October 2, 2024 • 35 mins
Experts say 20-30% of the LGBTQ community abuses substances. Donald Flowers Jr. is a gay man who was addicted to alcohol, cocaine, crystal meth, and sex. He reflects on his struggles with addiction and his journey to sob
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
The Outspoken podcast Network. This episode contains frank discussion on
addiction and substance use disorder. If you or someone you
know is struggling with addiction, visit fine treatment dot gov.
That's fine treatment dot Gov.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thank you. I was trying to hide feelings and emotions
that I was feeling, and so if I could escape
from all of that for a minute, I would do
just that. And so he let me hit it, and
then and I hit it. He's talking me to inhale it,
and I inhaled. I choked. But the way that I
(00:44):
felt like I never thought that rushed before, and it
felt really good.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
(01:14):
In this episode, we'll meet Donald Flowers Junior, a man
recovering from drug, alcohol, and sex addiction. Will learn how
his identity as a gay man was at the root
of his addiction, and how coming to terms with that
allowed him to begin a new chapter from my Heart podcast.
I'm Jordan and Solve and this is what we loved.
(02:06):
Sometimes I feel like addiction is interwoven into queer life.
So many of the places that we express ourselves in,
like nightclubs and art shows and concerts and even gay
pride itself, are also some of the easiest places to
find drugs and alcohol. With that wide availability, it can
(02:28):
be hard to decipher between what's normal and what's concerning.
Many of us probably know someone who is impacted by addiction.
According to the federal government, an estimated twenty to thirty
percent of the LGBTQ community abuses substances, and that's compared
(02:50):
to just nine percent of the general population. For me,
it's been mostly present in my dating life. When I
was in my mid twenties, there was this guy that
I had a huge crush on. He seemed like he
had everything going for him. He had a great job
and good friends, and he was devilishly handsome with these long,
(03:11):
curly eyelashes and these big arms, and he was super
sweet too. We had been getting to know each other
for a couple months and he really liked me back,
and one night we went to my favorite bar to
meet my friends for the first time, and I was
so excited. But within two hours he had become so
(03:33):
drunk and high on cocaine that he kissed another man
in front of me. I felt the trade and humiliated.
The next day, I called him and I told him
how hurt I was. He apologized and told me that
he was addicted to alcohol and cocaine and he had
(03:53):
a relapse. He said the best thing I could do
for myself was to cut contact with him, because he
didn't know when he would get better. My next guest,
Donald Flowers Junior, is also a person with substance use disorder.
He was addicted to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth, and sex.
His addiction would test his relationship and his health. He
(04:18):
grew up in a rural part of Texas in the
nineteen seventies, and he learned from a young age that
to be gay meant to be unlovable. He also learned
at a young age that he could escape those feelings
through the use of substances. You grew up in Texas,
(04:41):
right like me?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, a low town called Gonzales, Texas. Population now I
think four thousand people.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Oh, wow. So it was even less when you were
growing up.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It was it was less a lot less. It might
have been.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Two thousand and you grew up in the church, right.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I grew up in church, the Southern Baptist. By the
time I reached eleven twelve thirteen, going through puberty and adolescens,
I started to notice that I had a knack for singing.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Because I have a voice.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, And in the Black Church there's this thing that's
called catching the spirit, and catching the spirit is mean people.
Sometimes you see people jumping up and down and they
get happy, become so powerful that it takes over into
the room. And at that point everyone knows that God
(05:38):
has shown up and he entered the room. And I
knew from thirteen fourteen that I had a knack for
singing because people would actually approach me after service and
tell me that I touched the spirit or I made
people cry, or they felt what I was delivering. I
remember one time when I was a kid, there was
(05:59):
a song called I Don't Feel No Ways Tired. A
lot of the people was like passing out saying hallelujah,
wow seeing Donnie. So I would hear my name being
called and I like the way that it made me feel.
It made me feel special. But I grew up with
a pastor that constantly said that if you were gay,
(06:23):
you were in an abomination. If you was gay, it
was going to hell. If you was gay, there's no
place in the kingdom for you.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
When did you know that you were gay?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Fabb As early as ten eleven or twelve, I used
to read Halloquin romance novels at twelve and also too.
Fabio was always on recover and he had the nicest
body and like the the long hair, a nice face
(06:57):
and a nice body, and I would envision myself with
guys that look like that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
He's basically on the cover of like all of these
romance novels exactly. So tell me about what it was
like being gay in Gonzalez, Texas. It sounds like a
really small town.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
It's a very small town. Being gay in that little
town was not was not easy for me. It's a
little town for a country country southern people with with
people that they had farms and they had animals. They
would raise pigs and hogs and horses, and that is
(07:42):
that is that kind of town. Probably when I was fourteen,
I guess there was like, there was this guy that
I used to like, and so we were playing somewhere
in a field and I knowed there was a barn
not too far, so we went, It's out that barn
that barn, and we food around and the horses present
(08:04):
that kept making noises and looking at us as people
were doing what we were doing. It was actually fun,
but we were so into each other we kind of
ignored ignored the horses.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But that's kind of what Gonzales, Texas was like. Yes,
what were some of the messages that you were getting
about gay people at that time? Growing up in the
seventies and eighties in Gonzalez, Sexes, The messages.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
That I received about being gay were very, very harsh,
very nasty, very negative. I had to deal with with
people that was so closed minded. I experienced a lot
of bullying school. I was bullied like to the tenth
(08:51):
flower because of my sexuality. I remember one time there
was this guy. Every time he saw me, he would
hit me like extremely hard, hit me in my back
with his fist, hit me in my face, hit me
in my chest, and he would always do it around
other people to get them to laugh. I quit school
(09:12):
when I was sixteen, I quit school because I got
so tired of being bullied for.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Being gay, for being gay. Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And then at home, I didn't get a break. My
mother was always telling me stop looking like that, stop
standing like that, asking like with girl, You're not a girl,
You're a boy. She was always saying that to me,
like every single day, and so I just felt like
I was a mistake. I used to feel like I
(09:40):
was a mistake.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Tell me about the kind of bullying at home. What
was it like, kind of growing up as a gay
kid in your family.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
It wasn't easy because when I was younger, I was feminine,
and I played with dolls and anything that girls could do,
I could do it better. Cheerleading, dancing, and you name it,
I could do it. And so my mother would get
pissed off. She was always telling me, why you why
are you always playing with girls and our boys? I
(10:12):
just I just got so tired of that. I was
just being My mother was a bully one of my cousins.
