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.
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 felt like I never thought that rushed before, and it felt really good.
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. 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, right like me?
Yeah, a low town called Gonzales, Texas. Population now I think four thousand people.
Oh, wow. So it was even less when you were growing up.
It was it was less a lot less. It might have been.
Two thousand and you grew up in the church, right.
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.
Because I have a voice.
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 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 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, 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.
When did you know that you were gay?
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 and a nice body, and I would envision myself with guys that look like that.
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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 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 when I was sixteen, I quit school because I got so tired of being bullied for.
Being gay, for being gay. Wow.
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 was a mistake.
Tell me about the kind of bullying at home. What was it like, kind of growing up as a gay kid in your family.
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 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 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.
So you were kind of experiencing all of this bullying from the church, from school.
And then my own mother, and I couldn't do anything about it all for being just because I was being myself.
I wonder, you know, how did all of these experiences make you feel about yourself at that age?
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 it was a straight up woman like beating.
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.
It started out with drinking, because my father has always been an alcoholic, and he still lives to this day.
How old were you when you started drinking?
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 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.
So even in that moment, you didn't feel protected by your family.
I did not, not, not at all.
When was the moment you realized you had a drinking problem.
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.
How often were you drinking? It?
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. 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.
What were the feelings that you were feeling now?
Feeling like I deserved anything? I didn't feel worthy. It was I just felt useless.
So did the addiction stop with alcohol?
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 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.
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.
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.
So you eventually do begin to do other drugs. What was your introduction to those drugs?
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.
What was your sort of drug of choice, usually in the.
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 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.
Fifth by myself, a whole bottle.
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.
What would you feel like kind of waking up the next morning.
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.
Wow. So you tried meth as well?
Yes, I have.
Wow. That's a drug that gay men are particularly.
At risk for. Yes, lots of gay men smoke crystal meth, which is very dangerous.
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.
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 did you get into contacts with that drugs?
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.
So you also had a sex addiction?
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 very true. And the kind of drugs that you're doing, they make you want to have sex, especially cocaine and crystal math.
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?
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.
Were you lonely, Donald, very lonely?
Very?
Did you ever want to get sober?
It crossed my mind, But like my life revoid around getting.
High and around this time you at the height of your addiction.
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 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 where I live at now. He came the same day, and it seemed like after that he moved in.
How was your addiction interfering with that relationship?
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 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.
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 at all. Right, how did you sort of think about him and how your actions were affecting him.
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.
Do you remember the moment when you thought that your addiction was ruining your life and your relationship with your partner.
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.
If you're gonna do it, at least you're safe. I'm safe, right, Wow, that's very loving.
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 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.
When did your addiction reach its worst point?
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.
For you, no one knew that you were struggling with addiction except for your partner.
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 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.
And for you, it was the fact that your reputation had been tarnished.
Yes, it was because I people was calling me a crackhead and going out and going around spreading it.
So now your whole neighborhood knew that you were an addict.
It was embarrassing.
Did you realize that you had multiple addictions at that point?
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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 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, 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 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 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 crack or smoked marijuana or had a problem with drinking. You got to change those behaviors.
What did you realize was sort of driving all of your addictions.
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 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.
When you eventually got sober, Donald, what did you learn about yourself.
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 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 I meant business. And I still see some of those people that I bought drugs run.
What was it like for you to then come home to your partner.
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, 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. Stronk when I became sober and when you're celebrated twenty years.
June twelve, how long have you been sober now.
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 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 forgive my mother.
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.
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, 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.
And what are your dreams.
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.
So it's kind of full circle.
Like this is a very full circle.
You're going to eventually help the people that were struggling at one point.
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 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 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.
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 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 on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.