72. Recovering from Recover (with Adam Fitzgerald)

Snarky Opener (0:00)

Adam Fitzgerald

They would refer to going on, you know, Grindr or Scruff as the relapse apps. And I, you know, I just sort of, Wow, that's when there's a.

To me, there was just a big leap between, like, having casual sex and relapsing.

Episode Introduction (0:37)

Rob Loveless

Hello, my LGBTQuties, and welcome back to another episode of A Jaded Gay. I'm Rob Loveless and, today, I am a jaded gay just because I've been having a bit of a rough week.

Just, I have a lot of things on my checklist that I'm just trying to work through. I feel super overwhelmed, a little anxious. That's a lie, not a little; a lot anxious.

Just everything feels very heavy. I just, I can feel myself dragging, trying to get things done. Yesterday, I came home from work and I just plopped on the couch and didn't even watch TV.

Just stared at the TV because I was so burnt out from everything going on. And I mean, it's things I'm doing to myself.

I'm the one obviously trying to write and podcast and do this and do that and work and have a social life and all those things.

So, I can only blame myself, but I'm hoping to have a very quiet and relaxing weekend after I finish recording this because I, I've been pushing myself too hard, and my body's like shutting down.

Not literally, luckily, but shutting down telling me, hey, take a break, and I haven't been listening. And this is what happens. So hopefully I'll learn my lesson eventually.

Alcohol Addiction Recovery for Queer Men (1:35)

Rob Loveless

Anyway, I am extremely excited for today's episode. We have a very special guest joining us today.

Back in May, I believe it was, we did an episode on LGBTQ+ alcoholism.

So, kind of related to that, we'll have an author joining us today to talk about his new book, which actually chronicles his alcohol addiction and his journey to recovery.

So, he'll be on shortly, but before that, you know the drill. Let's pull our tarot card.

Tarot (2:02)

Rob Loveless

For this episode, we drew the King of Swords, which is the final card in this suit.

And Swords, as you know, I feel like we've been pulling this a lot the past few weeks, but Swords is tied to the element of air, and it's symbolic of thoughts, ideas, words, and communication.

And Swords represents masculine energy, which is action-oriented. And then the King also represents masculine energy.

And I'm not talking in terms of the traditional gender binary but in terms of the King's authoritative and powerful presence. So, this is a very action-focused card.

And there isn't a literal number on the card, but it is the 14th card in this suit. And you know, the suit starts with the Ace, which is one followed by the Two of Swords.

So, with this King appearing as the final card in this suit, you can view it as the end of a cycle or journey. But also, with it being the 14th card, we can add one and four together, which equals five.

And in numerology, five tends to be tied to conflict and challenges, as well as change, instability, and loss.

So, this King comes to us as an intellectual and logical leader who's asking us to take decisive action on our own behalf or to stand up for others who may not have the power to defend themselves.

So, we really need to be our own powerful leaders, but we need to make sure we're paying attention to our intuition and not letting our emotions get the best of us.

And we also need to trust our voice, and since Swords is tied to communication, we also need to be mindful of that voice and how we communicate our decisions and boundaries.

So, let's really focus on our mental clarity and stand strong in our truth.

Guest Introduction (3:30)

Rob Loveless

And with that in mind, I'm very excited to introduce our next guest.

Just real quick, though, I do want to give a trigger warning that this episode obviously talks about substance abuse and addiction, but it also contains stories about sexual abuse, domestic violence, and potential drug overdoses.

So, if those are sensitive or uncomfortable topics for you, you may want to skip this episode. So please use your own discretion. But with that said, on with the episode.

He is a director, filmmaker, writer, and owner of Fitz Media, and he recently published his book, Recovering From Recovery. Please welcome Adam Fitzgerald.

Hi, Adam. Thank you for joining us today.

Adam Fitzgerald

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Rob Loveless

I'm very excited to have you on so as you kick it off, I like to ask all our guests, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How you identify, your pronouns, all that?

Adam Fitzgerald

Sure. My name is Adam Fitzgerald. I am the writer of the book that's coming out very soon, Recovering From Recovery.

My pronouns are he/him, although they/them is also fine. And I am an American currently living, I live in Spain and spend quite a bit of time in Paris, France.

Rob Loveless

I'm jealous. That sounds awesome.

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah. Very lucky. Very lucky.

Rob Loveless

Well, and I like to ask all my guests this too. Are you a jaded or non-jaded gay today?

Adam Fitzgerald

I, today, I think I'm a non-jaded gay. I'm more, more jaded about the state of the world and the environment than I am about me being gay lately. So, I'm pretty good with my queer identity today.

Rob Loveless

Awesome. Well, to kick it off, we're talking today about your book, Recovering From Recovery. So, can you tell us, have you always been a writer?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah, I've always, I've always written, but I did not identify as a writer until just a few years ago.

When I was living in New York, I was a filmmaker and a theater director, and so I wrote some stuff, wrote a couple episodes of a web series, and I wrote a short film.

But it was not until a few years ago that these, these sort of essays that I'd always been writing more sort of, they're more like journaling, really, than essays, that I started deciding to try to publish them.

So, I had a couple published in the last few years. But this is definitely the first time. This is the first book, the first time put together, and something so long and cohesive.

So, I definitely consider myself a new writer in that respect.

Adam’s Relationship with Alcohol (5:49)

Rob Loveless

So, what inspired you to write Recovering From Recovery?

Adam Fitzgerald

You know, it's funny. It started off as a very, very different book. The book originally was about sexuality and finding and sort of expanding and exploring my sexuality while sober.

And it, it was this very, sort of unorganized, very long mess. And I actually sent it to a friend of mine who's one of my exes, and who was also sober, and he said to me, you know, there's this part in the middle about how you had to sort of separate from AA and the principles of AA and how that coincided when you're exploring your sexuality, that is so clear and so interesting, you know.

And he, we've known each other for a long time, and he was like, you know, the rest of it is also sort of a mess and hard to follow.

