Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: The Outspoken podcast Network. This episode contains frank discussion on
Speaker 1: addiction and substance use disorder. If you or someone you
Speaker 1: know is struggling with addiction, visit fine treatment dot gov.
Speaker 1: That's fine treatment dot Gov.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I was trying to hide feelings and emotions
Speaker 2: that I was feeling, and so if I could escape
Speaker 2: from all of that for a minute, I would do
Speaker 2: just that. And so he let me hit it, and
Speaker 2: then and I hit it. He's talking me to inhale it,
Speaker 2: and I inhaled. I choked. But the way that I
Speaker 2: felt like I never thought that rushed before, and it
Speaker 2: felt really good.
Speaker 1: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 1: I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
Speaker 1: ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
Speaker 1: that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
Speaker 1: are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll meet Donald Flowers Junior, a man
Speaker 1: recovering from drug, alcohol, and sex addiction. Will learn how
Speaker 1: his identity as a gay man was at the root
Speaker 1: of his addiction, and how coming to terms with that
Speaker 1: allowed him to begin a new chapter from my Heart podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan and Solve and this is what we loved.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like addiction is interwoven into queer life.
Speaker 1: So many of the places that we express ourselves in,
Speaker 1: like nightclubs and art shows and concerts and even gay
Speaker 1: pride itself, are also some of the easiest places to
Speaker 1: find drugs and alcohol. With that wide availability, it can
Speaker 1: be hard to decipher between what's normal and what's concerning.
Speaker 1: Many of us probably know someone who is impacted by addiction.
Speaker 1: According to the federal government, an estimated twenty to thirty
Speaker 1: percent of the LGBTQ community abuses substances, and that's compared
Speaker 1: to just nine percent of the general population. For me,
Speaker 1: it's been mostly present in my dating life. When I
Speaker 1: was in my mid twenties, there was this guy that
Speaker 1: I had a huge crush on. He seemed like he
Speaker 1: had everything going for him. He had a great job
Speaker 1: and good friends, and he was devilishly handsome with these long,
Speaker 1: curly eyelashes and these big arms, and he was super
Speaker 1: sweet too. We had been getting to know each other
Speaker 1: for a couple months and he really liked me back,
Speaker 1: and one night we went to my favorite bar to
Speaker 1: meet my friends for the first time, and I was
Speaker 1: so excited. But within two hours he had become so
Speaker 1: drunk and high on cocaine that he kissed another man
Speaker 1: in front of me. I felt the trade and humiliated.
Speaker 1: The next day, I called him and I told him
Speaker 1: how hurt I was. He apologized and told me that
Speaker 1: he was addicted to alcohol and cocaine and he had
Speaker 1: a relapse. He said the best thing I could do
Speaker 1: for myself was to cut contact with him, because he
Speaker 1: didn't know when he would get better. My next guest,
Speaker 1: Donald Flowers Junior, is also a person with substance use disorder.
Speaker 1: He was addicted to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth, and sex.
Speaker 1: His addiction would test his relationship and his health. He
Speaker 1: grew up in a rural part of Texas in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and he learned from a young age that
Speaker 1: to be gay meant to be unlovable. He also learned
Speaker 1: at a young age that he could escape those feelings
Speaker 1: through the use of substances. You grew up in Texas,
Speaker 1: right like me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, a low town called Gonzales, Texas. Population now I
Speaker 2: think four thousand people.
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. So it was even less when you were
Speaker 1: growing up.
Speaker 2: It was it was less a lot less. It might
Speaker 2: have been.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and you grew up in the church, right.
Speaker 2: I grew up in church, the Southern Baptist. By the
Speaker 2: time I reached eleven twelve thirteen, going through puberty and adolescens,
Speaker 2: I started to notice that I had a knack for singing.
