Alcohol use disorder is a chronic condition — not a moral failing, not a lack of willpower, and not something you should have been able to fix on your own. It's a medical reality that responds to the right kind of support, the same way any chronic condition does.

For many gay men, the relationship with alcohol has a particular history. Bars and drinking were often the first spaces where community was possible. Substances became woven into social life, into celebration, into grief, into getting through decades of stress that most people around you couldn't fully see or name. The AIDS crisis. The loneliness. The years of hiding parts of yourself just to stay safe.

That context matters. I understand it. And it shapes how we'll work together.

What you may be carrying

You don't have to fit a particular profile to be here. The men I work with come in at all different points — some in acute crisis, others who have been quietly managing a drinking problem for years and are simply tired of it. What they have in common is that the usual approaches haven't fully worked, and they're ready to try something different.

You might recognize yourself in some of this:

You drink more than you intend to, more often than you intended to. The promises you make to yourself — sincere ones — don't hold the way you hoped.

The morning-after feeling isn't just physical anymore. There's dread, self-judgment, a quiet accumulation of evidence you'd rather not look at directly.

You're drinking alone more than you used to. Or using alcohol to sleep, to get through social situations, to soften the anxiety or loneliness that lives just under the surface.

You've tried to cut back before. It worked for a while. Then it didn't.

You're not sure whether you want to stop entirely or just get it back under control — and you're not sure which of those is even possible for you.

You're managing other things — a health condition, grief, the particular weight of this stage of life — and the drinking is tangled up in all of it in ways that feel hard to separate.

How I approach this work

I treat alcohol use disorder the way it deserves to be treated: as a chronic condition that requires honest assessment, a clear plan, and ongoing support — not shame, not ultimatums, and not a one-size-fits-all program.

Here's what working together actually looks like:

We start with honesty, not judgment. You can tell me exactly what's going on — how much, how often, what's driving it, what you've tried before. I've heard a great deal in this room and none of it will change how I show up for you. The honesty is what makes the work possible.

You set the goal. Some men want to stop entirely. Others want to get their drinking back under control. I'm not here to tell you which path is right — I'm here to help you figure that out honestly, based on real information about your patterns and what the evidence actually suggests for your situation.

We look at what's underneath. Alcohol use is almost always connected to something else — anxiety, depression, grief, loneliness, the accumulated weight of a lifetime of stress that never fully got addressed. Treating the drinking without treating what's driving it is like putting a lid on a pot that's still boiling. We work on both.

We build a toolkit that actually fits your life. Not a program designed for someone else. Not a set of strategies that assume a different history or a different community. Something specific to you — practical, honest, and workable.

Common questions

I'm afraid you'll judge me for what I tell you.

You won't be judged here. You can be completely honest about what you're drinking, how much, what's been going on around it, and what you've tried before. That honesty is what makes it possible to actually help. I've sat with men carrying a great deal of shame about their use, and one of the most consistent things I see is how quickly that shame begins to ease when someone finally has a space where they can just tell the truth.

What if I only want to cut back, not quit entirely?

That's a legitimate goal, and we'll explore it together. Research shows that a meaningful percentage of people with alcohol use disorder are able to successfully moderate their drinking. Whether that's true for your specific situation is something we'll figure out based on real data — your patterns, your history, how your body responds. If moderation turns out not to be workable, I'll tell you honestly when we get there. The goal is always what actually works for you.

Will you make me go to AA?

No. AA works genuinely well for some people and genuinely isn't the right fit for others — for reasons of privacy, faith, social anxiety, or simply personal preference. There's no single path to getting well, and individual therapy can be a complete and effective path on its own. If group support interests you, there are options beyond AA — including SMART Recovery, which takes a secular, evidence-based approach. We'll find what fits.

How is this different from other approaches I've tried?

Most approaches to alcohol treatment weren't designed with gay men in mind — and it shows. The cultural context of your life, the specific history of this community, the particular ways stress and grief and identity have shaped your relationship with alcohol — these aren't footnotes in our work together. They're central to it. That's what makes this different.

You've been carrying this for a while.

You don't have to keep doing it alone, and you don't have to have it figured out before you reach out. You just have to be willing to have an honest conversation. That's where everything starts.