The LGBT community, a group of individuals in the United States who identify as being either lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transsexual already struggle significantly with pressure, hatred, isolation, segregation, and overall attacks towards them in both physical and verbal ways. This group has made a lot of progress in the last decade, but when a person of the LGBT community also suffers from an addiction of some kind, this extra, added factor can often be too much for them to deal with. For some, this would be two strikes against them already. Thankfully, there are programs for the people of the LGBT community seeking addiction rehab.
While open discussion of being LGBT is more accepted, those who identify as LGBT who also abuse substances often live in anguish and suffer silently, in the closet about their addiction, in fear, shame, and struggle with chemical dependence.
Members of the LGBT community face a two-edged sword when it comes to addiction and substance abuse. The emotional stress that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals often feel includes rejection, isolation, and low self-esteem. They also deal with many threats of physical violence, prejudice, and discrimination, which combine to make them vulnerable to addiction. At the same time, these factors decrease the likelihood that they will receive effective treatment because they are afraid to go to rehab. Too often, members of the LGBT community face internalized stigma and homophobia even at a rehab center, which is supposed to be a place of healing and solidarity. These internal struggles with themselves can make it more difficult to seek out or achieve long-term recovery.
Are LGBT Individuals More Likely to Abuse Drugs?
Statistically speaking, gay and bisexual men have a much higher propensity to abuse methamphetamines than heterosexual men. Lesbians and bisexual women are far more likely to engage in hazardous drinking than heterosexual women. Members of the LGBT community are also more likely to suffer from mental illness as a result of their lifestyle and the prejudice against them. A 2014 study at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation found that 92 percent of LGBT patients had co-occurring mental disorders, compared to 78 percent of non-LGBT patients conversely. Other studies have found that LGBT patients are two to three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts or attempts than non-LGBT individuals are.
In the year of 2013, adult men who identified as gay or transgender in the United States struggled with an alcohol use disorder at rates double than those of their hetero counterparts, 10.8 million for gay or transgender men as compared to 5.8 million for hetero men, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). For boys and for girls between the ages of 12 and 17, both genders do battle substance use disorders at similar rates between the two of them, making it the only age bracket that men did not significantly outweigh women in, all according to the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. However, for these individuals between the ages of 12 and 17 who are gay, bisexual, or lesbian the odds of them being addicted more than triple.
Close to a full seventy percent of treatment admissions for substance abuse in 2010 were male, with females barely making thirty percent of admission rates. However, a lesbian woman is up to three times as likely to seek rehab than a gay man is. Men may indeed be more likely to abuse illicit drugs than women, but women may be just as prone to addiction as men when they do abuse them, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). For LGBT men and women, they are equally likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, and they are about three to five times more likely to do so than their hetero counterparts. Now, to a great degree, things have balanced out and the addiction problem is currently pretty severe for both demographics realistically. There are thousands of people in the LGBT community seeking addiction rehab.
The LGBT Community Seeking Addiction Rehab
Rehabilitation does wonders for those addicted to drugs and alcohol and for those in the LGBT community seeking addiction rehab. With rehabilitation, one will first experience a full and complete detoxification program. With proper detoxification, one will essentially be able to work all of the negative and dangerous drug substances and chemicals out of his or her body once and for all. Detox is there to handle chemical dependence and physical addiction, and it does a great job at this. Once a person is done with detox, he or she will be totally and completed cured of all chemical and physiological aspects of drug and alcohol addiction.
Next up is the actual rehab program itself. With proper rehab, truly anything can be accomplished. In this section of the program, one will gain access to all of techniques, counseling, and therapy need to really get to the bottom of his or her addiction habit. No one just becomes an addict by chance. There is always something that causes it, and for those in the LGBT community who are addicted, these reasons and underlying issues are there for them just as much as they are for other demographics. They must be found and addressed so that a full recovery can be made.
In the end, the most important thing for addicts in the LGBT community seeking addiction rehab is drug rehabilitation. If this is done and if this is done soon then the overall problem will finally become something of the past.
Why are Heroin Overdoses ... 
Are You Struggling with P... 