She was babysitting me, my brother and my two step
cousins and and my female cousin. She called us like
on top of each other, being on each other, and
(10:34):
she was like, oh, in the morning, I'm gonna call
y'all mother's And my mother flew up there in that car,
and before we got in the car, she says to me,
she looks at me with her face off, frowned up,
and she was like, I'm gonna whoop you. And she did.
And that went on for years.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So you were kind of experiencing all of this bullying
from the church, from school.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And then my own mother, and I couldn't do anything
about it all for being just because I was being myself.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I wonder, you know, how did all of these experiences
make you feel about yourself at that age?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It made my self esteeming extremely low. I felt really
bad about myself. I even tried to commit suicide one time.
I took a lot of medicine, and even in the
midst of that, the one thing my mother said, I'm
gonna whoop you. She never sat down, never tried to
ask me, why are you doing the things you do?
Not asking questions, not trying to communicate with me, And
(11:41):
it was a straight up woman like beating.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So you felt betrayed by your they portrayed by my mother.
Our episode is about addiction, So tell me now, what
was the first introduction that you had to addiction.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It started out with drinking, because my father has always
been an alcoholic, and he still lives to this day.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
How old were you when you started drinking?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Seventeen. I drunk this cheap voga with dr pepper, and
I got so drunk. I was with two friends and
they had to walk me to my mother's my mom
and dad's house, to the door and knocking the door,
and I was standing at about the fall because I
had gotten so drunk. And so when I woke up
(12:31):
the next morning, my mom was complaining, Oh, your friends
they had to come and bring us to the door,
and you were so drunk. And my mother was like,
your father's already an alcoholic, and I'm not gonna be
tolerating that out of another person.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
So even in that moment, you didn't feel protected by
your family.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I did not, not, not at all.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
When was the moment you realized you had a drinking problem.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Probably not till I turned twenty one. I lived in
New Orleans and I became friends with two brothers, and
the oldest brother said it to me one day. He
said it in anger, but he was suddenly saying it
for a reason. He said, Donald, you're not alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
How often were you drinking? It?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Miss me any chances I got. The early morning drinking
happened like years later, but it did get to the
point where I was drinking early in the morning. And
if I didn't have a schedule like work or anything,
that's when I would really indulge. If I had nothing
else to do, I would just go buy something to
drink and get drunk. And I can see it now.
(13:37):
The drinking was so bad because I was trying to
trying to hide feelings and emotions that I was feeling.
And so if I could escape from all of that
for a minute, I would do just that.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
What were the feelings that you were feeling now?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Feeling like I deserved anything? I didn't feel worthy. It
was I just felt useless.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So did the addiction stop with alcohol?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
No. When I moved to New York in March thirtieth,
nineteen ninety eight, that's when I was living with someone
in Harlem and I got introduced to marijuana. Tell me
that story, Well, he had roast, he had rose to
marijuana up in rolling papers. He asked me, did I
(14:24):
want to do it? I said, yeah, so have you
ever seen it before. I had seen marijuana before, I
never dried it, and so he let me hit it.
And then when I hit it, he told me to
inhale it, and I inhaled. I choked. But the way
that I felt like I never thought that rush before.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Donald Flowers Junior had just taken his first hit of marijuana.
In the moment, the weed and the alcohol were able
to numb something in him, a pain. But of course
the high would only last so long. At the height
of his addiction, he would also find love and it
would change everything.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Well, I was smoking, I felt good, but after the
high came down, I felt like back to the drum board,
having to deal with life on life terms, not being
able to escape or a high behind anything, because for me,
marijuana and liquor were just my escapes.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So you eventually do begin to do other drugs. What
was your introduction to those drugs?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I met this other person, a guy, and he used
to snort coke. So when I saw him doing it,
I wanted to try it, and he let me, and
that was a rush I had never felt before. So
I like the way that made me feel, so I
would always do it with him.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
What was your sort of drug of choice, usually in the.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Beginning alcohol and marijuana, but then later on alcohol, marijuana
and cocaine, because I would take cocaine in marijuana and
mix it inside of a blunt. In my mind is
if I mix both of these together, that's gonna be
a great, great high. And so when I actually did it,
that was the outcome. I became very stoned. And I
(16:36):
was also drinking liquor because my favorite liquor at the
time was brandy, the dark brandy. And when you do cocaine,
your cravings for drinking become more and more high. I
was drinking a paint at one time. I started drinking a.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Fifth by myself, a whole bottle.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yes, my dudes got so bid. I was drinking a
whole fifth of liquor by myself, which is a lot
of liquor to be drinking for one person.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
What would you feel like kind of waking up the
next morning.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I feel lousy. I'd have a headache or be of
sick because I couldn't go to sleep because cocaine is
an upper so you tend to stay awaken. You can't
go to sleep. It opened them to doors me. They
try other things like if somebody had crystal math meth,
then better me. I would do that. If someone had coke,
I would do that.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Wow. So you tried meth as well?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yes, I have.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Wow. That's a drug that gay men are particularly.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
At risk for. Yes, lots of gay men smoke crystal meth,
which is very dangerous.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Crystal meth and fetamine or meth is a highly addictive
man made drug. It's typically smoked, but it can also
be injected, with the high lasting up to twelve hours.
