Ask Frankie Anything: What's the Deal With Denver Guys?

By Frankie Silverstein

In a Comment of the Day in Westword, commenter 'seerclearly', made some strong points:

“I wonder if my experiences as a gay man who recently moved here are similar. What I've noticed is that Denver men seem to connect and disconnect randomly. I'll have some guy drooling over me and then he disappears for 3 months...6 months...two years and then comes back like nothing happened. And, a lot of them are narcissistic (focused only on themselves). Quite a few I've meet I'd have to classify as simply nutty: paranoid, ADD, Tourette's. Maybe it's all the Meth. There's a LOT of Meth. Which leads me to the great number of er... limp Johnsons. A lot of those too and all that it implies. But at least they look hot with their Lumbersexual outfits and beards.”

Drugs are prevalent everywhere you go; plain and simple. Meth and other drugs in Colorado will eventually find their way into the lives of those who welcome it. “Seek and you shall find,” I always say. I strongly believe we are magnets that truly attract that which we desire. In truth, drugs are prevalent in many cities, and in many communities. Not just the gay community, and not just Denver. 

I have met the nutty Denver men, the guys who will promise to come over and watch Buffy and never do. And I have also met the others - the curious, the gentle, students, brokers, the health-conscious, and the ones we overlook. Seerclearly, clearly had an unsavory experience which has molded his perspective of gay culture and gay men in this city. 

I would tell seerclearly to choose his company wisely. We all have dark periods in our lives; whether we choose to admit it to ourselves or not, it’s true. Instead of judging others based on their life experience and their unhealthy habits, focus on the positive and move forward. The majority of folks I've encountered with substance abuse problems suffer from low self-esteem and come from a past of broken homes and shattered dreams. Who are any of us to judge? Supposedly we are here to help each other instead of criticizing a few guys for wanting to have sex after they get blitzed. That sounds to me like a privileged and arrogant, entitled attitude. The LGBT community has suffered enough at the hands of homophobes and unaccepting families. If you're simply not into the dude, be polite about it. There's no need for rudeness and attitude. Instead of hurting each other with our ignorance, why not reach out and be a source of good in the world?

Seerclearly goes on to say:

“These wounds turn into feelings in their adult lives they can't deal with, so they cover them with Meth and alcohol and maybe 420. And the connect/disconnect? I think it comes from the religious idea that there is one right person for each of us who is perfect, a form or earthly eternal salvation. So when these guys start dating, the moment they see something even slightly wrong in their mate, they bail.”

We all have ways of dealing with our problems. So what if you drink a beer or smoke a joint to mellow out? Big deal. The problem isn’t just the act of substance abuse, or that meth, cocaine and other drugs are used to suppress life’s pains or amplify the most joyous. The main problem is that people are suffering and are being overlooked. Of course we all want a perfect love life, yet be advised, leaving your house will expose you to the tired, the listless, and the nutty.

Seerclearly’s perspective is valid, because it is his. But it's not the only perspective. Generalizations created out of fear can limit what you allow yourself to experience. Howard Schultz said it best, “We must learn to lead through the lens of humanity.” We must continue to be honest, human and kind. How else can you expect to land the right guy?

Aquarian California native, Frankie Silverstein, 33, currently resides on the central west-coast, enjoys being a full time life enthusiast with a zest for the finer things in life which include positive thinking and manifesting a wonderful day each day. He is multilingual and fluent in Spanish and American Sign Language. Frankie's passions allow him to bridge the gap from community to community, whilst leading through the lens of humanity and holds a BA in Speech Communications from San Francisco State University. 

With a passion for writing and performing, Frankie uses his honed skills, psychic gifts and intuition to guide, communicate and connect with the people around him. 

The best advice he can give is, “Grow from light and always find truth within you. Reach for the galaxies, shoot beyond the stars and always aim with your heart." You can find Frankie on Twitter @SilversteinLife, Like page on Facebook: Frankie Silverstein and on Instagram @FrankieSilverstein. Frankie wishes you a blessed day!

Harm Reduction Action Center Helps Prevent HIV and Hepatitis C in Denver

The Harm Reduction Action Center is Denver's recognized expert in providing HIV and Hepatitis C prevention programming, using harm-reduction principles. Harm reduction allows Harm Reduction Action Center to meet drug users "where they're at," addressing the conditions of their drug use along with the use itself.

Have You Heard About the Harm Reduction Action Center?

Since 2002, the Harm Reduction Action Center has been Colorado’s primary provider of HIV/HCV prevention and services to injection drug users in the Metro-Denver community. The mission of the Harm Reduction Action Center is to educate, empower, and advocate for the health and dignity of Metro-Denver’s injection drug users (IDU) and affected partners, in accordance with harm reduction principles. Staff and volunteers meet drug users "where they're at” and have developed a reputation for accessing IDUs that would not otherwise have appropriate health education, healthcare services, and emotional support, thus avoiding duplication of already available community services.

Check out more information after the jump.

Talk about Tina with Denver Element and The Mile High Meth Project

Click the pic for more information about talking about meth with The Denver Element and The Mile High Meth Project.

Things to do in Denver when you're gay: Talk about Tina with The Mile High Meth Project and Denver Element

The Mile High Meth Project and Denver Element want to talk to Denver gay men about meth. Do you use? Do your friends? Have you quit? Are you trying to quit?

Click the pic for more information or visit TheDenverElement.com.