And so about a year, I had been writing it for about a year, and then when I got that, I sort of went back and looked at it, erased the rest of it, took that small section that I had written, and sort of started over and really dove into, you know, this, what the book is now, which is about sort of separating myself from, from recovery and from the program, and telling that story.

Rob Loveless

So, getting right into it. In your book, you talk about growing up during the AIDS crisis, and that while you were young enough to not be sexually active during that time, you were still old enough to absorb the shock, shame, guilt, and fear associated with it.

So how did growing up during that time impact your sexuality and your sobriety?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I was born in 1976 and we are a very unique generation of queer men, because we were in the late 80s and early 90s, we were teenagers.

And, you know, I grew up in rural New Hampshire, so we, we didn't come out in high school; you came out in college or later.

And so, as we were coming into our sexuality and our adulthood, you know, that the height of the AIDS crisis that was, you know, in the late 80s and the early 90s, that's what we knew about being gay. That was all we heard. You know, this was pre-internet.

We didn't have, we didn't have chat rooms, we didn't have any of these things. We just had sort of the news. And being, you know, from rural, New Hampshire, I have no, no gay friends.

I had no, you know, I didn't know any adult gay men. And so, as I was sort of realizing I was gay, but still in the closet. Everything I heard about sex was AIDS, and so it was sort of this, this double whammy. Because first of all, when, when we started having sex, we were terrified.

We were literally terrified of dying. You know, at that point, we had, sort of, we knew that you could, you could protect yourself with condoms.

But it was still at that time when, you know, getting AIDS was, was potentially a death sentence, and if the condom broke, and did oral sex really not transmit AIDS, and we just didn't know.

And so there was so much fear around having sex and sexual health, and then, you know, sort of, when you're in the closet and you're sort of, you know, you're listening and not saying anything because you don't want anyone to know you're gay, all of the messaging around it was, you know, people were referring to it as a gay cancer.

And there were, I heard a lot of people say that God had created AIDS to punish gay men. That it was, it was God's way of eradicating gay men from the earth. It was God's way of, of punishing gay men for being gay. And so, you know, there was already so much shame around being gay.

This was, you know, not a time when, when you could say you were gay, when you were supported for being gay. Everything around being gay was, was that it was wrong, that it was an abomination, combined with, you know, this AIDS crisis and all of so many of the men just a few years older than me dying.

It, you know, we walked into our sexual lives and our sexual adulthood so scared and so full of shame. And so, I think that that carried into a lot of why I drank so much and that in order to have sex, in order to find the courage to, to connect with other men, and to do this thing that I was told was disgusting and wrong, and to overcome the fear that I was going to die from doing it, I needed a lot of vodka. I needed to find that liquid courage.

And so as far as how that affected my sobriety, you know, that snowballed because I established that pattern so early, and then when I got sober, there was this inherent connection between sex and alcohol abuse for me, because every time I was having sex, I was drunk.

And so, it took a long time in my sobriety for me to start to learn how to separate my sexuality from my substance abuse.

And in the beginning, and, you know, I talk about this quite a bit in the book, there was a lot, there were all too many people to support that message that that was old behavior, that was drunk behavior, that was non-sober behavior, having casual sex, anything to do with fetishes or group sex, or any of that.

And so, it, it was really it took a long time, and it took a lot of help to sort of begin to separate being sober from, from this old behavior. And in fact, I had to learn that I didn't have this kind of sex because I, because I got drunk.

I got drunk so I could have sex. And that was, that took a long, long time to sort of unpack that association, because of all the shame and fear that we grew up with.

Rob Loveless

I mean, a lot to unpack there from what you said, and a couple of things that jumped out was obviously talking about the AIDS pandemic. I had mentioned this in a couple episodes past, but, you know, it's no surprise.

We lost an entire generation of gay men from AIDS. So now, in present day, we don't really have, you know, what's referred to as quote-unquote queer elders to kind of show us that sense of community, you know, the sense of love, health, taking care of ourselves, mentally, physically, because we lost an entire generation of gay men. So that can create even further feelings of isolation.

But then two, you know, I think, you know, from what I've seen growing up, some things I've heard from others, it seems like drinking is somewhat ingrained in the LGBTQ+ experience because for such a long time, you know, gay bars were the safe area for us to be, where we could kind of not be in public and find, you know, our sense of community.

But obviously, there was a lot of alcohol present. So, between those two things, it seems like there's, those are a couple heavy factors that can really impact, you know, the entire LGBTQ+ community and their relationship with alcohol.

Adam Fitzgerald

Absolutely. I mean, yeah, you, you know, coming at 22, 23 trying to, like, come out of the closet, and trying to seek out sex, you went to bars. That's where it was.

And when you have sort of all this fear around it, and somebody hands you a vodka, it's, it's just all too easy to, you know, slam down three drinks to have the courage to go talk to someone.

And, yeah, it's, and you combine that with this very sad thing, and it's something I don't think we talk about a lot that we didn't, we didn't have those elders because so many, so many gay men died in the generation just before mine.

Rob Loveless

I'm glad we're having this conversation then, and I'm glad that you wrote your story to share that with the world because I think it's, you know, like you said, a topic that's not covered as much as it should be.

So, with that being said, can you tell us about your sobriety journey?

Adam Fitzgerald

Sure. I, you know, I drank all through college and then all through my early 20s, and then I sort of found, as I was hitting my late 20s and early 30s, that, you know, people were not drinking like I was growing up, and our bodies are more tired.

And so, as my drinking continued and continued. And in the end, I was just sort of often at home alone, drinking by myself, because, you know, on Monday and Tuesday night, you know, there's no one to go out with.

And it sort of just got very sad and got very lonely. And so, I had an ex that had gone, actually, no, we were together at the time, he had gotten sober while we were together.

And so, I sort of had this person beside me. And I've said this to a couple of people, but it was like he and I used to drink together all the time. Hot, and we would get wasted.