The health risks include permanent damage to the heart and brain,
and psychotic symptoms that can last for months or even years.
(18:01):
According to the federal government, meth use is four times
more prevalent in gay men than in straight men, and
according to the New York City Department of Health, meth
enhances sexual pleasure, lower sexual inhibitions, and enables gay men
to escape from the stigma associated with gay sex. How
(18:23):
did you get into contacts with that drugs?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Men around different people that want to have sex, because
crystal man, cocaine, all those kind of drugs, those are
sex those are sex drugs. Those drugs think you very sexual.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So you also had a sex addiction?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yes, I guess I was looking for love, and so
I was out and have sex with all these different people.
I came and became very promiscuous, and in doing so
also the drugs would always kick up a notch. I
actually said the ten power because you know, they always
say sex and drugs go hand in hand, which is
(19:02):
very true. And the kind of drugs that you're doing,
they make you want to have sex, especially cocaine and
crystal math.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Do you think you were still kind of dealing with
the same issues inside and internally that you were dealing
with when you were a kid?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I was. I was. I did a lot of abusing
myself because the way that I was made to feel
about myself, I was made to feel that I was nothing,
I was less than, that God wasn't going to allow
me into the kingdom of heaven, and that my life
was made to be in mockery.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Were you lonely, Donald, very lonely?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Very?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Did you ever want to get sober?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It crossed my mind, But like my life revoid around getting.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
High and around this time you at the height of
your addiction.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You met your partner, right, Yes, I met my apartment
June twelfth of two thousand and four. I met him
in a village at this little small Chinese restaurant and
he was eating shrimping broccoli and I walked over to him.
He was looking at me, he was smiling, and he
(20:15):
was he's very handsome. So I walked over to him
and I told him. I said, you're a good looking guy.
And he said, you're good looking too, And so he
took his fork and he dipped his fuck into a
piece of shrimp, into a piece of broccoli. He was
trying to feed it to me, which was actually I
thought that was cute, that was original. That's the first
time if somebody did that. He came to the apartment
(20:38):
where I live at now. He came the same day,
and it seemed like after that he moved in.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
How was your addiction interfering with that relationship?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
It was really getting away because I just became another person.
I was evil, and I'm noxious and simple minded and patty,
and I took my partner through things that he did
not deserve, cussing him out and calling him names, and
(21:12):
sometimes I just don't believe that he didn't throw in
the towel and called it quit with me. There were
times that he wanted to, but he never gave up
on me. I know there were times that he wanted to,
but he wouldn't. It's just all these things that I
became because of my addiction.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I've dated an alcoholic before, and when you're on the
other side of that, it feels like you want to
plead with them to almost see you and to consider you,
because their actions feel like they're not considered of you
(21:55):
at all. Right, how did you sort of think about
him and how your actions were affecting him.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I didn't think about him. I don't think about myself,
but I was just so caught up into what I
was doing, so everything about him really didn't matter. I
loved him, but I was very selfish because of my addiction.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Do you remember the moment when you thought that your
addiction was ruining your life and your relationship with your partner.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
But he would always give me money, and it always
was like, I would go by, I have a panel
record and then a dinbag an ten dollars bag of weed,
and I used a lot at home, And if he
knew I was at home doing drugs, he was okay
with that. He didn't want me doing it really outside
in the street.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
If you're gonna do it, at least you're safe. I'm safe, right, Wow,
that's very loving.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And yeah, the tipping point was when I started going
to jail because I was buying marijuana at the time.
Right now it's legal, but back then when I was
buying it wasn't legal. And if you got caught, them
make you do twenty four hours in the system. I
would call you. They get you on free your carm
phone call and I'm gonna call him and tell him.
And I was locked up, and he would come down
to the jail where I was going to see the
(23:17):
judge and he'd be sitting there, and sitting there in
the courtroom, I was actually embarrassed because it's like I
just kept doing things and get myself into trouble.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
When did your addiction reach its worst point?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
It reaches the worst point when there was a young
girl in my neighborhood and I went to her looking
for crack, and she said that she ain't know nobody
that sold it, but she she had told her the
people that I was smoking at.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
For you, no one knew that you were struggling with
addiction except for your partner.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, he was people knew that I smoked and drank,
but they ain't know that I was doing cocaine. So
the turning point was when she got mad at me
about something. So when I came out the biding one day,
I was going downtown in Manhattan and she saw me,
so then she yells out out loud, this fagg is
smoking crack. Everybody was outside. It was like my hot
(24:13):
summer day, all eyes on me when she said that.
And then it got into a point where she was
like harassing me, like every time she would see me
and she'll call me a crackhead.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And for you, it was the fact that your reputation
had been tarnished.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yes, it was because I people was calling me a
crackhead and going out and going around spreading it.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
So now your whole neighborhood knew that you were an addict.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It was embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Did you realize that you had multiple addictions at that point?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
At that point, yes, I did. I knew I was sad.
I knew I had a brother, and if I didn't
gonna get help, I was gonna one kill myself in
two lose my relationship.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Donald had reached an inflection point. His substance use was
ruining his life, but it wasn't just a matter of
saying no. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse,
addiction can literally alter our brains, the parts that manage reward, stress,
and self control, and those changes can last a long
(25:37):
time even after someone has stopped using, making addiction much
more than a choice but a chronic brain disease, and
studies showed that even when someone does get sober, only
in year five of recovery does the chance of relapse
significantly decrease. As for why LGBTQ people are at a
(25:58):
higher risk than the general popular, there are many reasons.