Speaker 1: Because I have a voice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in the Black Church there's this thing that's
Speaker 2: called catching the spirit, and catching the spirit is mean people.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you see people jumping up and down and they
Speaker 2: get happy, become so powerful that it takes over into
Speaker 2: the room. And at that point everyone knows that God
Speaker 2: has shown up and he entered the room. And I
Speaker 2: knew from thirteen fourteen that I had a knack for
Speaker 2: singing because people would actually approach me after service and
Speaker 2: tell me that I touched the spirit or I made
Speaker 2: people cry, or they felt what I was delivering. I
Speaker 2: remember one time when I was a kid, there was
Speaker 2: a song called I Don't Feel No Ways Tired. A
Speaker 2: lot of the people was like passing out saying hallelujah,
Speaker 2: wow seeing Donnie. So I would hear my name being
Speaker 2: called and I like the way that it made me feel.
Speaker 2: It made me feel special. But I grew up with
Speaker 2: a pastor that constantly said that if you were gay,
Speaker 2: you were in an abomination. If you was gay, it
Speaker 2: was going to hell. If you was gay, there's no
Speaker 2: place in the kingdom for you.
Speaker 1: When did you know that you were gay?
Speaker 2: Fabb As early as ten eleven or twelve, I used
Speaker 2: to read Halloquin romance novels at twelve and also too.
Speaker 2: Fabio was always on recover and he had the nicest
Speaker 2: body and like the the long hair, a nice face
Speaker 2: and a nice body, and I would envision myself with
Speaker 2: guys that look like that.
Speaker 1: He's basically on the cover of like all of these
Speaker 1: romance novels exactly. So tell me about what it was
Speaker 1: like being gay in Gonzalez, Texas. It sounds like a
Speaker 1: really small town.
Speaker 2: It's a very small town. Being gay in that little
Speaker 2: town was not was not easy for me. It's a
Speaker 2: little town for a country country southern people with with
Speaker 2: people that they had farms and they had animals. They
Speaker 2: would raise pigs and hogs and horses, and that is
Speaker 2: that is that kind of town. Probably when I was fourteen,
Speaker 2: I guess there was like, there was this guy that
Speaker 2: I used to like, and so we were playing somewhere
Speaker 2: in a field and I knowed there was a barn
Speaker 2: not too far, so we went, It's out that barn
Speaker 2: that barn, and we food around and the horses present
Speaker 2: that kept making noises and looking at us as people
Speaker 2: were doing what we were doing. It was actually fun,
Speaker 2: but we were so into each other we kind of
Speaker 2: ignored ignored the horses.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of what Gonzales, Texas was like. Yes,
Speaker 1: what were some of the messages that you were getting
Speaker 1: about gay people at that time? Growing up in the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties in Gonzalez, Sexes, The messages.
Speaker 2: That I received about being gay were very, very harsh,
Speaker 2: very nasty, very negative. I had to deal with with
Speaker 2: people that was so closed minded. I experienced a lot
Speaker 2: of bullying school. I was bullied like to the tenth
Speaker 2: flower because of my sexuality. I remember one time there
Speaker 2: was this guy. Every time he saw me, he would
Speaker 2: hit me like extremely hard, hit me in my back
Speaker 2: with his fist, hit me in my face, hit me
Speaker 2: in my chest, and he would always do it around
Speaker 2: other people to get them to laugh. I quit school
Speaker 2: when I was sixteen, I quit school because I got
Speaker 2: so tired of being bullied for.
Speaker 1: Being gay, for being gay. Wow.
Speaker 2: And then at home, I didn't get a break. My
Speaker 2: mother was always telling me stop looking like that, stop
Speaker 2: standing like that, asking like with girl, You're not a girl,
Speaker 2: You're a boy. She was always saying that to me,
Speaker 2: like every single day, and so I just felt like
Speaker 2: I was a mistake. I used to feel like I
Speaker 2: was a mistake.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the kind of bullying at home. What
Speaker 1: was it like, kind of growing up as a gay
Speaker 1: kid in your family.