And then he got sober, and it was like someone stepped out from between me and the mirror. And I, you know, I had this other person I could look to, and we did this, we went out, we drank too much, and then all of a sudden, it was, I went out, I drank too much.

And he, he and I ended up breaking up before I got sober, and I'd been to AA a couple of times, but I didn't really want to stop drinking. I wanted to learn to control my drinking, which is sort of funny and ironic when you think about going to a place where nobody ever drinks, to learn tricks to drink.

So that didn't work, and so I finally sort of stumbled into an AA meeting, ready to quit drinking. And you know, for all I say about how AA, in the long term, didn't turn out to be the right path for me, it was incredibly helpful in the beginning.

Mostly because there was a community of people. And when you're sad and lonely and drinking by yourself seven nights a week, to go into a room, into multiple rooms, where people are accepting and loving and say, it’s okay, we're going to help you, was incredible.

And so, I sort of dove very hard into AA. I became a, you know, sort of major advocate for AA. And was, was deep in the program. And then these questions started arising, about sexuality, about this notion of disease, about a lot of things that just I couldn't quite reconcile.

And so, you know, I now, I now do drink in moderation, but I stayed in AA for probably six or seven years. I was, I was fairly active, and I stayed sober for 12 years.

And so, the sort of end of my sobriety, it was very funny. I was talking to my therapist, we were talking about the possibility of experimenting with controlled drinking, and then the pandemic hit.

And I was like, Nope, because here we were. I mean, we were locked down like in Europe, like you didn't leave the house.

And I was like, there’s no way am I playing with this during the global crisis when none of us know what's happening, and I can't leave the house and, and so I put it off another sort of year and a half.

And then it was New Year's Eve of 2020 going into 2021. No, '21 going into '22 that I had a glass of champagne and sort of ended my, my stint of sobriety.

Adam’s Experiences with AA (17:44)

Rob Loveless

So, referring to your book, you wrote that, to a degree, there are some principles of AA that you believe work and lead to a better life.

So, can you tell us what those are, along with the parts that you don't agree with in the program?

Adam Fitzgerald

Sure. I mean, here's the thing I don't I don't love to say, like, agree, or disagree. I like to talk about it more in terms of what's for me and not for me.

And sort of that's the whole, one of the main reasons I wrote this book is that I think when we talk about mental health, when we talk about sobriety, in particular, it's very all or nothing.

It's very black and white. And I don't know that that works for everyone, and it stopped working for me. I think it can, it can put a sort of pass/fail mentality on our mental health. That isn't very healthy.

You know, we have days, we have good days and bad days. We stumble. And so, one of the things, you know, there are a lot of things that I learned at AA, which I think are great.

You know, the sort of first few steps, this idea of admitting that you have a problem, asking for help, accepting that help, looking at your past, and owning your past, and sharing that someone and unburdening that shame.

I think all of those things are beautiful. Where I, I sort of had to walk away was, well, I mean, first of all, this, this book, Alcoholic Anonymous, was written in, you know, the early 1900s by white, straight, cis Christian, very, very Christian men.

And they don't, so much of what they did and what they needed does not apply to my queer life in 2023. It just can't. But a lot of what I had to sort of walk away from was this, really this sort of all-or-nothing dogmatic, do this.

Do this this way. Do this for the rest of your life. There's no wiggle room. There's this is the solution.

That, that stopped working for me, and that's where I sort of, I don't, I don't think there's those principles are for everyone.

And that one of the things examples I give is that like if somebody, say somebody is drinking a ton, and then they decide to go into therapy or get help in whatever way, and every, once every three months, they go on a bender and have too much to drink.

That's great because you've been drinking every night, and then you drink once every 90 days, you should be celebrated, right? That's beautiful. You're making healthier choices.

Sure, you have a slip, every once in a while. But in AA, you've had a relapse. You have to go in, you have to raise your hand or say, I'm on day one. You have to say, I've relapsed.

And all of the language around it is you failed. And that's where I sort of, one of the major things that I sort of had to walk away from, because I don't think mental health, I don't think healing is so pass/fail.

It's a journey. And if you are doing a lot better, and you are taking better care of yourself than you used to, that should be celebrated, you should be loved for that. You should be encouraged for that.

And so, I feel like with the, with these 12-step programs that are abstinence-only, and that's the only option, there's no room for that.

And one of the other things I struggled with is this notion of everyone has a disease, and there's no, you're not diagnosed by any professional.

You just sit down in an AA meeting, you raise your hand and you say, I'm an alcoholic. And I don't know if that's true for everyone who abuses substances.

I think a lot of people abuse substances in reaction to trauma, in reaction to things that have happened in their past. And when you say, like, you have this disease, and you hear often like you were born with it, you know someone who suffered sexual abuse was not born with a disease.

They're abusing substances to deal with the trauma of their childhood and, and AA doesn't necessarily leave enough room for that in my experience, because it says you have this disease.

And for me, because I was so ready to believe that there was some broken part of myself, it, it actually blocked me from looking at my past and my childhood and my trauma and really getting into the reasons why I drank.

Because for me, it was not some disease I was born with. It was, there was a lot of other things. And AA, for me, I had to walk away to really look at those things.

Rob Loveless

From reading your book, you talk about, you just said, now it's very black or white, and even reading through it, it does seem like a very rigid program.

Now, full disclosure, obviously, I'm not a healthcare provider or a mental health expert or substance abuse counselor or anything like that. My degree is in communications.

I say that all the time as little disclaimer up top, and I don't have personal experience with the AA program.

I'm sure there are people who do benefit from it in the sense of it is that all-or-nothing mentality, because there, there can't really be an in-between for them, because it could be a slippery slope.

But it from what you're saying that book that was written in the early 1900s it's a very one-size-fits-all approach, instead of considering unique health factors for each individual person, which we'll get to in a bit as it ties to sexuality because that's going to be a part of the book that you cover as well.

But going off of that, it seems like, from what you wrote, there is a strict guideline that you shouldn't form any relationship within your first year of sobriety.

