Cohen
‘I
was pretty functional when I was using. It was easy because I hid my
gender and sexuality, so it was easy for me to hide my addiction as well.’
Beck Gee-Cohen, clinician, trainer, consultant, and trans person in recovery
is reflecting on why members of the LGBTQ+ community are more likely to
misuse drugs and alcohol.
‘When we have to hide our authentic self, when who we are is not what
society says we should be, we turn to drugs and alcohol for relief,’ he says. ‘We
might do things we wouldn’t normally do – and a lot of that is about finding
acceptance and relieving the pain of being not wanted and not seen.’
Gee-Cohen became addicted while working as a bartender. ‘My friends would
go out to the pub and we would all drink, but I would be the one who would go
home and continue to use, and continue to drink late into the night by myself,’ he
says. ‘I’d surround myself with people who drank the same as I did, so people who
didn’t use or didn’t drink were no longer a part of my life.’
Later, in recovery, he went back to college to study sociology looking at gender
and sexuality, and then on to do addiction counselling. He thought back to his
nights at the bar, ‘seeing a lot of people dying who were part of the LGBT
communit