Deadly additive found in Denver's cocaine supply

Here's one good reason to cut down on your cocaine consumption.

The Last Drag: Quit smoking now

* click to embiggen

The gay community still smokes at a much higher rate than the rest of the population but you can quit with help from The Last Drag.

Faces of Meth

Meth will steal your beauty.

Whatever happened with gay men and meth?

So what happened with gay men and meth? A couple of years ago everyone was in a panic. Eighth Avenue was crowded with bus stop posters decrying the scourge that was crystal methamphetamine, it seemed like everyone knew someone who had just lost their job or soul to Tina, brunch pals were dropping like flies. Health officials and community activists made the direst possible predictions about the perfect storm of meth and HIV, not to mention flesh-eating, drug-resistant bacterial infections. Yikes!

Read the rest of the article after the jump.


Well, the truth is that meth, like crack cocaine, is still around and still wreaking havoc in the lives of gay men and others; it's just gone underground. The public panic has waned, as it always does - a point this newspaper's Duncan Osborne has taken pains to point out - and all the hoopla has subsided into the daily grind of users using and former users struggling to stay clean.

The effort to silence the seductive siren's call of crystal meth has proven in many cases to be a tremendously difficult battle that still takes enormous effort even years after a user has admitted he has a problem and taken substantial steps to address it.

Just ask anyone in the still crowded rooms of the 12-step group Crystal Meth Anonymous (http://www.nycma.org), which has more than 30 meetings a week in Manhattan. Those guys know the different cycles of relapse, because they hear about it every day.

There are people like Davis (all the names in this article have been changed) in early recovery but still struggling to go for even a week without binging. "It's like I'm trying to climb up the slope of a mountain and just can't get traction. I keep sliding back. If I have money, I'll buy drugs. If I feel down, I'll go online to try to hook up with someone who's using. I just can't get over the hump."

Achieving abstinence can be particularly difficult with meth because the way it operates on the brain may actually interfere with a person's ability to withstand triggers to use. Cocaine is known to flush the brain with more than 500 percent the normal level of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine, whereas meth can stimulate the release of more than 1,500 percent. But when the party's finally over, a user is running only on fumes to support his emotional stability as the brain slowly attempts to recover.

For many people, getting sober requires an all-out effort, not infrequently an inpatient detox program with specific experience in treating meth addicts like the ones at Manhattan's Addiction Institute (http://www.addictioninstituteny.org), at the Pride Institute (http://www.pride-institute.com), a long-time presence in Minnesota that now operates in New Jersey as well. But go-away rehab programs are costly and often not covered by stingy managed care companies. Luckily, there are other options, like the LGBT Community Center's new outpatient recovery program (http://gaycenter.org/health/recovery) that operates on a sliding scale based on people's ability to pay and accepts Medicaid.

But all too often, even when someone has been able to cobble together a few months of clean time, and has a whole host of new perspectives on what made them vulnerable to getting hooked on meth, and has even re-crafted their world from a shady network of users into a supportive sober community, relapse is more often the norm than an exception.

"I was six months off meth," said Charlie, "I was going to CMA meetings every day. But I was lonely I hadn't learned how to have sex and be intimate with another guy without meth. Slowly I started back sniffing around online, then jerking off thinking about crystal sex. An old fuck buddy from like more than a year ago texted me one day I called in sick to work and was back in the saddle with meth."

For Charlie, his relapse was luckily just a slip and within a couple days, he was back at CMA and slowly counting each clean day again. But for some guys, getting back to sobriety can take months. "I was so ashamed of myself," said Gordon who relapsed last year after being two-and-a-half years off meth. "I was supposed to be a pillar of sobriety, advising people who just got clean. I was supposed to have it figured out. When I broke up with my boyfriend, I got so depressed, and then when I relapsed, I just couldn't face telling people it had happened. And so it kept happening. It was really a nightmare."

While Gordon has stopped again, the sense of fragility - that the specter of meth addition might raise its head at any time - plagues him daily. "It's never over with crystal," he said. "As long as it's out there somewhere, I need to be constantly vigilant."

While the intensity of the drug and its effect on the brain explains some of the frequency of relapse, it's likely that there are other contributory factors. Internalized homophobia may find expression in the power of the drug to silence all the self-lacerating chatter that goes on in the minds of gay men as they attempt to find love and connection in a world still freaked out by HIV and where standards for physical beauty and success can often seem unattainably high.

Crystal's sneaky specialty is that it puts gay men in a precious mental zone where they can be with themselves, with their own bodies and with other men and their bodies, without the often covert self-sabotaging thoughts that tell them they are too fat, too stupid, too something to be loved. The problem, of course, is the awful price that meth exacts for the few hours of unalloyed pleasure.

If relapse is regularly a part of the recovery process with meth, the challenge is learning how to quit through slips - not let them deter you but rather teach you, helping you to get back up on the horse. Relapse is dangerous, certainly, but the hope is that the skills that someone learns in getting clean once can be applied when they are needed again - skills like reaching out to others, making sure there are plenty of resources to help and not the bare minimum, and uncovering the shadowy influence of internalized homophobia.

Gay men are nothing if not resilient. In the ongoing battle against addiction to crystal meth, meeting the challenge of relapse means being fully who we are and not allowing a drug to turn us into mere shells of ourselves.

Christopher Murray, LCSW, is the author of this article and a therapist in private practice in Chelsea who can be reached at ChristopherMurray.org.