Speaker 2: It wasn't easy because when I was younger, I was feminine,
Speaker 2: and I played with dolls and anything that girls could do,
Speaker 2: I could do it better. Cheerleading, dancing, and you name it,
Speaker 2: I could do it. And so my mother would get
Speaker 2: pissed off. She was always telling me, why you why
Speaker 2: are you always playing with girls and our boys? I
Speaker 2: just I just got so tired of that. I was
Speaker 2: just being My mother was a bully one of my cousins.
Speaker 2: She was babysitting me, my brother and my two step
Speaker 2: cousins and and my female cousin. She called us like
Speaker 2: on top of each other, being on each other, and
Speaker 2: she was like, oh, in the morning, I'm gonna call
Speaker 2: y'all mother's And my mother flew up there in that car,
Speaker 2: and before we got in the car, she says to me,
Speaker 2: she looks at me with her face off, frowned up,
Speaker 2: and she was like, I'm gonna whoop you. And she did.
Speaker 2: And that went on for years.
Speaker 1: So you were kind of experiencing all of this bullying
Speaker 1: from the church, from school.
Speaker 2: And then my own mother, and I couldn't do anything
Speaker 2: about it all for being just because I was being myself.
Speaker 1: I wonder, you know, how did all of these experiences
Speaker 1: make you feel about yourself at that age?
Speaker 2: It made my self esteeming extremely low. I felt really
Speaker 2: bad about myself. I even tried to commit suicide one time.
Speaker 2: I took a lot of medicine, and even in the
Speaker 2: midst of that, the one thing my mother said, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna whoop you. She never sat down, never tried to
Speaker 2: ask me, why are you doing the things you do?
Speaker 2: Not asking questions, not trying to communicate with me, And
Speaker 2: it was a straight up woman like beating.
Speaker 1: So you felt betrayed by your they portrayed by my mother.
Speaker 1: Our episode is about addiction, So tell me now, what
Speaker 1: was the first introduction that you had to addiction.
Speaker 2: It started out with drinking, because my father has always
Speaker 2: been an alcoholic, and he still lives to this day.
Speaker 1: How old were you when you started drinking?
Speaker 2: Seventeen. I drunk this cheap voga with dr pepper, and
Speaker 2: I got so drunk. I was with two friends and
Speaker 2: they had to walk me to my mother's my mom
Speaker 2: and dad's house, to the door and knocking the door,
Speaker 2: and I was standing at about the fall because I
Speaker 2: had gotten so drunk. And so when I woke up
Speaker 2: the next morning, my mom was complaining, Oh, your friends
Speaker 2: they had to come and bring us to the door,
Speaker 2: and you were so drunk. And my mother was like,
Speaker 2: your father's already an alcoholic, and I'm not gonna be
Speaker 2: tolerating that out of another person.
Speaker 1: So even in that moment, you didn't feel protected by
Speaker 1: your family.
Speaker 2: I did not, not, not at all.
Speaker 1: When was the moment you realized you had a drinking problem.
Speaker 2: Probably not till I turned twenty one. I lived in
Speaker 2: New Orleans and I became friends with two brothers, and
Speaker 2: the oldest brother said it to me one day. He
Speaker 2: said it in anger, but he was suddenly saying it
Speaker 2: for a reason. He said, Donald, you're not alcoholic.
Speaker 1: How often were you drinking? It?
Speaker 2: Miss me any chances I got. The early morning drinking
Speaker 2: happened like years later, but it did get to the
Speaker 2: point where I was drinking early in the morning. And
Speaker 2: if I didn't have a schedule like work or anything,
Speaker 2: that's when I would really indulge. If I had nothing
Speaker 2: else to do, I would just go buy something to
Speaker 2: drink and get drunk. And I can see it now.
Speaker 2: The drinking was so bad because I was trying to
Speaker 2: trying to hide feelings and emotions that I was feeling.
