One of my favorite writers sat in the corner, his glasses pressed down to the tip of his nose, reading a book, waiting for the meeting to start. I looked around at a motley crew of young working-class folks, people in business suits, punk rockers, and yogis carrying their rolled up mats. I entered a reading room in Greenwich Village filled with folding chairs. By the time my friend Stephen, convinced me to meet him at a group for addicts, I was too exhausted to argue. As time went by, I stopped going to the bars, instead drinking alone in my apartment, drifting further away from the rush of the city and deeper into myself.įeeling a part of a community can help one let go of self-destructive behaviors. My after-work cocktails with co-workers devolved into a muddy late night ritual. I’d hoped the city would somehow make me feel more real instead, I felt more alien and isolated.
The anonymity of living in New York, which I initially found liberating, became crippling. When I moved to New York in my 20s to work in the theater, I instead found myself employed in restaurants and began drinking heavily. Those risk behaviors can stretch past adolescence and wreak havoc on adulthood when unaddressed. For many LGBTQ teens, the added pressures of a hostile world can lead to troubling risk behaviors. I looked over to Ariel to find her wet eyes fixed on Cox, her hand covering her mouth.Īdolescence is hard. She said learning to love herself regardless of what others may think or the rejections she experienced was a revolutionary act. But I do believe in the humanity of people and in people’s capacity to love and to change.”Ĭox brushed her hair back and looked out into the packed audience. “Others are just going to be opposed to us forever. And they need to get to know us as human beings,” she said.