And when the time does come to form relationships, it seems like they advise against casual sex, which didn't really align with your own sexuality.

So, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Adam Fitzgerald

Sure. I mean, the principle, which, again, I don't think is necessarily bad, is that you should make any major changes in your first year of sobriety.

And that includes moving or quitting your job, getting into a new romantic relationship, like major life choices. The sort of advice you hear a lot is, don't make any major changes in this first year, because in that year you sort of go through everything.

You go through birthdays, you go through Christmas, you go through, you know, bad days, you go through seasonal depression. And so, you're spending that first year learning to cope with everything, without substances.

And so again, I don't disagree with the principal, but yeah, then they would get to this thing about sex. And I will say in, I got sober in New York, and I was going to mostly gay AA meetings, and so there was, there was a little more of a gray area there.

But every time I sort of started to talk about sex or hear about sex, you would hear these things, like, they would refer to going on, you know, Grindr or Scruff as the relapse apps.

And I, you know, I just sort of, wow, yeah. That's there's to me, there was just a big leap between, like having casual sex and relapsing.

And there was a lot of this rhetoric around an inherent connection between those things, and a lot of vocabulary around what the people would say is, like old behavior or non-sober behavior.

And the one that I hated was hearing that's not sober thinking and that that just was like, whoa, you can't, I'm here to quit drinking, not for you to dictate how I think.

And so, it, I started to slow, sort of slowly, step away. Luckily, I had a few friends in AA who were also ignoring this thing and just saying like this, I'm here to quit drinking. There's no, they have no right to tell me whether or not I can have sex, what kind of sex I should be having.

But it, you know, it was, it was a tough balance because, at the time, I was so fragile and so scared. My life had been such a mess coming in, and I was feeling better.

And I think where it gets it gets tricky is you're so scared to ignore advice because you're in this room with people who have stayed sober. I was not able to get sober by myself. I was not able to control my drinking.

And so, any advice can seem like good advice. And so, I struggled a lot with that in the first couple years of, you know, all these men seem to be saying if I, if I went on Grindr, if I went out and had casual sex.

God forbid, I went to a, you know, a bathhouse or a cruising bar that I would be instantly drunk, you know. And so it was, it was a long process.

Again, it was sort of at the same time I was separating my sexuality from my substance abuse. I was also starting to separate the advice that I was being given, and I really had to start looking at people and saying, do you have a life I want?

And if not, I don't think I can take your advice. And I understand that maybe for you going on the apps is dangerous.

Maybe for you going to a bathhouse is too close to what you used to do, and that's dangerous for you. But for me, I missed sex. I love sex. I love having sex.

I love sex for the first time with a new person, and so it, it wasn't a healthy life for me to follow that advice. It wasn't leading me closer to drinking when I had sex.

It was leading me closer to drinking when I didn't. And so, it, I had to sort of navigate that, sometimes sort of secretly and often with, you know, with friends who were not in the program, who were not sober, because I felt like sometimes I couldn't have these conversations in AA.

Sexuality and Sobriety (28:02)

Rob Loveless

And you also talk about how during sobriety, you were more present and making clear and decisive choices about what you wanted to try in your sexuality, and as a result, that allowed you to explore more.

So, what was that like? And what did you learn?

Adam Fitzgerald

I'll tell you, sober sex after you've been having sex only drunk for many, for all of my adult life is amazing.

It's fantastic because all of my life, when I, when I would do something that was maybe a little outside the norm, when I would go to a bathhouse, or I would engage in a little bit of fetish or try something new, I was always so drunk that I woke up, you know, hung over with fuzzy memories and sort of all the shame around, Oh God, I got so drunk again last night was tied to the sex.

But to try these things sober, you know, there, there are two really amazing things that happen. The first is that you're in conscious choice. So, in this moment, I'm not, you know, I'm not mired in alcohol, I'm not fuzzy, I'm not I'm conscious and present and saying I want to try this.

And then the second thing is waking up the next morning and you don't have any excuse. You can't say like, oh, I was so wasted last night. I did this thing.

I can't believe I did it. I no longer had that excuse, which was beautiful, and a sort of unexpected effect with that was the shame detached because I had nothing to blame and, and I could just see, like, I did that because I wanted to do that. I wanted to try that.

And I also, if I tried things that I didn't, wasn't necessarily into there was no confusion or why did I do that? It was just a very simple like, I soberly consciously tried that thing. That thing's not for me, right? And it was so lovely.

And the thing I, you know, I love about sort of the fetish community and the sex-positive community is that, like, I find there is an incredible emphasis on consent.

And it is, I think a lot of people sort of have this idea, when you talk about fetish or cruising bars, that, you know, there's these sort of everyone trying to pressure you and push your limits and all of that stuff. And they are maybe trying to push your limits, but it is always with consent.

And so, to be sober, the consent was 100% because I was with men who were saying, do you want to try this? And in a clear mind, where I was deciding for myself without any blurriness or fuzziness or substances that were changing me, yeah, I want to try.

And so, exploring, you know, a lot of these things that I had never tried, conscious and sober and present was lovely. It really, I loved it.

Rob Loveless

That sounds like it was a real sense of liberation. And especially, you know, for a lot of us, even if we didn't grow up religious, we've grown up in a society that tends to have a lot of Christian roots and, you know, gay, straight, queer, whatever, there tends to be a lot of shame around sexuality as a whole.

And then another layer, when you're part of the LGBTQ+ community when it differs from heteronormative sex.

So, it seems like, you know, really having that sober, clear focus, really was that sense of liberation from the shame of drinking and the shame from, you know, oppression that you faced growing up in heteronormative society.

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah, and it's all of that. I mean, that you're trying things that society is saying are filthy, is the word we often use.

And to do it sober, it's, it's so liberating because you, you don't, you don't, you didn't do anything to get there, you know?

And you have nothing to blame afterwards, and so you just it was also there was a sense of power of in my past, sexually, I needed alcohol, I needed drugs to do certain things.