Speaker 2: And so if I could escape from all of that
Speaker 2: for a minute, I would do just that.
Speaker 1: What were the feelings that you were feeling now?
Speaker 2: Feeling like I deserved anything? I didn't feel worthy. It
Speaker 2: was I just felt useless.
Speaker 1: So did the addiction stop with alcohol?
Speaker 2: No. When I moved to New York in March thirtieth,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, that's when I was living with someone
Speaker 2: in Harlem and I got introduced to marijuana. Tell me
Speaker 2: that story, Well, he had roast, he had rose to
Speaker 2: marijuana up in rolling papers. He asked me, did I
Speaker 2: want to do it? I said, yeah, so have you
Speaker 2: ever seen it before. I had seen marijuana before, I
Speaker 2: never dried it, and so he let me hit it.
Speaker 2: And then when I hit it, he told me to
Speaker 2: inhale it, and I inhaled. I choked. But the way
Speaker 2: that I felt like I never thought that rush before.
Speaker 1: Donald Flowers Junior had just taken his first hit of marijuana.
Speaker 1: In the moment, the weed and the alcohol were able
Speaker 1: to numb something in him, a pain. But of course
Speaker 1: the high would only last so long. At the height
Speaker 1: of his addiction, he would also find love and it
Speaker 1: would change everything.
Speaker 2: Well, I was smoking, I felt good, but after the
Speaker 2: high came down, I felt like back to the drum board,
Speaker 2: having to deal with life on life terms, not being
Speaker 2: able to escape or a high behind anything, because for me,
Speaker 2: marijuana and liquor were just my escapes.
Speaker 1: So you eventually do begin to do other drugs. What
Speaker 1: was your introduction to those drugs?
Speaker 2: I met this other person, a guy, and he used
Speaker 2: to snort coke. So when I saw him doing it,
Speaker 2: I wanted to try it, and he let me, and
Speaker 2: that was a rush I had never felt before. So
Speaker 2: I like the way that made me feel, so I
Speaker 2: would always do it with him.
Speaker 1: What was your sort of drug of choice, usually in the.
Speaker 2: Beginning alcohol and marijuana, but then later on alcohol, marijuana
Speaker 2: and cocaine, because I would take cocaine in marijuana and
Speaker 2: mix it inside of a blunt. In my mind is
Speaker 2: if I mix both of these together, that's gonna be
Speaker 2: a great, great high. And so when I actually did it,
Speaker 2: that was the outcome. I became very stoned. And I
Speaker 2: was also drinking liquor because my favorite liquor at the
Speaker 2: time was brandy, the dark brandy. And when you do cocaine,
Speaker 2: your cravings for drinking become more and more high. I
Speaker 2: was drinking a paint at one time. I started drinking a.
Speaker 1: Fifth by myself, a whole bottle.
Speaker 2: Yes, my dudes got so bid. I was drinking a
Speaker 2: whole fifth of liquor by myself, which is a lot
Speaker 2: of liquor to be drinking for one person.
Speaker 1: What would you feel like kind of waking up the
Speaker 1: next morning.
Speaker 2: I feel lousy. I'd have a headache or be of
Speaker 2: sick because I couldn't go to sleep because cocaine is
Speaker 2: an upper so you tend to stay awaken. You can't
Speaker 2: go to sleep. It opened them to doors me. They
Speaker 2: try other things like if somebody had crystal math meth,
Speaker 2: then better me. I would do that. If someone had coke,
Speaker 2: I would do that.
Speaker 1: Wow. So you tried meth as well?
Speaker 2: Yes, I have.
Speaker 1: Wow. That's a drug that gay men are particularly.
Speaker 2: At risk for. Yes, lots of gay men smoke crystal meth,
Speaker 2: which is very dangerous.
Speaker 1: Crystal meth and fetamine or meth is a highly addictive
Speaker 1: man made drug. It's typically smoked, but it can also
Speaker 1: be injected, with the high lasting up to twelve hours.
