Pilot Alcoholism-Treatment Program Targets GaysNew York Magazine July 20, 2009 Issue
What gay man doesn't like a cocktail? Certainly, there are enough gay men who seem to drink too much. But 40 years after Stonewall — the birth of the gay liberation movement took place at a bar, let’s remember — Columbia University researchers have been trying to figure out if gay men can avoid giving up the nightlife just because they have a drinking problem.
Why? “It’s too socially debilitating to cut a gay man off from the bar and club scene,” said Jon Morgenstern, a clinical psychologist at Columbia University who is vice-president of the school’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse and the director of the trial. “Gay men,” continued Dr. Morgenstern, a Dos Equis–swigging heterosexual, “have the minds of college students and teenagers when it comes to alcohol. It’s crucial to their socialization.” (Morgenstern makes it clear that the same conditions exist for other groups that tend to socialize around alcohol.) Unlike most accepted methods of managing alcoholism, the double-blind clinical trial does not demand abstinence; instead, alcoholics are taught to manage their addiction and moderate their drinking. . . . . . .
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