And to learn no, I didn't. I can make these choices. I can do these things with a clear head and a clear mind.

That's there was a real sense of, of empowerment in that that, like I don't need to hide behind anything. I can make these choices and do these things, and the world's shame is not mine.

I don't need to bring that in there with me.

LGBTQ+ Identity and AA’s Religious Roots (32:35)

Rob Loveless

Well, while we're on the topic of religion, you know, as you've mentioned in the book, AA has roots in Christianity, and you write that even step three sounds like it's straight off the pulpit, because it says, turn our will and our lives over to God.

And understandably, many LGBTQ+ people have a complicated relationship with religion, since for so long, it was used to condemn and enslave us.

So how did you balance your LGBTQ+ identity and AA's religious roots?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah. I mean, you know, we all heard, I don't know if you heard this one, love the sinner, hate the sin. That was what I grew up with. I mean, what an, what an awful thing to say.

And sadly, those were the people that were trying to be kinder, that we're trying to be more accepting, but we as young people, you know, we heard like, well, I don't hate you, as long as you don't be who you are.

It's an awful phrase. And so, yeah, so many of us grew up with this terrible rhetoric coming from, particularly, you know, Christian American churches. And yeah, it is hard.

Again, I, you know, I got sober in New York, where there are a lot of gay AA roots. So, a lot of that, I met a lot of people, even if the rhetoric in all of the literature and the, the books of AA is very, very religious.

I met a lot of people who sort of were able to navigate around that. And so it was, it was probably easier for me getting sober in New York than other places. I went to an AA meeting in North Carolina, and it began and ended with the Lord's Prayer.

And it was every single person that shared talked about finding Jesus Christ their Savior. And I was like, I can't. If that worked for you, that's great, but I'm again, this is not why I'm here. I'm not here to find God.

I'm not here to go back to an institution that shamed and hated me. I'm here to be healthier. You know, there's this chapter in the book called To Agnostics, and it's sort of, again, it was written by these white heterosexual Christian men a long time ago.

And it sort of starts off being like, it's okay if you don't believe in God, but by the end of it, it's very much like, but eventually you will.

You'll get there, you'll stop your foolishness and, and they never say Jesus, and they never say Christianity, but it is the language if you grew up in a Christian church is very Christian, and you know exactly what they're saying.

You know, like, I said, because I was in New York and because there were so many men and women that I met there that just sort of found a way to ignore that part of it, it was not so hard for me, but I have talked to so many people who worry about their substance abuse, who worry that they drink too much, who worry about maybe they have a drug problem, who went to one AA meeting and never came back.

And what I hear all the time is, like, all that God stuff was too much. Like you said, there's, there's so much, so many of us have a difficult and angry relationship with the Christian organizations that condemned us our entire lives.

And so, to hear, like, I have to turn my will and life over to God. It's, it doesn't work. Like, I don't, I don't even actually know what that means first of all, but I don't want to.

Like, I don't want, you know what I mean? Like, I don't want, I didn't want to give my will away. I didn't want to give my life away to God.

I wanted to take my life back and own it again and have power over my own choices that I didn't have. And so, I think a lot of people do, do struggle a lot with that.

And again, you know, it's, it's AA is there, and it's great. And if it works for you, that's amazing. But the thing I, you know, I, we, we seem to present it as the only option, and there are other options out there.

And so, you know, when people ask me about the religious aspect of it, I'm very honest. I say it is very present there, and if you can't get around that, this may not be the solution for you.

Rob Loveless

And I think that's just another example of what you said earlier, like, it's so black and white. It's like, rooted in Christianity, like you don't have to believe in God, but by the end of this you should, and if you do, that's great.

But also, that's not necessarily the best approach for everyone. And it's funny too because you're saying how you know, they say, like, turn your will over to God.

But it also seems kind of contradictory, because growing up, I heard a lot like, God helps those who helps himself. So, it's like, which is it are we supposed to just give up and accept that, like he'll come through?

Or should we be kind of doing our own free will a little bit and trying to figure out what's right? Like, it's like, you can't win no matter what.

And going back to what you said earlier about, you know, starting to diverge from, you know, the principles that were there you view as helpful at the time, but you did start diverging from those and kind of rethinking what made sense to you.

And I think you said it was around step four is where four is where you truly began diverging from their thinking, and that's where step four says that no matter what resentment, abuse, or wrongdoing experienced, you must find your part in it, meaning, like you must find your own ownership or fault in that.

So, can you tell us a little bit about how you felt disconnected from that?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you, I remember the first time it sort of freaked me out. I heard someone talking about step four, and she had been sexually abused as a child, and she was talking about finding her part in that.

And I, I don't even remember what was said after that, because I felt like I went into a blackout. I was like, you, you had no part.

Why, why would anybody be told that they, they had some parts and fault in being abused as a child? And it seemed insane to me, but you know, like, I said in the beginning, I was so scared, I kind of pushed those fears aside, and I did my fourth step.

And, you know, growing up Catholic, growing up with all of the shame I, every, I found my part in everything, it was all my fault. Like every single thing, I listed, every resentment I put down, every person who had done anything wrong to me, my fault, my fault, my fault, right?

And people always say like, oh, it's not fault, it's part. But there are things that happen, particularly when you're young, that you don't have any part in. And it really as I the one I remember writing down I was with a man when I was very young.

I had just graduated college, and he beat the shit out of me several times, and I had a whole list of why that was my fault, what I had done, what I should have done better, what I should, you know, and, and that's, that's not healing.

And so, with step four, it's funny because it didn't really happen chronologically. I did step four. I dove all the way into it, but sort of then, when you reflect on it afterwards, I would look back at what happened, and I was like, I think some of this is really messed up.

And the thing is, the person I was most awful to was myself. I was not a bad man. And so, there's this sort of notion that you hear all the time in AA of like before and after, right? Like you were this.

The language they use, which, again, I just don't love, is you'll talk about, talking about being selfish, self-centered, and self-serving when you were an active alcohol or drug abuser.