Speaker 1: The health risks include permanent damage to the heart and brain,
Speaker 1: and psychotic symptoms that can last for months or even years.
Speaker 1: According to the federal government, meth use is four times
Speaker 1: more prevalent in gay men than in straight men, and
Speaker 1: according to the New York City Department of Health, meth
Speaker 1: enhances sexual pleasure, lower sexual inhibitions, and enables gay men
Speaker 1: to escape from the stigma associated with gay sex. How
Speaker 1: did you get into contacts with that drugs?
Speaker 2: Men around different people that want to have sex, because
Speaker 2: crystal man, cocaine, all those kind of drugs, those are
Speaker 2: sex those are sex drugs. Those drugs think you very sexual.
Speaker 1: So you also had a sex addiction?
Speaker 2: Yes, I guess I was looking for love, and so
Speaker 2: I was out and have sex with all these different people.
Speaker 2: I came and became very promiscuous, and in doing so
Speaker 2: also the drugs would always kick up a notch. I
Speaker 2: actually said the ten power because you know, they always
Speaker 2: say sex and drugs go hand in hand, which is
Speaker 2: very true. And the kind of drugs that you're doing,
Speaker 2: they make you want to have sex, especially cocaine and
Speaker 2: crystal math.
Speaker 1: Do you think you were still kind of dealing with
Speaker 1: the same issues inside and internally that you were dealing
Speaker 1: with when you were a kid?
Speaker 2: I was. I was. I did a lot of abusing
Speaker 2: myself because the way that I was made to feel
Speaker 2: about myself, I was made to feel that I was nothing,
Speaker 2: I was less than, that God wasn't going to allow
Speaker 2: me into the kingdom of heaven, and that my life
Speaker 2: was made to be in mockery.
Speaker 1: Were you lonely, Donald, very lonely?
Speaker 2: Very?
Speaker 1: Did you ever want to get sober?
Speaker 2: It crossed my mind, But like my life revoid around getting.
Speaker 1: High and around this time you at the height of
Speaker 1: your addiction.
Speaker 2: You met your partner, right, Yes, I met my apartment
Speaker 2: June twelfth of two thousand and four. I met him
Speaker 2: in a village at this little small Chinese restaurant and
Speaker 2: he was eating shrimping broccoli and I walked over to him.
Speaker 2: He was looking at me, he was smiling, and he
Speaker 2: was he's very handsome. So I walked over to him
Speaker 2: and I told him. I said, you're a good looking guy.
Speaker 2: And he said, you're good looking too, And so he
Speaker 2: took his fork and he dipped his fuck into a
Speaker 2: piece of shrimp, into a piece of broccoli. He was
Speaker 2: trying to feed it to me, which was actually I
Speaker 2: thought that was cute, that was original. That's the first
Speaker 2: time if somebody did that. He came to the apartment
Speaker 2: where I live at now. He came the same day,
Speaker 2: and it seemed like after that he moved in.
Speaker 1: How was your addiction interfering with that relationship?
Speaker 2: It was really getting away because I just became another person.
Speaker 2: I was evil, and I'm noxious and simple minded and patty,
Speaker 2: and I took my partner through things that he did
Speaker 2: not deserve, cussing him out and calling him names, and
Speaker 2: sometimes I just don't believe that he didn't throw in
Speaker 2: the towel and called it quit with me. There were
Speaker 2: times that he wanted to, but he never gave up
Speaker 2: on me. I know there were times that he wanted to,
Speaker 2: but he wouldn't. It's just all these things that I
Speaker 2: became because of my addiction.
Speaker 1: I've dated an alcoholic before, and when you're on the
Speaker 1: other side of that, it feels like you want to
Speaker 1: plead with them to almost see you and to consider you,
Speaker 1: because their actions feel like they're not considered of you
Speaker 1: at all. Right, how did you sort of think about
Speaker 1: him and how your actions were affecting him.
