How queer punk and the sober community saved my life

In 2005, I was 24 years old, living in San Francisco, playing in a band, and beginning to realize that the thing that had once made me feel free was slowly becoming the thing that might destroy me. George W. Bush had just won a second term, the war in Iraq continued, and the political climate felt increasingly hostile to the queer communities that had given me a sense of purpose and belonging. San Francisco was a place of extraordinary queer history, culture, and possibility, and I was grateful to be part of it. But I was also navigating my own identity, carrying a great deal of unresolved fear and shame from my upbringing in the conservative South. Drinking had become a way to quiet some of that fear, even as it was beginning to take on a life of its own. I had spent years searching for freedom, and in many ways, I'd found it. What I hadn't figured out was how to feel comfortable in my own skin.

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