Sobriety, friends, and gay men

The purpose of this study was to learn how sobriety affected friendship circles of gay men recovering from alcoholism. Twenty gay recovering alcoholic men, each with at least 1 year of sobriety, were interviewed in depth. Before sobriety, the typical picture portrayed by the men was that of losing friends, having many heavily drinking acquaintances, and having difficulty meeting the responsibilities in friendships. In sobriety, the typical gay man realized that most of the gay men that he had thought were his friends were actually only drinking buddies. As sobriety time lengthened, the men reported expanding their friendship circles to include primarily gay men of Alcoholics Anonymous and others who were either normal drinkers or abstainers. Finally, nursing implications of this study are discussed.