Speaker 2: I didn't think about him. I don't think about myself,
Speaker 2: but I was just so caught up into what I
Speaker 2: was doing, so everything about him really didn't matter. I
Speaker 2: loved him, but I was very selfish because of my addiction.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the moment when you thought that your
Speaker 1: addiction was ruining your life and your relationship with your partner.
Speaker 2: But he would always give me money, and it always
Speaker 2: was like, I would go by, I have a panel
Speaker 2: record and then a dinbag an ten dollars bag of weed,
Speaker 2: and I used a lot at home, And if he
Speaker 2: knew I was at home doing drugs, he was okay
Speaker 2: with that. He didn't want me doing it really outside
Speaker 2: in the street.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna do it, at least you're safe. I'm safe, right, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's very loving.
Speaker 2: And yeah, the tipping point was when I started going
Speaker 2: to jail because I was buying marijuana at the time.
Speaker 2: Right now it's legal, but back then when I was
Speaker 2: buying it wasn't legal. And if you got caught, them
Speaker 2: make you do twenty four hours in the system. I
Speaker 2: would call you. They get you on free your carm
Speaker 2: phone call and I'm gonna call him and tell him.
Speaker 2: And I was locked up, and he would come down
Speaker 2: to the jail where I was going to see the
Speaker 2: judge and he'd be sitting there, and sitting there in
Speaker 2: the courtroom, I was actually embarrassed because it's like I
Speaker 2: just kept doing things and get myself into trouble.
Speaker 1: When did your addiction reach its worst point?
Speaker 2: It reaches the worst point when there was a young
Speaker 2: girl in my neighborhood and I went to her looking
Speaker 2: for crack, and she said that she ain't know nobody
Speaker 2: that sold it, but she she had told her the
Speaker 2: people that I was smoking at.
Speaker 1: For you, no one knew that you were struggling with
Speaker 1: addiction except for your partner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was people knew that I smoked and drank,
Speaker 2: but they ain't know that I was doing cocaine. So
Speaker 2: the turning point was when she got mad at me
Speaker 2: about something. So when I came out the biding one day,
Speaker 2: I was going downtown in Manhattan and she saw me,
Speaker 2: so then she yells out out loud, this fagg is
Speaker 2: smoking crack. Everybody was outside. It was like my hot
Speaker 2: summer day, all eyes on me when she said that.
Speaker 2: And then it got into a point where she was
Speaker 2: like harassing me, like every time she would see me
Speaker 2: and she'll call me a crackhead.
Speaker 1: And for you, it was the fact that your reputation
Speaker 1: had been tarnished.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was because I people was calling me a
Speaker 2: crackhead and going out and going around spreading it.
Speaker 1: So now your whole neighborhood knew that you were an addict.
Speaker 2: It was embarrassing.
Speaker 1: Did you realize that you had multiple addictions at that point?
Speaker 2: At that point, yes, I did. I knew I was sad.
Speaker 2: I knew I had a brother, and if I didn't
Speaker 2: gonna get help, I was gonna one kill myself in
Speaker 2: two lose my relationship.
Speaker 1: Donald had reached an inflection point. His substance use was
Speaker 1: ruining his life, but it wasn't just a matter of
Speaker 1: saying no. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse,
Speaker 1: addiction can literally alter our brains, the parts that manage reward, stress,
Speaker 1: and self control, and those changes can last a long
Speaker 1: time even after someone has stopped using, making addiction much
Speaker 1: more than a choice but a chronic brain disease, and
Speaker 1: studies showed that even when someone does get sober, only
Speaker 1: in year five of recovery does the chance of relapse
Speaker 1: significantly decrease. As for why LGBTQ people are at a
Speaker 1: higher risk than the general popular, there are many reasons.
Speaker 1: For Donald, it was shame. In twenty nineteen, he joined
Speaker 1: the Gay Men's Health Crisis Organization for Help, and it
Speaker 1: just so happened that his caseworker was in recovery for
Speaker 1: substance use disorder as well.