For Donald, it was shame. In twenty nineteen, he joined
the Gay Men's Health Crisis Organization for Help, and it
just so happened that his caseworker was in recovery for
substance use disorder as well.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I was shave, and of course when you're shaving, you
have to look at yourself in the mirror. It got
to the point where I started hating the person that
I saw, and it showed in my actions.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
So what was it like after you had this moment
of looking at yourself in the mirror and realizing you
didn't like what you saw well.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I was a part of an agency and the caseworker
that I had she had a problem with coke herself
and she went to rehab and got off. So she
referred me to the same rehab that she went to,
Seafield in the Hampton's. And when that van came to
my home and picked me up, my partner, my Pardoner
(27:00):
is amazing. He took my bag like a gentleman. And
I'm living on the fourth floor and he walked down
with me and he put my bag in the van
and he gave me a hug and he said, You're
gonna be okay. And I kissed him and told him
and I love him. And when I got in that van,
(27:21):
I started praying on my way to that reality, God,
please allow me to really start focusing on Donald And
when I see my reflection in the mirror, actually like
the person that's staying back at him. When I went
to rehab, I found out that I had fentanyl in
(27:41):
my system. It was being put I think poppy in
the marijuana and poppy also the crack I was smoking.
And I went there with a plan. I went there.
My plan was to get off drugs, and I stayed
nineteen days from the time you wake up to the
time you were the bad meetings all day. They put
(28:03):
you in those meetings all day to refocus your brain
so you can stop thinking about using. When you go
to rehab, you also have to work on changing behaviors.
That's like, that's one of the main things. You have
to stop acting like a person that still does crystal math.
You have to stop acting like a person that smoked
(28:25):
crack or smoked marijuana or had a problem with drinking.
You got to change those behaviors.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
What did you realize was sort of driving all of
your addictions.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
My relationship with my mother. I felt about myself and
about being a gay man when I went to rehab. Actually,
that was when I started saying to myself that I
was gonna love myself despite what somebody else feel, and
I would actually pray until the point where I would
(28:59):
have that mindset that I know that God made me
and his image, and he didn't make a mistake when
he made me. God did make a mistake when he
made any of us that are gay.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
When you eventually got sober, Donald, what did you learn
about yourself.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
That I was a fighter and a survivor I thank God,
I think of my sobriety. There was a time when
I first got to rehab that it was kind of
hard to walk past the liquor store. And when I
(29:39):
got clean, I had to go back to the same
neighborhood where I was buying drugs and see those same
people that I was buying drugs from, and I had
to tell all of them, do not approach me asking
me about drugs because I stopped and I'm clean, and
some of them didn't want to believe that I was
clean or when I stopped buying. Eventually they saw that
(30:02):
I meant business. And I still see some of those
people that I bought drugs run.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
What was it like for you to then come home
to your partner.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
The day that I the day I was released, they
took me. They dropped me off out in a creams
and my partner was there to meet me. And I
got out that van and I took my bag and
put it in the back seat of his trunk of
his car, and he gave me a hug, and my
partner looked at me in the face and he said,
(30:34):
you look so good. He was like, he was so
happy for me. He was he was extremely happy for me.
He was, like he said, cheat him like a chest cat,
and I was, and I was happy that I did
that too. It was like one of the best things
that I ever could do, and it actually made our relationship.
(30:55):
Stronk when I became sober and when you're celebrated twenty years.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
June twelve, how long have you been sober now.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
July eleventh and be five years? Congratulations, Thank you, I
thank God for that. I've read that forgiveness is a
huge part of the sobriety journey. Yes it is, And
for you, was forgiving yourself part of that? Yes, I'm
(31:25):
glad you asked that, because sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I
have a problem forgiving myself. Sometimes I get very emotional.
It's just hard because I was on drugs for a
long time, since I was a seventeen eighteen years old
kid out to my present, and I'm trying my best
to forgive myself. I'm trying I'm trying my best to
(31:47):
forgive my mother.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Well, you know, Donald, there's a stat that like twenty
to thirty percent of LGBTQ people have substance abuse issues.
What is the wisdom that you want to pass down
to them.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Number one is to love yourself. If I was able
to pass the stuff down that I know now, I
wouldn't have never been a drug addict. I would have
never been an attic. At the end of the day,
there's light. There's light at the end of the tunnel.
The first the first step is and meaning that you
have a problem. And if you can admit that there's
a problem, then that's half the battle right there. Remember,
(32:29):
wisdom has to be around people that love you, people
that push you to be better. When you become sober, too,
try to find something to do that you love and
work and work at a passion and try to make
your dreams come true.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
And what are your dreams.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I'm in college right now. My goal is to become
a social worker. My dreams now is for me to
become a social worker because I feel that I have
a life experience and I'm going to make a damn
good social worker. I gonna make a damn good socio
and I know that.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So it's kind of full circle.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Like this is a very full circle.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
You're going to eventually help the people that were struggling
at one point.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yes, And I want I want to work with lgbt
Q youth. That's my goal and the reason why I'm
telling this story is because I just want to be
an inspiration to a lot of the gay people the
world over, especially to gay lgbt Q youth, because a
lot of times when the youth are misguided and don't
(33:34):
have older the elders to pull them up by their
bootstraps and to help them. We the older ones, we
neither try to look out for them and have their
back and try to push them to do positive things
with their lives. You know, if you're gay, hold on
to this. You're a child of God, that's first, and
you're not a failure, and you're not a disappointment. And
(33:56):
it took me a long time to get to that
point to be able to say that, but I know
that I was not a mistake and donaldre Flowers Junior
was put in his world to be somebody.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
to tell your story, email us at but We Looved
at gmail dot com, or send us a message on
Instagram or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a
production of The Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts, But
(34:35):
We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers
Areshena Ozaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our.
