Chances are, most of you who are reading this sentence know someone, or at least know someone who knows someone, that has struggled with addiction. Over the past several decades, there have been more and more stories and news reports about substance abuse and how it’s affected the lives of American individuals and their families. It’s no surprise that substance abuse and addiction is a very real and very serious problem in our modern world. However, what most people may not have known prior to this post is how prevalent and pervasive addiction is with the LGBTQ+ community.
Consistent with minority stress theory, which states that one’s experience of discrimination and social stigma can lead to the development of psychopathological disorders (McConnell et al., 2018), a handful of research has emerged over the past decade connecting this psychosocial phenomenon to a host of issues found within the LGBTQ+ community. Studies have shown that members of the LGBTQ+ community are uniquely prone to developing substance abuse disorders as compared to the heterosexual majority (Kerridge et al., 2017). It seems that the community’s elevated stress experienced from sexual minority-related discrimination often results in a diminished capacity to effectively cope with emotional hardship, leading to chemical dependence on drugs and alcohol (Hatzenbeuhler, 2009). Aside from the evident physical and mental consequences of substance use and dependency, this maladaptive emotional-focused coping mechanism also starves the individual of the opportunity to effectively process the psychological experience of stress, which can lead to health consequences beyond substance use (Gruman et al., 2017).
As one might expect given the severity of this circumstance, several studies have been conducted over the last few years aimed to investigate which social psychological interventions are most effective in addressing addiction in the LGBTQ+ community. Like most findings within applied psychological fields, there isn’t a “one size fits all” answer. Nonetheless, there certainly seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. One longitudinal study (Pachankis et al., 2018) demonstrated that cognitive-behavioral techniques helped reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety in queer individuals when applied to the cognitive distress that resulted from sexual minority-related discrimination. Given the significant association between these psychopathologies (Esmaeelzadeh et al., 2018), the effectiveness of CBT treatments for members of the LGBTQ+ community is a promising piece of the puzzle. Some researchers have aided in the development of holistic models for clinical interventions for addiction amongst LGBTQ+ individuals (Dyar, C., et al., 2023), while others have identified the benefits of targeting one’s motivation for maladaptive coping (Belvins & Stephens, 2016).
Overall, it seems as though the most effective interventions for addressing the LGBTQ+ community’s elevated risk for developing addictions involves a combination of alternative coping skill building, addressing minority-related stress, and conventional substance abuse symptom treatment (Dyar, C., et al., 2023). Of course, somehow preventing the individual’s participation in the addictive behavior from the onset would be the most effective approach but that doesn’t seem to be realistic in this day and age. Many solutions to widespread social issues often start via educational means (Gruman et al., 2017), so perhaps blog posts like this one are a decent alternative. All things considered, there is certainly hope that as further research is done on addiction and the factors that lead to its development within certain populations, people will continue to be equipped with coping strategies and therapeutic resources that help them live healthy and meaningful lives.
References
Kerridge, B. T., Pickering, R. P., Saha, T. D., Ruan, W. J., Chou, S. P., Zhang, H., Jung, J., & Hasin, D. S. (2017). Prevalence, sociodemographic correlates and DSM-5 substance use disorders and other psychiatric disorders among sexual minorities in the United States. Drug and alcohol dependence, 170, 82–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.10.038
McConnell, E. A., Janulis, P., Phillips, G., 2nd, Truong, R., & Birkett, M. (2018). Multiple Minority Stress and LGBT Community Resilience among Sexual Minority Men. Psychology of sexual orientation and gender diversity, 5(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000265
Hatzenbuehler M. L. (2009). How does sexual minority stigma “get under the skin”? A psychological mediation framework. Psychological bulletin, 135(5), 707–730. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016441
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-4833-6973-0
Pachankis, J. E., Sullivan, T. J., Feinstein, B. A., & Newcomb, M. E. (2018). Young adult gay and bisexual men’s stigma experiences and mental health: An 8-year longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 54(7), 1381–1393. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000518
Esmaeelzadeh, S., Moraros, J., Thorpe, L., & Bird, Y. (2018). The association between depression, anxiety and substance use among Canadian post-secondary students. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 14, 3241–3251. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S187419
Dyar, C., Lee, C. M., Rhew, I. C., & Kaysen, D. (2023). Sexual minority stress and substance use: An investigation of when and under what circumstances minority stress predicts alcohol and cannabis use at the event-level. Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, 132(4), 475-489. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000819
Blevins, C. E., & Stephens, R. S. (2016). The impact of motives-related feedback on drinking to cope among college students. Addictive Behaviors, 58, 68–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.02.024