Speaker 2: I was shave, and of course when you're shaving, you
Speaker 2: have to look at yourself in the mirror. It got
Speaker 2: to the point where I started hating the person that
Speaker 2: I saw, and it showed in my actions.
Speaker 1: So what was it like after you had this moment
Speaker 1: of looking at yourself in the mirror and realizing you
Speaker 1: didn't like what you saw well.
Speaker 2: I was a part of an agency and the caseworker
Speaker 2: that I had she had a problem with coke herself
Speaker 2: and she went to rehab and got off. So she
Speaker 2: referred me to the same rehab that she went to,
Speaker 2: Seafield in the Hampton's. And when that van came to
Speaker 2: my home and picked me up, my partner, my Pardoner
Speaker 2: is amazing. He took my bag like a gentleman. And
Speaker 2: I'm living on the fourth floor and he walked down
Speaker 2: with me and he put my bag in the van
Speaker 2: and he gave me a hug and he said, You're
Speaker 2: gonna be okay. And I kissed him and told him
Speaker 2: and I love him. And when I got in that van,
Speaker 2: I started praying on my way to that reality, God,
Speaker 2: please allow me to really start focusing on Donald And
Speaker 2: when I see my reflection in the mirror, actually like
Speaker 2: the person that's staying back at him. When I went
Speaker 2: to rehab, I found out that I had fentanyl in
Speaker 2: my system. It was being put I think poppy in
Speaker 2: the marijuana and poppy also the crack I was smoking.
Speaker 2: And I went there with a plan. I went there.
Speaker 2: My plan was to get off drugs, and I stayed
Speaker 2: nineteen days from the time you wake up to the
Speaker 2: time you were the bad meetings all day. They put
Speaker 2: you in those meetings all day to refocus your brain
Speaker 2: so you can stop thinking about using. When you go
Speaker 2: to rehab, you also have to work on changing behaviors.
Speaker 2: That's like, that's one of the main things. You have
Speaker 2: to stop acting like a person that still does crystal math.
Speaker 2: You have to stop acting like a person that smoked
Speaker 2: crack or smoked marijuana or had a problem with drinking.
Speaker 2: You got to change those behaviors.
Speaker 1: What did you realize was sort of driving all of
Speaker 1: your addictions.
Speaker 2: My relationship with my mother. I felt about myself and
Speaker 2: about being a gay man when I went to rehab. Actually,
Speaker 2: that was when I started saying to myself that I
Speaker 2: was gonna love myself despite what somebody else feel, and
Speaker 2: I would actually pray until the point where I would
Speaker 2: have that mindset that I know that God made me
Speaker 2: and his image, and he didn't make a mistake when
Speaker 2: he made me. God did make a mistake when he
Speaker 2: made any of us that are gay.
Speaker 1: When you eventually got sober, Donald, what did you learn
Speaker 1: about yourself.
Speaker 2: That I was a fighter and a survivor I thank God,
Speaker 2: I think of my sobriety. There was a time when
Speaker 2: I first got to rehab that it was kind of
Speaker 2: hard to walk past the liquor store. And when I
Speaker 2: got clean, I had to go back to the same
Speaker 2: neighborhood where I was buying drugs and see those same
Speaker 2: people that I was buying drugs from, and I had
Speaker 2: to tell all of them, do not approach me asking
Speaker 2: me about drugs because I stopped and I'm clean, and
Speaker 2: some of them didn't want to believe that I was
Speaker 2: clean or when I stopped buying. Eventually they saw that
Speaker 2: I meant business. And I still see some of those
Speaker 2: people that I bought drugs run.
Speaker 1: What was it like for you to then come home
Speaker 1: to your partner.