Executive producers are Me Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Boone.
Special thanks to Jay Brunson and rockkel Willis. If you
loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
(34:58):
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you next week.
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
The Outspoken podcast Network. This episode contains frank discussion on
addiction and substance use disorder. If you or someone you
know is struggling with addiction, visit fine treatment dot gov.
That's fine treatment dot Gov.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thank you. I was trying to hide feelings and emotions
that I was feeling, and so if I could escape
from all of that for a minute, I would do
just that. And so he let me hit it, and
then and I hit it. He's talking me to inhale it,
and I inhaled. I choked. But the way that I
(00:44):
felt like I never thought that rushed before, and it
felt really good.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
(01:14):
In this episode, we'll meet Donald Flowers Junior, a man
recovering from drug, alcohol, and sex addiction. Will learn how
his identity as a gay man was at the root
of his addiction, and how coming to terms with that
allowed him to begin a new chapter from my Heart podcast.
I'm Jordan and Solve and this is what we loved.
(02:06):
Sometimes I feel like addiction is interwoven into queer life.
So many of the places that we express ourselves in,
like nightclubs and art shows and concerts and even gay
pride itself, are also some of the easiest places to
find drugs and alcohol. With that wide availability, it can
(02:28):
be hard to decipher between what's normal and what's concerning.
Many of us probably know someone who is impacted by addiction.
According to the federal government, an estimated twenty to thirty
percent of the LGBTQ community abuses substances, and that's compared
(02:50):
to just nine percent of the general population. For me,
it's been mostly present in my dating life. When I
was in my mid twenties, there was this guy that
I had a huge crush on. He seemed like he
had everything going for him. He had a great job
and good friends, and he was devilishly handsome with these long,
(03:11):
curly eyelashes and these big arms, and he was super
sweet too. We had been getting to know each other
for a couple months and he really liked me back,
and one night we went to my favorite bar to
meet my friends for the first time, and I was
so excited. But within two hours he had become so
(03:33):
drunk and high on cocaine that he kissed another man
in front of me. I felt the trade and humiliated.
The next day, I called him and I told him
how hurt I was. He apologized and told me that
he was addicted to alcohol and cocaine and he had
(03:53):
a relapse. He said the best thing I could do
for myself was to cut contact with him, because he
didn't know when he would get better. My next guest,
Donald Flowers Junior, is also a person with substance use disorder.
He was addicted to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth, and sex.
His addiction would test his relationship and his health. He
(04:18):
grew up in a rural part of Texas in the
nineteen seventies, and he learned from a young age that
to be gay meant to be unlovable. He also learned
at a young age that he could escape those feelings
through the use of substances. You grew up in Texas,
(04:41):
right like me?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, a low town called Gonzales, Texas. Population now I
think four thousand people.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Oh, wow. So it was even less when you were
growing up.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It was it was less a lot less. It might
have been.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Two thousand and you grew up in the church, right.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I grew up in church, the Southern Baptist. By the
time I reached eleven twelve thirteen, going through puberty and adolescens,
I started to notice that I had a knack for singing.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Because I have a voice.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, And in the Black Church there's this thing that's
called catching the spirit, and catching the spirit is mean people.
Sometimes you see people jumping up and down and they
get happy, become so powerful that it takes over into
the room. And at that point everyone knows that God
(05:38):
has shown up and he entered the room. And I
knew from thirteen fourteen that I had a knack for
singing because people would actually approach me after service and
tell me that I touched the spirit or I made
people cry, or they felt what I was delivering. I
remember one time when I was a kid, there was
(05:59):
a song called I Don't Feel No Ways Tired. A
lot of the people was like passing out saying hallelujah,
wow seeing Donnie. So I would hear my name being
called and I like the way that it made me feel.
It made me feel special. But I grew up with
a pastor that constantly said that if you were gay,
(06:23):
you were in an abomination. If you was gay, it
was going to hell. If you was gay, there's no
place in the kingdom for you.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
When did you know that you were gay?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Fabb As early as ten eleven or twelve, I used
to read Halloquin romance novels at twelve and also too.
Fabio was always on recover and he had the nicest
body and like the the long hair, a nice face
(06:57):
and a nice body, and I would envision myself with
guys that look like that.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
He's basically on the cover of like all of these
romance novels exactly. So tell me about what it was
like being gay in Gonzalez, Texas. It sounds like a
really small town.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
It's a very small town. Being gay in that little
town was not was not easy for me. It's a
little town for a country country southern people with with
people that they had farms and they had animals. They
would raise pigs and hogs and horses, and that is
(07:42):
that is that kind of town. Probably when I was fourteen,
I guess there was like, there was this guy that
I used to like, and so we were playing somewhere
in a field and I knowed there was a barn
not too far, so we went, It's out that barn
that barn, and we food around and the horses present
(08:04):
that kept making noises and looking at us as people
were doing what we were doing. It was actually fun,
but we were so into each other we kind of
ignored ignored the horses.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But that's kind of what Gonzales, Texas was like. Yes,
what were some of the messages that you were getting
about gay people at that time? Growing up in the
seventies and eighties in Gonzalez, Sexes, The messages.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
That I received about being gay were very, very harsh,
very nasty, very negative. I had to deal with with
people that was so closed minded. I experienced a lot
of bullying school. I was bullied like to the tenth
(08:51):
flower because of my sexuality. I remember one time there
was this guy. Every time he saw me, he would
hit me like extremely hard, hit me in my back
with his fist, hit me in my face, hit me
in my chest, and he would always do it around
other people to get them to laugh. I quit school
(09:12):
when I was sixteen, I quit school because I got
so tired of being bullied for.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Being gay, for being gay. Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And then at home, I didn't get a break. My
mother was always telling me stop looking like that, stop
standing like that, asking like with girl, You're not a girl,
You're a boy. She was always saying that to me,
like every single day, and so I just felt like
I was a mistake. I used to feel like I
(09:40):
was a mistake.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Tell me about the kind of bullying at home. What
was it like, kind of growing up as a gay
kid in your family.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
It wasn't easy because when I was younger, I was feminine,
and I played with dolls and anything that girls could do,
I could do it better. Cheerleading, dancing, and you name it,
I could do it. And so my mother would get
pissed off. She was always telling me, why you why
are you always playing with girls and our boys? I
(10:12):
just I just got so tired of that. I was
just being My mother was a bully one of my cousins.