The lack of compassion to call a person who is struggling with substance abuse selfish and self-serving, it's just no.

Like I couldn't, I couldn't stick with that, and I couldn't stick with the notion that everything that happens, you have to find your part in it because there's no room for saying that happened to me. Somebody was bad to me. I, you know, how do I find my part in the AIDS crisis?

You know, I had a lot of resentment around, like, America and growing up and this hateful homophobic rhetoric that I heard, and I had to write down my part in that.

I'm sorry that little 14-year-old Adam who wanted to come out of the closet and was being told there was a gay cancer so God could eradicate us. I didn't have a part in that.

And so, where it really became damaging for me, and then I had to sort of flip it is I, it's too easy for me to blame everything on myself, and that is not how I'm going to heal.

And so, I had to sort of again, pull back from that and say, like, I don't know if this is the right path for me.

Questioning AA’s Framework (41:47)

Rob Loveless

You know, going off of that, I think it was, you said during step nine of AA is where your thinking really shifted and you started questioning its overall framework. So, can you talk to us about that as well?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah. I mean, step nine is the making amends, and we all know that. You know, we've all seen the movies.

And then I think a lot of people have had an amends made to them in real life, and but the thing I realized, as I was sort of going through step nine, is there's no, there's no amends to myself.

And again, like, that's where I was like, where's the, the love? Where's the healing, where's the acknowledgement of the fact that the harm I mostly did was to my own, my own well-being, to my own body?

Sure, I did some dumb things when I was drunk and, and needed to make some apologies, and but most of what I did when I was a drunk was harmed myself and arrested my healing, and drowned myself in substances, rather than addressing the things that had happened to me in my past.

And so, I think it's again, you know, like I said, I say a lot, like, there are things that are lovely, and I think going back, and they call it clearing the wreckage of your past.

And if you have these, these deeply shameful things, these things that you did to people, to go and address those head-on and apologize to those people and make amends can be very healing.

But there's no, there's no part of that in the literature that says, go to yourself, love yourself, forgive yourself.

And that's what I think most, I shouldn't say most, I don't know what other people think, but I think I, you know, a lot of us, I had these conversations with a lot of people that, like, where the amends most needed to be made was right here at home.

It needed to be made in the mirror, and I needed to forgive myself for all this harm I had done to myself and love myself into wanting to heal and be better and the program didn't, didn't help me to do that.

Rob Loveless

Another thing that really jumped out to me in the book, you talked about the intrinsic connection between the rampant drug and alcohol abuse in the gay community and the deeply ingrained fear of intimacy.

So, tell us more about that.

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah, I mean, maleness in America is a very excuse, my language, but a very fucked up notion. And we, we grow up being told you don't, you shouldn't cry. You shouldn't need help.

You shouldn't, those, those emotions are weak and stupid. You shouldn't. You know, you should be strong. You should be a man all of these things, you know, and get maybe another book.

But all of this is clearly rooted in misogyny and, and to be we are raised with the notion that to be like a woman, to be feminine, is the worst possible thing you can do.

And that as we're sort of coming into adulthood, we're raised just as men, gay men, and straight men, to not have an emotional vocabulary, to not need to be held, to not need to be comforted, to not express sadness or pain or fear, and then we're expected to go into relationships and be intimate where we have no vocabulary, no skill set, no tools in being vulnerable.

So, I think just American men in general, we don't, we are discouraged from learning the things we need to learn to be intimate.

Then you add being gay on top of that, with the world telling you you're wrong, telling you you're disgusting, and that, you know, as you said, like the spaces where you can go, where we could go and find intimacy, are bars.

And so, you put all of these things together. I don't have a vocabulary or skill set in how to be vulnerable and intimate. I'm terrified that what I'm doing is shameful and wrong, and I desperately want to be intimate.

I want to connect with another human being. I want to be close. I want to be touched. I want to have sex. I want to do all these things, but I, I don't know how, and I'm ashamed that I want it.

So, you start slamming vodka, you know, you start doing drugs. And it's, I think so many of us needed to engage in substances in order to be intimate.

But the problem is, when you engage in, in these activities when you are messed up and high or drunk, you're not present and you're not fully there, and so you don't, it's this sort of catch-22 of you desperately want to be intimate and connected and close to another person, but you have to take a substance that erases part of you and doesn't allow you to fully be present and there with them.

And I think there's, you know, it's, it's it snowballs. It can spiral very easily to this connection of, well, I want to have sex, I want to meet people, I want to go out. I want to do these things.

I want to be intimate or sexual, whatever it is. And we reach for the bottle. We reach for the drugs. And they become connected and intertwined. And I get it, you know, I did it.

We, I think it's it can be so scary as a man, to want to be held and to have sex and to enjoy the body of another person, and to be open and there and intimate and, and, you know, tender and sexual, and whatever it is.

It's so scary that it, it, we reach for something, I think, to help us get over that fear and, and to get over the fact that we didn't learn, you know, how to be intimate and vulnerable.

Recovering From Recovery (48:14)

Rob Loveless

Well, and with that being said, toward the end of your book, you write that you feel there isn't one right way for all people, and that includes recovery styles and relationship styles.

So that being said, can you tell us where you're at now and how you felt once you finished writing Recovering From Recovery?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah. I mean, finishing, it was, it's, you know, it's about an ongoing journey. So, I just, it was very hard to say it's done.

Luckily, I had this brilliant editor, Ellen Vessels, and they did such brilliant work and helped me so much that once it was edited, I had to say, like, okay, it's done. Like, because if I go back and I write, rewrite, and fix again, I'm gonna have to get it re-edited.

So, so it was great to be like, okay, I can send it off. This is, this is the end. But yeah, as far as, as, as you know, this thing about there being one right way, that's the whole reason I wrote this book.

Like, I think we need to be celebrating everyone's journey towards healing. If you are wanting to be better for yourself, if you're wanting to be better in the world, if you're wanting to heal, whatever way you can do that is amazing.

