For Frank, a recovering meth addict, looking at his track marks helps him stay clean. (Photo by Juan Carlos Rodriguez)
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By JUAN CARLOS RODRIGUEZ
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Methamphetamine thrives quietly in the quaint corners of Oakland Park and Pembroke Pines. It lurks in toney South Beach clubs as well as in the back alleys along Sistrunk Boulevard.
It’s a slippery devil of a drug, one that changes form, and like a science fiction body snatcher, eviscerates gay and straight lives alike.
This year police busted a Fort Lauderdale dealer who was selling meth in pill form labeled as MDMA. The bust was only the second time in the US that agents found meth disguised as ecstasy tablets, signifying a dangerous trend among unknowing ecstacy users. Pink-colored cocaine, laced with meth, is showing up in night clubs, and throughout south Florida’s suburbs the meth has become so common among a particular demographic that police are beginning to refer to it as the new “soccer mom drug.”
And while a growing distribution is being seen for the first time among the heterosexual hip-hop crowd, the drug continues to destroy gay lives.
“I look at it like an epidemic that is psychologically addicting and is used by people who are attempting to fill and emotional and physical void,” said Ross Seligson, a Fort Lauderdale psychologist who is the chair of the Meth and Men Work Group, a non-profit coalition of health-care and community activists that is developing strategies to curb meth use among men who have sex with men.
The group is developing its website www.methandmen.org as a resource point for all people who are struggling with meth addiction.
Among the most vulnerable to meth are men in their mid-forties.
“Something happens around age 45,” Seligson said. “They go out to bars and they start feeling like they are invisible.”
In today’s hard-bodied youth oriented culture, older men are hit with self-esteem issues that leave them vulnerable to a drug like meth.
Frank, a recovering addict from Fort Lauderdale is among the multitude of gay meth victims struggling to stay alive and find meaning to their lives after losing family, friends and a six-figure lifestyle to meth..
The dark splotches on his upper arms might be unsightly, but they play a key role in his recovery.
“These are my track marks,” he said bringing his left arm forward. “They are a good thing for me to see.”
The scars keep him clean and remind him of just how far he’s fallen since he began using the drug.
“Meth got me from day one” he said. “ I spent $500 a day, shooting up five to six times a day.”
Like many addicts, Frank was lured by the feeling of power and renewed sense of youth the drug induced. And like many single gay men who move to South Florida and experience loneliness, the urge to snort, smoke and ultimately shoot up the drug proved irresistible.
“Meth made my fantasies a reality,” Frank recalls. “I could do anything sexually that I wanted.”
For Frank it was easy to access the world of meth. All it took was a few clicks on websites such as Manhunt.net, and other sites that specialize in gay hookups. The code words “Party and Play,” or “PNP” for short, indicate meth users. The drug strips users of virtually all inhibitions and rationale. Soon Frank was calling tricks over to his house to tie him up and beat him.
“My fantasies became obsessions,” he recalls. “I had no control.”
Frank takes his recovery day by day, and at times hour by hour. He is diagnosed with HIV and Hepatitis C. But it is the daily bouts of depression that hurt him the most. His eyes well up when he talks about his former life: as a well balanced happy professional who traveled, worked out and enjoyed life. The distance between the before-and-after of those few years seems impossible to bridge. Today he resembles a hollowed out version of his former self.
“There’s no bouncing back,” Frank says. “I spend half the day crying.”
Frank is one of the lucky ones. He hit rock bottom once he ran his family’s business into the ground and alienated himself from friends.
While the Meth and Men group is working to inform and educate the gay community, it must take on the issue honestly, despite concerns about perception in the GLBT community
“Meth isn’t pretty and nobody want to deal with an issue that isn’t pretty,” Seligson said. “The community needs to stop bifurcating itself and saying it’s us-versus-them. We need to all know how dangerous this drug is and how vulnerable everyone is to this drug.”
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