The Truth About Chemsex - Understanding and Overcoming Chemsex Addiction

Introduction

A man called Mark

Mark is a 34-year-old, attractive, rich and educated professional living in central London. He is ambitious, passionate and works hard to maintain his business success. However, Mark also has a dark secret, which not even his closest friends or family know. Mark is addicted to chemsex—the use of dangerous lethal, illegal drugs combined with dangerous sex acts.

On the weekend, he has a very different life. From Friday to Monday mornings he spends his time high on GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate), crystal meth and methadone. He then spends his entire weekend being fisted, indulging in orgies in sex clubs or inviting strangers to his exclusive flat to have endless sex sessions that push his physical and psychological boundaries. Mark doesn’t know whom he sleeps with, why he sleeps with them, what he gets out of his weekends or what to do about his problem with chemsex. His life has spun out of control. He feels lost and frightened about his future and his safety.

The killing factor

Chemsex kills gay and bisexual men daily in countries across the globe. The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany and other countries all have epidemic levels of chemsex addiction in their gay and bisexual communities. Sadly, medical professionals, family members, lovers and friends of gay and bisexual men who are involved with chemsex know little about chemsex. They have no knowledge and little training, if any, of what to do when someone develops a chemsex addiction, let alone the signs that chemsex is a problem.

Mark started to become involved in chemsex when he and his partner hit a dry spell in their sex life. They decided to open their relationship to see if it would help to ignite their passion. For a short time, things improved, and all seemed fine. That was until one day, when Mark paid a visit to his favourite sauna to have sex with strangers after work. While there, he was offered drugs and decided to try them. After all, the stranger who had offered them had told him he would enjoy getting fucked even more if he took them.

The curiosity factor

Curious and wanting to know if there was any truth in this, Mark decided to take the drugs. He was amazed at how both his mind and body seemed transformed. He felt alive, powerful, strong, sexy, desired, very horny and uninhibited. He never wanted these new feelings to leave. They didn’t. He lost track of time and spent hours longer at the sauna than he anticipated, having sex with countless strangers. He would normally have been more selective in choosing his sex partners, but while high on drugs, he no longer even cared about what they looked like, whether they had diseases or anything else. He was simply consumed with an insatiable desire to have sex like he had never experienced before. Mark was now hooked on chemsex. He never wanted to have sex sober again. Sober sex was boring, and it never made him feel the way he felt while having chemsex.

A man called James

James came to me one day with a freshly acquired black eye. He asked how he could keep his partner at an arm’s distance so he could stay safe and not relapse or become physically abused. I paused for a moment to reflect upon what James was asking me and told him the truth. He probably already knew what I was going to say to him, but feared hearing it. I told him that there was no possible way he could stay safe in his romantic relationship unless he and his partner had treatment for their issues with chemsex addiction.

It’s not about me

Both James and his partner, Brian, were addicted to chemsex. Yet Brian adamantly refused to acknowledge that he had an addiction to chemsex, which made matters worse. Brian would speak about how he thought James needed to get his chemsex issues under control. Brian was afraid and confused about what he should do if he found James passed out from a GHB overdose, which had already happened once before. As I subsequently learned, it had only been when Brian came home with his father one day and found James unconscious from a GHB overdose, naked and convulsing on their bed in the bedroom, that Brian became convinced that James even had an issue with chemsex. There was nothing James or I could say that would convince Brian that he too had a drug issue, even when he would speak openly about his addiction to sex.

It’s about us

James entered into treatment with me for his chemsex addiction. Over the course of his treatment he would become sober for a few months and then only have his sobriety sabotaged by Brian’s drug use in their home. The orgies with strangers, who often came over to their home with drugs, was too much for James to handle. James wanted a solution, and the last time Brian had brought strangers over to their flat for sex was when James, Brian and the stranger all got into a fight and Brian punched James in the eye. James sat crying on my couch, trembling, and spoke about how frightened he was for himself, Brian and their relationship of 20 years.

A man called Sam

Sam tried to reason with his boyfriend about the abusive nature of his relationship, but with no success. His boyfriend would continue to get high, have sex with strangers, bring them home with him and force Sam to have sex with him and his guests. This would in turn cause Sam to feel pressured, as he never felt as horny as his boyfriend did. To please his boyfriend and perform sexually, Sam would take the drugs offered to him so he could also become horny and not have to worry about losing his erection.

Panic

The lower Sam’s self-esteem sank, the harder it was for him to say no to his boyfriend or to anyone else who offered him drugs for chemsex. Sam’s relationship was now a nightmare. He began to experience panic attacks for reasons he couldn’t explain. It was those attacks that prompted him to seek out my psychological services. At first, Sam didn’t mention anything about what was happening in his relationship. After working with chemsex addiction issues for more than 11 years, I now make it a matter of habit to ask my clients about their relationship with chemsex. It so often transpires that there are problems with their joint recreational drug use.

Death

The effects chemsex drugs had on Sam’s mind were astonishing. Sam could acknowledge that it was his boyfriend, Tim, who was encouraging him to use drugs and that the drugs he was taking were life threatening, but he didn’t know what to do about his chemsex issue. One night, Sam and Tim decided to play with a local guy at their flat. They invited him over for some PnP (party and play, which is code in the chemsex world for sex with drugs). Their guest arrived, and it wasn’t long before they all took some drugs together and started to party and feel good. They had a few drinks, too, and made sure that when it was G o’clock (a common saying among drug users that it is time for another dose of GHB), that everyone took their regular dose. Sam told me he wasn’t sure what happened, but sometime during the course of the evening, the man with whom he and Tim were having sex, decided to take more GHB. While in the middle of a sex act, their guest became unconscious, not an uncommon occurrence among users of GHB. At first, Sam and Tim didn’t freak out, as they too had both had passed out in the past from taking too much GHB. They decided to just let their guest sleep it off. They both continued to have sex with each other. It was only later when Sam noticed that their guest was making a strange gargling noise that he and Tim became concerned. They called the emergency service. The paramedics arrived, and they tried to resuscitate him. Unfortunately, it was too late. Their guest was later pronounced dead upon arrival at the local hospital.

Take three men …

Mark, James and Sam are men from different walks of life and backgrounds. Despite their differences, they all struggle with chemsex addiction. Chemsex is an extremely dangerous behaviour. It creates powerful positive feelings in gay and bisexual men who combine drugs and sex. Sadly, it can also have a devastating effect on almost every aspect of a person’s life. Chemsex is a well-known phenomenon in the gay and bisexual community and has been around for years. However, it has now reached an epidemic level in major cities across the globe, but the general population is unaware of its dangers.

… Across the globe

The internet and the plethora of applications designed for gay and bisexual men to find sexual partners has sadly encouraged this epidemic to increase and spread across the globe. Never before has it been easier for gay and bisexual men to find partners who are also looking to get high and have sex together. HIV, Hep C, Gonorrhoea and other STIs continue to increase among this population, yet despite the advances in medical treatment like PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis, drugs designed to prevent someone from becoming infected with HIV after a possible exposure) and PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, an HIV prevention pill taken before unprotected sex), gay and bisexual men still seem unaware of the dangers involved with chemsex.

Wake-up call

A study done at 56 Dean Street, a leading sexual health centre in London, found that 70 percent of the men who attended the clinic and participated in the study reported ‘no...