She was babysitting me, my brother and my two step
cousins and and my female cousin. She called us like
on top of each other, being on each other, and
(10:34):
she was like, oh, in the morning, I'm gonna call
y'all mother's And my mother flew up there in that car,
and before we got in the car, she says to me,
she looks at me with her face off, frowned up,
and she was like, I'm gonna whoop you. And she did.
And that went on for years.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
So you were kind of experiencing all of this bullying
from the church, from school.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
And then my own mother, and I couldn't do anything
about it all for being just because I was being myself.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I wonder, you know, how did all of these experiences
make you feel about yourself at that age?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It made my self esteeming extremely low. I felt really
bad about myself. I even tried to commit suicide one time.
I took a lot of medicine, and even in the
midst of that, the one thing my mother said, I'm
gonna whoop you. She never sat down, never tried to
ask me, why are you doing the things you do?
Not asking questions, not trying to communicate with me, And
(11:41):
it was a straight up woman like beating.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So you felt betrayed by your they portrayed by my mother.
Our episode is about addiction, So tell me now, what
was the first introduction that you had to addiction.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
It started out with drinking, because my father has always
been an alcoholic, and he still lives to this day.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
How old were you when you started drinking?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Seventeen. I drunk this cheap voga with dr pepper, and
I got so drunk. I was with two friends and
they had to walk me to my mother's my mom
and dad's house, to the door and knocking the door,
and I was standing at about the fall because I
had gotten so drunk. And so when I woke up
(12:31):
the next morning, my mom was complaining, Oh, your friends
they had to come and bring us to the door,
and you were so drunk. And my mother was like,
your father's already an alcoholic, and I'm not gonna be
tolerating that out of another person.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
So even in that moment, you didn't feel protected by
your family.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I did not, not, not at all.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
When was the moment you realized you had a drinking problem.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Probably not till I turned twenty one. I lived in
New Orleans and I became friends with two brothers, and
the oldest brother said it to me one day. He
said it in anger, but he was suddenly saying it
for a reason. He said, Donald, you're not alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
How often were you drinking? It?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Miss me any chances I got. The early morning drinking
happened like years later, but it did get to the
point where I was drinking early in the morning. And
if I didn't have a schedule like work or anything,
that's when I would really indulge. If I had nothing
else to do, I would just go buy something to
drink and get drunk. And I can see it now.
(13:37):
The drinking was so bad because I was trying to
trying to hide feelings and emotions that I was feeling.
And so if I could escape from all of that
for a minute, I would do just that.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
What were the feelings that you were feeling now?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Feeling like I deserved anything? I didn't feel worthy. It
was I just felt useless.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So did the addiction stop with alcohol?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
No. When I moved to New York in March thirtieth,
nineteen ninety eight, that's when I was living with someone
in Harlem and I got introduced to marijuana. Tell me
that story, Well, he had roast, he had rose to
marijuana up in rolling papers. He asked me, did I
(14:24):
want to do it? I said, yeah, so have you
ever seen it before. I had seen marijuana before, I
never dried it, and so he let me hit it.
And then when I hit it, he told me to
inhale it, and I inhaled. I choked. But the way
that I felt like I never thought that rush before.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Donald Flowers Junior had just taken his first hit of marijuana.
In the moment, the weed and the alcohol were able
to numb something in him, a pain. But of course
the high would only last so long. At the height
of his addiction, he would also find love and it
would change everything.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Well, I was smoking, I felt good, but after the
high came down, I felt like back to the drum board,
having to deal with life on life terms, not being
able to escape or a high behind anything, because for me,
marijuana and liquor were just my escapes.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So you eventually do begin to do other drugs. What
was your introduction to those drugs?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I met this other person, a guy, and he used
to snort coke. So when I saw him doing it,
I wanted to try it, and he let me, and
that was a rush I had never felt before. So
I like the way that made me feel, so I
would always do it with him.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
What was your sort of drug of choice, usually in the.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Beginning alcohol and marijuana, but then later on alcohol, marijuana
and cocaine, because I would take cocaine in marijuana and
mix it inside of a blunt. In my mind is
if I mix both of these together, that's gonna be
a great, great high. And so when I actually did it,
that was the outcome. I became very stoned. And I
(16:36):
was also drinking liquor because my favorite liquor at the
time was brandy, the dark brandy. And when you do cocaine,
your cravings for drinking become more and more high. I
was drinking a paint at one time. I started drinking a.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Fifth by myself, a whole bottle.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yes, my dudes got so bid. I was drinking a
whole fifth of liquor by myself, which is a lot
of liquor to be drinking for one person.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
What would you feel like kind of waking up the
next morning.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I feel lousy. I'd have a headache or be of
sick because I couldn't go to sleep because cocaine is
an upper so you tend to stay awaken. You can't
go to sleep. It opened them to doors me. They
try other things like if somebody had crystal math meth,
then better me. I would do that. If someone had coke,
I would do that.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Wow. So you tried meth as well?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yes, I have.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Wow. That's a drug that gay men are particularly.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
At risk for. Yes, lots of gay men smoke crystal meth,
which is very dangerous.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Crystal meth and fetamine or meth is a highly addictive
man made drug. It's typically smoked, but it can also
be injected, with the high lasting up to twelve hours.
