“Sometimes I wish I was an alcoholic, for social reasons,” he said quietly, eyes cast downward like he was confessing a secret sin. “But I’m not. I drink maybe one beer a month. I just smoke a lot of dope. It helps with the discomfort from my diabetes.”
He’s 45 years old. A husband. A father. A survivor of decades-long verbal and emotional abuse at the hands of his parents, a pain that didn’t end with childhood but stretched deep into his twenties. Recently, after a difficult interaction with those same parents, the weight of suicidal thoughts returned.
What struck me wasn’t just the pain behind his words. It was the clarity in a rare admission: sometimes addiction, or at least the identity of it, can feel like a key to belonging.
The Male Struggle with Belonging and Substance Use
For many men, social bonding is tightly woven with rituals, often involving alcohol. It lubricates conversations, softens walls, and creates a shared rhythm. For those isolated by trauma, chronic illness, or emotional neglect, the absence of this ritual can feel like exclusion.
When he wished he was an alcoholic “for social reasons,” it wasn’t about chasing intoxication or reckless abandon. It was about wanting the simple human connection that comes from being part of the pack—of having that shared experience, that cultural shorthand.
And when you don’t—or can’t—participate, the isolation cuts twice as deep. You don’t just feel alone because you’ve learned to withdraw; you feel outside the very social codes that signal you belong.
Survival, Self-Medication, and Masculinity
He uses cannabis not for recreation but as a tool, a lifeline against the constant physical and emotional pain wrought by Type 1 diabetes and trauma. This is survival, not escapism.
For many men, admitting to such coping strategies is fraught with shame. The cultural scripts around masculinity demand strength, control, and emotional stoicism. But beneath those scripts lie the raw realities of survival, sometimes a quiet joint to soften the edges, sometimes a drink to fit in.
This survival through self-medication isn’t a moral failing, it’s a human response to wounds that society often ignores or misunderstands.
The Internalized Voice of Defeat
When he was a teenager, he attempted suicide. His parents’ reaction wasn’t empathy or care, it was concern over the hospital bill. That moment crystallized a cruel message: his pain was a burden, his survival an inconvenience.
That voice, the one that calls him a “loser,” still echoes decades later. It is the residue of chronic emotional abuse, the kind that colonizes your mind and becomes indistinguishable from your own thoughts.
For men, these internalized voices are often silent killers, unspoken shame and self-loathing buried beneath a façade of toughness.
Emerging from the Storm Cellar
He told me, “I had to learn to be alone. And now… I prefer it.”
I offered a metaphor:
It’s like living in a storm cellar after years of tornadoes. You built it for safety. It’s familiar and dark, but safe. Maybe, over time, you can sit on the steps. Maybe open the door a little. You don’t have to run into the open field, but you don’t have to stay underground forever.
For men wrestling with trauma and isolation, this step, this imagining of safety and connection, is radical. It challenges the loneliness that survival has bred.
What We Must Remember
As friends, counselors, fathers, brothers, and men trying to redefine masculinity, we must hold these truths:
- Substance use is often about survival, not weakness.
- Isolation can start as protection but calcify into despair.
- The yearning to belong—even if expressed through pain or maladaptive means—is a yearning to live.
- Healing begins not with judgment or diagnosis, but with being truly seen and heard.
When a man says he wishes he was an alcoholic so he wouldn’t feel so alone, he’s handing us a raw, unvarnished truth: connection is the deepest medicine, the most elusive balm.
We meet him there, with empathy, without judgment. Together, maybe we can help him carry himself up those cellar steps toward light and belonging.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You are not alone.
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Photo credit: iStock