And I, I feel like we don't always, you know, I feel like, particularly with 12-step programs, like, it's so often the only option presented, and it's great. It works for some people, and that's amazing.

But I think we need to start presenting more options. I think we need to start talking about the fact that the religious aspect, the all-or-nothing aspect, that those aren't going to work for everyone.

And get more out there about the options that exist, and stop attaching to this book written in the 1930s or whenever it was written as the only viable option for people in 2023.

But a lot of it is just more about this extreme way of thinking, this all or nothing way of thinking, this black and white way of thinking that, that I feel like when you're talking about healing, when you're talking about mental health, that we need to be softer, we need to be gentler with, with ourselves and with each other, and allow room for mistakes, allow room for setbacks, and allow room to try the thing.

Because whatever path you take, it doesn't matter. It is that thing bringing you closer to being kind and good to yourself and kind and good in the world. But who cares what path it took?

And my path may not work for you and your path may not work for me. It doesn't matter. My sexuality may be the worst thing you could possibly want, and yours might be also like being, you know, I talk about my brother, who lives in New Hampshire, works at my old high school, is married, has two kids.

His life would be my hell, and I love his life. I'm so proud of him and so happy for him. It doesn't matter that it's not what I want.

And I wish we could just be a little gentler in the way we, we help each other and talk to ourselves.

Rob Loveless

You know that being said, did you receive any feedback from your friends, family, or a couple of the exes you mentioned in the book?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah, well, one of them, you know, read the early draft and sort of helped, really, actually helped me rewrite it. A couple other exes, just sort of did the, like, so what do you say about me?

I told them, you know, I changed everyone's name and but and both of them were, were fine with the stories that I told.

I had to sit my mom down and sort of explain to her that maybe she doesn't want to read this book, mostly because, you know, I don't know if my mom wants to hear the story of the first time I got pissed on.

Maybe not for her, but I did explain to her, sort of what I talk about in terms of my childhood, and she's struggling with it a little. She hasn't decided if she's going to read it or not.

Whereas my dad, you know, sort of was, of course, I want to read it, which surprised me. I will say I was very surprised. My dad is, he's not conservative, but he is sexually very conservative, and he doesn't, you know, like to talk about, he thinks those things should be more private than obviously, I do.

And, you know, I talked about my childhood and what I went through with him, and he was like, how do I order it? I sent him the link, and he just ordered it, and so he's pre-ordered the book.

He hasn't read it yet. But, yeah, I will be interested to see what happens when they all actually read it. I did not send any of my friends or family an advanced copy, because I didn't want the temptation if some of them were hurt or upset or to go back and rewrite.

I'm putting this out in the world, and I'm okay with everything I said, and there are maybe some difficult conversations that come from it, but we'll see.

Rob Loveless

Sure, because the only other alternative is if somebody reads that ahead of time, and then there's a conversation, you might feel like you have to edit your truth a little bit or water it down, as opposed to, like, these are my experiences, my feelings, and this is what impacted me.

One thing you wrote in the book, I'm circling back to that actually, is you said something along the lines of, you know a parent's job is to protect their child.

And I know you had some unique circumstances there where you kind of, it kind of wasn't that way between you and your mom.

And I think generally for most people in the LGBTQ+ community, you know, parents, even if they are fully supportive or, you know, embracing, they don't exactly know what is needed to emotionally take care of their queer child because there are some differences there and they're, you know, nobody's perfect, but there's going to be some things that hurt that child along the way.

So, I think, just by nature of growing up, you know, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, there is that, that feeling that you're not protected by the parents who are supposed to protect you.

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah, and I, again, I go back to this sort of all-or-nothing mentality. I think we always want to say, like, either it was my parents' fault and they were bad parents, or they were good parents and they did nothing wrong.

And that's just not reality. In my parents were struggling with money, there was, you know, the 70s and 80s. They had no vocabulary about queer, you know, and what it means to raise a queer child. They sort of just did their best and they did some things that harmed me.

That doesn't mean they didn't love me. That doesn't mean they didn't do their best or try, but they, they did do some things that harm me. And I think in order to heal, we have to be able to say that both are true.

And I'm not talking obviously about people with monstrous, abusive parents, but I think for most of us, we have parents who loved us and who also did some fucked up things because they didn't know any better, or because they were tired, or because they were frustrated about money or they, you know, my parents were so young when they had us, and so, yeah.

It's, it's okay and very scary to put these things out in the world and say my parents loved me. They still love me. I never doubted that they love me, and they also did some things that damaged me and caused me harm. And those things are simultaneously true.

Rob Loveless

Also, something I want to touch upon. You dedicated the book to Robbie, who you say, never got the help he needed.

Can you tell us more about that and how it impacted you?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yeah, Robbie was one of my exes. I knew him in Atlanta, and he grew up in a small town in North Florida. And every time he came to Atlanta, his cocaine problem exploded.

And he got back into coke while we were together, ended up getting arrested, ended up spending some time in jail. And I knew him long before I got sober, and he kept trying to go into 12-step programs, and they just didn't work for him.

They just did not and then he would go run home and sort of hide in his parents' house, feel like he got strong enough, and come back to Atlanta.

And I don't actually know exactly what happened, but from what I learned, it seems like he died in something relating to drugs. I don't know if it was specifically an overdose, but he had relapsed again, gotten back into drug use, and this program did not work for him, and at the time, there really weren't other options.

And even now, the options are very limited, and often limited to people with money to go into sort of, you know, these programs that are not 12-step based. It's often you have to pay, a lot of people, their insurance doesn't cover therapy.

And so, he kept trying this 12-step thing that didn't help him, and he never got any other help, and now he's gone. And that was, it is just so sad that, you know, if you, that he only had one option, and that one option didn't work for him.

And maybe if he had had some other choices, some other paths he could have tried, he might still be here. I don't know, but I do know that this, this AA and NA did not work for him, and he never got the help that he needed.

And so that's why I dedicated the book to him.