The health risks include permanent damage to the heart and brain,
and psychotic symptoms that can last for months or even years.
(18:01):
According to the federal government, meth use is four times
more prevalent in gay men than in straight men, and
according to the New York City Department of Health, meth
enhances sexual pleasure, lower sexual inhibitions, and enables gay men
to escape from the stigma associated with gay sex. How
(18:23):
did you get into contacts with that drugs?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Men around different people that want to have sex, because
crystal man, cocaine, all those kind of drugs, those are
sex those are sex drugs. Those drugs think you very sexual.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So you also had a sex addiction?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yes, I guess I was looking for love, and so
I was out and have sex with all these different people.
I came and became very promiscuous, and in doing so
also the drugs would always kick up a notch. I
actually said the ten power because you know, they always
say sex and drugs go hand in hand, which is
(19:02):
very true. And the kind of drugs that you're doing,
they make you want to have sex, especially cocaine and
crystal math.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Do you think you were still kind of dealing with
the same issues inside and internally that you were dealing
with when you were a kid?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I was. I was. I did a lot of abusing
myself because the way that I was made to feel
about myself, I was made to feel that I was nothing,
I was less than, that God wasn't going to allow
me into the kingdom of heaven, and that my life
was made to be in mockery.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Were you lonely, Donald, very lonely?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Very?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Did you ever want to get sober?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It crossed my mind, But like my life revoid around getting.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
High and around this time you at the height of
your addiction.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You met your partner, right, Yes, I met my apartment
June twelfth of two thousand and four. I met him
in a village at this little small Chinese restaurant and
he was eating shrimping broccoli and I walked over to him.
He was looking at me, he was smiling, and he
(20:15):
was he's very handsome. So I walked over to him
and I told him. I said, you're a good looking guy.
And he said, you're good looking too, And so he
took his fork and he dipped his fuck into a
piece of shrimp, into a piece of broccoli. He was
trying to feed it to me, which was actually I
thought that was cute, that was original. That's the first
time if somebody did that. He came to the apartment
(20:38):
where I live at now. He came the same day,
and it seemed like after that he moved in.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
How was your addiction interfering with that relationship?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
It was really getting away because I just became another person.
I was evil, and I'm noxious and simple minded and patty,
and I took my partner through things that he did
not deserve, cussing him out and calling him names, and
(21:12):
sometimes I just don't believe that he didn't throw in
the towel and called it quit with me. There were
times that he wanted to, but he never gave up
on me. I know there were times that he wanted to,
but he wouldn't. It's just all these things that I
became because of my addiction.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I've dated an alcoholic before, and when you're on the
other side of that, it feels like you want to
plead with them to almost see you and to consider you,
because their actions feel like they're not considered of you
(21:55):
at all. Right, how did you sort of think about
him and how your actions were affecting him.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I didn't think about him. I don't think about myself,
but I was just so caught up into what I
was doing, so everything about him really didn't matter. I
loved him, but I was very selfish because of my addiction.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Do you remember the moment when you thought that your
addiction was ruining your life and your relationship with your partner.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
But he would always give me money, and it always
was like, I would go by, I have a panel
record and then a dinbag an ten dollars bag of weed,
and I used a lot at home, And if he
knew I was at home doing drugs, he was okay
with that. He didn't want me doing it really outside
in the street.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
If you're gonna do it, at least you're safe. I'm safe, right, Wow,
that's very loving.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And yeah, the tipping point was when I started going
to jail because I was buying marijuana at the time.
Right now it's legal, but back then when I was
buying it wasn't legal. And if you got caught, them
make you do twenty four hours in the system. I
would call you. They get you on free your carm
phone call and I'm gonna call him and tell him.
And I was locked up, and he would come down
to the jail where I was going to see the
(23:17):
judge and he'd be sitting there, and sitting there in
the courtroom, I was actually embarrassed because it's like I
just kept doing things and get myself into trouble.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
When did your addiction reach its worst point?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
It reaches the worst point when there was a young
girl in my neighborhood and I went to her looking
for crack, and she said that she ain't know nobody
that sold it, but she she had told her the
people that I was smoking at.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
For you, no one knew that you were struggling with
addiction except for your partner.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, he was people knew that I smoked and drank,
but they ain't know that I was doing cocaine. So
the turning point was when she got mad at me
about something. So when I came out the biding one day,
I was going downtown in Manhattan and she saw me,
so then she yells out out loud, this fagg is
smoking crack. Everybody was outside. It was like my hot
(24:13):
summer day, all eyes on me when she said that.
And then it got into a point where she was
like harassing me, like every time she would see me
and she'll call me a crackhead.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And for you, it was the fact that your reputation
had been tarnished.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yes, it was because I people was calling me a
crackhead and going out and going around spreading it.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
So now your whole neighborhood knew that you were an addict.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It was embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Did you realize that you had multiple addictions at that point?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
At that point, yes, I did. I knew I was sad.
I knew I had a brother, and if I didn't
gonna get help, I was gonna one kill myself in
two lose my relationship.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Donald had reached an inflection point. His substance use was
ruining his life, but it wasn't just a matter of
saying no. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse,
addiction can literally alter our brains, the parts that manage reward, stress,
and self control, and those changes can last a long
(25:37):
time even after someone has stopped using, making addiction much
more than a choice but a chronic brain disease, and
studies showed that even when someone does get sober, only
in year five of recovery does the chance of relapse
significantly decrease. As for why LGBTQ people are at a
(25:58):
higher risk than the general popular, there are many reasons.