Speaker 2: The day that I the day I was released, they
Speaker 2: took me. They dropped me off out in a creams
Speaker 2: and my partner was there to meet me. And I
Speaker 2: got out that van and I took my bag and
Speaker 2: put it in the back seat of his trunk of
Speaker 2: his car, and he gave me a hug, and my
Speaker 2: partner looked at me in the face and he said,
Speaker 2: you look so good. He was like, he was so
Speaker 2: happy for me. He was he was extremely happy for me.
Speaker 2: He was, like he said, cheat him like a chest cat,
Speaker 2: and I was, and I was happy that I did
Speaker 2: that too. It was like one of the best things
Speaker 2: that I ever could do, and it actually made our relationship.
Speaker 2: Stronk when I became sober and when you're celebrated twenty years.
Speaker 1: June twelve, how long have you been sober now.
Speaker 2: July eleventh and be five years? Congratulations, Thank you, I
Speaker 2: thank God for that. I've read that forgiveness is a
Speaker 2: huge part of the sobriety journey. Yes it is, And
Speaker 2: for you, was forgiving yourself part of that? Yes, I'm
Speaker 2: glad you asked that, because sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I
Speaker 2: have a problem forgiving myself. Sometimes I get very emotional.
Speaker 2: It's just hard because I was on drugs for a
Speaker 2: long time, since I was a seventeen eighteen years old
Speaker 2: kid out to my present, and I'm trying my best
Speaker 2: to forgive myself. I'm trying I'm trying my best to
Speaker 2: forgive my mother.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, Donald, there's a stat that like twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty percent of LGBTQ people have substance abuse issues.
Speaker 1: What is the wisdom that you want to pass down
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: Number one is to love yourself. If I was able
Speaker 2: to pass the stuff down that I know now, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have never been a drug addict. I would have
Speaker 2: never been an attic. At the end of the day,
Speaker 2: there's light. There's light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2: The first the first step is and meaning that you
Speaker 2: have a problem. And if you can admit that there's
Speaker 2: a problem, then that's half the battle right there. Remember,
Speaker 2: wisdom has to be around people that love you, people
Speaker 2: that push you to be better. When you become sober, too,
Speaker 2: try to find something to do that you love and
Speaker 2: work and work at a passion and try to make
Speaker 2: your dreams come true.
Speaker 1: And what are your dreams.
Speaker 2: I'm in college right now. My goal is to become
Speaker 2: a social worker. My dreams now is for me to
Speaker 2: become a social worker because I feel that I have
Speaker 2: a life experience and I'm going to make a damn
Speaker 2: good social worker. I gonna make a damn good socio
Speaker 2: and I know that.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of full circle.
Speaker 2: Like this is a very full circle.
Speaker 1: You're going to eventually help the people that were struggling
Speaker 1: at one point.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I want I want to work with lgbt
Speaker 2: Q youth. That's my goal and the reason why I'm
Speaker 2: telling this story is because I just want to be
Speaker 2: an inspiration to a lot of the gay people the
Speaker 2: world over, especially to gay lgbt Q youth, because a
Speaker 2: lot of times when the youth are misguided and don't
Speaker 2: have older the elders to pull them up by their
Speaker 2: bootstraps and to help them. We the older ones, we
Speaker 2: neither try to look out for them and have their
Speaker 2: back and try to push them to do positive things
Speaker 2: with their lives. You know, if you're gay, hold on
Speaker 2: to this. You're a child of God, that's first, and
Speaker 2: you're not a failure, and you're not a disappointment. And
Speaker 2: it took me a long time to get to that
Speaker 2: point to be able to say that, but I know
Speaker 2: that I was not a mistake and donaldre Flowers Junior
Speaker 2: was put in his world to be somebody.
Speaker 1: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
Speaker 1: to tell your story, email us at but We Looved
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com, or send us a message on
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Speaker 1: production of The Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts, But
Speaker 1: We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers
Speaker 1: Areshena Ozaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are Me Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Boone.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jay Brunson and rockkel Willis. If you
Speaker 1: loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.