Rob Loveless

I'm really sorry for your loss, but I'm glad that you did, you know, write this story and have the courage to tell your truth about this, because, you know, like you said, even in today's society, there's not a ton of choices for mental health, addiction, so I think it's important that people hear these stories and know from other people's experiences what options can lie out there for them.

And with that in mind, you know, what, what do you hope readers get from reading Recovering From Recovery?

Adam Fitzgerald

You know, it's funny, I often don't like to say, like, what I want people to take away, because I sort of like to let every person have their own experience, whether it's when I made theater or film or now with, with books.

But, but I will say the thing I would love is, is that some conversations get started. That some, some thinking happens, and people start to just talk about, you know, the way we help and, and talk about the fact that sometimes I think when we give advice or try to help, we do it in a way that says you have to do it my way, or you're doing it wrong.

And, and so maybe I just would love for us to have more conversations about thinking, about telling our stories without putting that caveat on it. I try in the book to tell my story while saying I don't know what is the best path for you, but if something in here helps, that's great.

But I don't think you should follow my path, because you don't want my life. And so, one of the things I would love to come out of this is just more conversations about leaving people to find their best way towards their best self and softening the rhetoric of this is what you need to do, because that, what you need to do may not be what I need to do, particularly if I don't want what you want.

And softening the rhetoric around the way we talk about sex. You know, these things when people say, like, I could never do that, and the subtext is because you're gross.

Can we have conversations where it's I could never do that, but I'm so happy you found something that makes you happy and gives you pleasure?

So yeah, I mean, if some people read this book and have conversations or just think a little bit about the way we think, the way we talk to each other, the way we give and receive help and advice, that I would love.

Episode Closing (1:01:03)

Rob Loveless

Definitely. And, you know, I think the theme of your book with there not being a one-size-fits-all all approach and that everybody's, you know, health and well-being is unique to their own circumstances.

I think it really ties with our tarot card for this episode. The King of Swords is really reminding us to stand in our truth and to trust our intuition and be that logical, authoritative leader of our own lives, to take decisive action for ourselves and trusting that we know what's best for ourself.

And also, in, in line with that is also, you know, Swords is very tied into communication, thoughts, and words.

We really need to focus on our logic and our intuition to know what we need and also be able to communicate that appropriately and communicate our boundaries so that we're doing what works for us, which I think you did beautifully through your book and through today's interview.

So, thank you again for coming on today.

An Excerpt from Recovering From Recovery (1:01:50)

Rob Loveless

And to close out the episode, would you mind reading us an excerpt from your book?

Adam Fitzgerald

Sure, I'd be happy to. This is just a little bit from the end of chapter three:

"Had I listened to much of the advice I had been given in AA, I would not have had so many beautiful sexual experiences. I would not have many amazing friends who I met through sexual encounters throughout the world.

I might still be living in fear that my sexuality would only lead me to destroy my life again. I had to ignore and reject the shame-based counsel of people I sometimes deeply admired, and in doing so, I began to discover my truer sexual self. That discovery would eventually lead me to go back and examine the sources of my damage inflicted upon me long before I became a drunk.

Therein lies the limits of AA, and therefore its limitations. The program helps people quit drinking and encourages them to repeat sober behavior and logically stay sober. On paper, it is lovely, and in practice, it can work. And so far as many people have gotten and stayed sober using these tools.

But for me, there was a limitation to the usefulness of that repetition, and it even blocked my self-examination and growth. If I listened to the frequently repeated rhetoric that if I did not keep coming back and follow this simple path forever, I would go out and ruin my life.

After some time, the rhetoric became detrimental. It kept me rooted in the perceived success but did not allow for me to truly delve into that past, nor to expand my perception of self and the possibilities of my future. Even in AA, they say drinking is but a symptom.

What recovery did not do for me was ask the bigger question, or really just the one question, why? Why did I drink like that? What was I trying to escape? What is the source of these terrible voices I was trying to silence and the pain I was trying to numb? What am I hiding from?

What needs to heal rather than be anesthetized by alcohol and drugs? If substance abuse is the response, what is the actual original problem? For me, because you have a disease, was not enough of an answer. I learned to ask different questions by listening to and following the guidance of men who had already learned.

When they were, these were sober men who had overcome a severe drinking problem. I listened when they told me how. When these were sexually free men, sober or not, I absorbed their lessons of letting go of their shape.

And when these same men were using drugs to help them arrive at ecstasy, I simply did not listen to that part of their lesson. I began learning to love my sexuality, to explore and expand it with men who were present and connected and experienced in things I wanted to try.

I let them guide me, as I had my fellows in AA, in regard to my drinking. I started to separate the advice from the giver by the simple examination of whether that person's choices are leading them down a path I would like to follow or not.

In doing so I can avoid judgment of the person and simply assess if they have what I want. I can still love you, even if I do not take your advice, and I can even love that advice for you while simultaneously rejecting it for myself."

Rob Loveless

That is an excerpt from Adam Fitzgerald's new book, Recovering From Recovery.

Connect with Adam (1:04:51)

Rob Loveless

Thank you once again, Adam. Can you please tell everyone where they can connect with you and find the book?

Adam Fitzgerald

Yes, all of my socials are @directorfitz. Director F-I-T-Z. Twitter, TikTok. Instagram is actually @directorfitz1. The number one because somebody took directorfitz already.

And the book is available on Amazon Kindle. The eBook is available for pre-order, and the paperback version will be out the same date as the e-book is delivered on August 30.

Rob Loveless

Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on once again.

Connect with A Jaded Gay (1:05:25)

Rob Loveless

For everybody listening, you know the drill with me. You can send me emails rob@ajadedgay.com.

You can also connect with the podcast on Instagram, TikTok, SoundCloud, and YouTube @ajadedgaypod. If you want to connect with me personally, Rob Loveless, you can find me on Instagram @rob_lovleess.

Also, you can support the podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 a month @ajadedgaypod.

And remember, every day is all we have, so you gotta make your own happiness.

Mmm-bye.