For Donald, it was shame. In twenty nineteen, he joined
the Gay Men's Health Crisis Organization for Help, and it
just so happened that his caseworker was in recovery for
substance use disorder as well.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I was shave, and of course when you're shaving, you
have to look at yourself in the mirror. It got
to the point where I started hating the person that
I saw, and it showed in my actions.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
So what was it like after you had this moment
of looking at yourself in the mirror and realizing you
didn't like what you saw well.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I was a part of an agency and the caseworker
that I had she had a problem with coke herself
and she went to rehab and got off. So she
referred me to the same rehab that she went to,
Seafield in the Hampton's. And when that van came to
my home and picked me up, my partner, my Pardoner
(27:00):
is amazing. He took my bag like a gentleman. And
I'm living on the fourth floor and he walked down
with me and he put my bag in the van
and he gave me a hug and he said, You're
gonna be okay. And I kissed him and told him
and I love him. And when I got in that van,
(27:21):
I started praying on my way to that reality, God,
please allow me to really start focusing on Donald And
when I see my reflection in the mirror, actually like
the person that's staying back at him. When I went
to rehab, I found out that I had fentanyl in
(27:41):
my system. It was being put I think poppy in
the marijuana and poppy also the crack I was smoking.
And I went there with a plan. I went there.
My plan was to get off drugs, and I stayed
nineteen days from the time you wake up to the
time you were the bad meetings all day. They put
(28:03):
you in those meetings all day to refocus your brain
so you can stop thinking about using. When you go
to rehab, you also have to work on changing behaviors.
That's like, that's one of the main things. You have
to stop acting like a person that still does crystal math.
You have to stop acting like a person that smoked
(28:25):
crack or smoked marijuana or had a problem with drinking.
You got to change those behaviors.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
What did you realize was sort of driving all of
your addictions.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
My relationship with my mother. I felt about myself and
about being a gay man when I went to rehab. Actually,
that was when I started saying to myself that I
was gonna love myself despite what somebody else feel, and
I would actually pray until the point where I would
(28:59):
have that mindset that I know that God made me
and his image, and he didn't make a mistake when
he made me. God did make a mistake when he
made any of us that are gay.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
When you eventually got sober, Donald, what did you learn
about yourself.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
That I was a fighter and a survivor I thank God,
I think of my sobriety. There was a time when
I first got to rehab that it was kind of
hard to walk past the liquor store. And when I
(29:39):
got clean, I had to go back to the same
neighborhood where I was buying drugs and see those same
people that I was buying drugs from, and I had
to tell all of them, do not approach me asking
me about drugs because I stopped and I'm clean, and
some of them didn't want to believe that I was
clean or when I stopped buying. Eventually they saw that
(30:02):
I meant business. And I still see some of those
people that I bought drugs run.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
What was it like for you to then come home
to your partner.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
The day that I the day I was released, they
took me. They dropped me off out in a creams
and my partner was there to meet me. And I
got out that van and I took my bag and
put it in the back seat of his trunk of
his car, and he gave me a hug, and my
partner looked at me in the face and he said,
(30:34):
you look so good. He was like, he was so
happy for me. He was he was extremely happy for me.
He was, like he said, cheat him like a chest cat,
and I was, and I was happy that I did
that too. It was like one of the best things
that I ever could do, and it actually made our relationship.
(30:55):
Stronk when I became sober and when you're celebrated twenty years.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
June twelve, how long have you been sober now.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
July eleventh and be five years? Congratulations, Thank you, I
thank God for that. I've read that forgiveness is a
huge part of the sobriety journey. Yes it is, And
for you, was forgiving yourself part of that? Yes, I'm
(31:25):
glad you asked that, because sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I
have a problem forgiving myself. Sometimes I get very emotional.
It's just hard because I was on drugs for a
long time, since I was a seventeen eighteen years old
kid out to my present, and I'm trying my best
to forgive myself. I'm trying I'm trying my best to
(31:47):
forgive my mother.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Well, you know, Donald, there's a stat that like twenty
to thirty percent of LGBTQ people have substance abuse issues.
What is the wisdom that you want to pass down
to them.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Number one is to love yourself. If I was able
to pass the stuff down that I know now, I
wouldn't have never been a drug addict. I would have
never been an attic. At the end of the day,
there's light. There's light at the end of the tunnel.
The first the first step is and meaning that you
have a problem. And if you can admit that there's
a problem, then that's half the battle right there. Remember,
(32:29):
wisdom has to be around people that love you, people
that push you to be better. When you become sober, too,
try to find something to do that you love and
work and work at a passion and try to make
your dreams come true.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
And what are your dreams.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I'm in college right now. My goal is to become
a social worker. My dreams now is for me to
become a social worker because I feel that I have
a life experience and I'm going to make a damn
good social worker. I gonna make a damn good socio
and I know that.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So it's kind of full circle.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Like this is a very full circle.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
You're going to eventually help the people that were struggling
at one point.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yes, And I want I want to work with lgbt
Q youth. That's my goal and the reason why I'm
telling this story is because I just want to be
an inspiration to a lot of the gay people the
world over, especially to gay lgbt Q youth, because a
lot of times when the youth are misguided and don't
(33:34):
have older the elders to pull them up by their
bootstraps and to help them. We the older ones, we
neither try to look out for them and have their
back and try to push them to do positive things
with their lives. You know, if you're gay, hold on
to this. You're a child of God, that's first, and
you're not a failure, and you're not a disappointment. And
(33:56):
it took me a long time to get to that
point to be able to say that, but I know
that I was not a mistake and donaldre Flowers Junior
was put in his world to be somebody.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
to tell your story, email us at but We Looved
at gmail dot com, or send us a message on
Instagram or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a
production of The Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts, But
(34:35):
We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers
Areshena Ozaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our.
Executive producers are Me Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Boone.
Special thanks to Jay Brunson and rockkel Willis. If you
loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
(34:58):
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you next week.
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