How drag developed a drink downside: ‘Everyone expects us to be loud and wasted’

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When the Australian drag veteran Heidi Liscious first moved to London in 2006, she discovered a job as a hostess at a homosexual membership in Vauxhall. She was stunned by what her employer did subsequent. “They gave me a bag of cocaine and said, ‘Have a good time, and make sure that everyone else is, too’.”

Drugs and alcohol are in all probability not the primary belongings you consider once you consider drag. You assume the humour. The make-up. The heels. But it’s a side of the drag world that always goes unstated, dependancy entangled with the lives and careers of lots of our hardest-working queens. “I couldn’t leave the drugs at the party,” mentioned RuPaul’s Drag Race UK champion The Vivienne whereas showing on the present. “It was constant for me.”

The drag of as we speak blossomed in underground bars and golf equipment hidden from the tough glare of a homophobic society. And though the craft has advanced and lengthy gone mainstream, the areas by which it thrives are nonetheless someplace you should buy a cocktail. The bars and golf equipment at the moment are larger, and bottomless drag brunches are the brand new norm. But it’s turning into more and more obvious that, for some, working in these environments can be a slippery slope into dependancy.

“From the start, we are always encouraged to drink,” Heidi says, including that alcohol “is just part and parcel” of being in a homosexual bar – whether or not she’s gained free tabs in expertise competitions or been inspired by membership managers to facilitate the sale of booze to punters. Her early work in London led to a storm of heavy ingesting – she remembers benders that lasted greater than 48 hours at a time – in addition to experimentation with more and more laborious and harmful medicine. “I never thought I had a problem,” she says. “I thought it was quite normal what I was doing. Many performers have this ego where it’s like, ‘I’m a drag queen so I’m completely invincible’.”

Then, in 2016, Heidi almost misplaced her life. “It took collapsing on the floor and being taken to hospital with heart failure for me to realise there was a problem,” she says. Heidi has been sober ever since. She considers herself one of many fortunate ones. “Nobody thinks about the ramifications. Everyone expects us to be loud, raucous and wasted. It’s just kind of accepted.”

Based in Nottingham, Nana Arthole has been performing her “ridiculous, rancid and beautiful” drag since 2013, and has been doing it sober since February 2023. Before, it might be widespread for her to get up with no reminiscence of internet hosting a evening. She as soon as discovered herself lined in thriller bruises, cuts and burns – she had fallen over drunk and sat in cigarette butts and damaged glass with out realising. “Everyone just laughed it off, so I carried on,” she says. “Particularly with drugs, it became an endurance test to see how far I could push myself. How long can I stay awake? How many parties can I go to?”

Since shifting her way of life, Nana believes her internet hosting, lip-syncs and stand-up routines have all improved: “I can actually remember the punchline now.” Despite this, she’s conscious of the long-standing traditions within the drag scene that may contribute to growing alcohol dependence. “We call it ‘putting your personality on’ when a queen’s getting ready and having a drink,” she explains. “Then of course, you’ve got the punters who want to buy you drinks at the shows. They want to take a shot with the drag queen. You want to be a good time had by all.”

During residencies in golf equipment and bars, Nana says it’s widespread for performers to have their pay for the evening boosted with free drinks. “Doing it full-time, the more work I got, the more I drank, and the more hungover I was,” she remembers. “Then I’d drink the next night to get over the hangover. It’s dangerous when it’s so accessible.” She stresses one thing that many overlook: drag is a career, not simply a passion or type of leisure. “If I worked in a call centre and went in s***-faced, everyone would say I’m an alcoholic.”

DJ, singer and drag artist Mars Montana, 27, started their profession in Dublin in 2016, and agrees with Nana’s level. “When you work in nightlife, business and pleasure become very, very blurred,” they are saying. “It becomes messy and difficult to ascertain your boundaries.” After realising they had been depending on alcohol, Mars began taking over sober stints of their early twenties earlier than they stopped ingesting altogether. They recall hitting it laborious one evening and speaking to one of the crucial established performers within the metropolis. “She asked if I was free to do a show that week, but I knew I couldn’t because it’d take me days to recover. I was kicking myself.” Mars believes going sober was a game-changer for his or her profession and the alternatives that got here their means. “Life changes when you don’t have a hangover anymore.”

Although Mars, Nana and Heidi might be thriving as sober performers, what concerning the hundreds of others – from trade infants to seasoned acts – who might be fighting alcohol, medicine or each? Those who do drink or take medicine after all shouldn’t be shamed, however assist wants to be obtainable if their way of life turns into a downside. However, on the time of writing, there aren’t any official organisations or assist providers within the UK or US that present specialised assist to performers. “We’re forced to rely on each other and others in the community,” Nana explains. “It’s like our own peer review network or sisterhood.”

A 2021 research by University College London discovered that LGBTQ+ individuals are considerably extra doubtless to report alcohol and drug misuse than heterosexual individuals. Operated by queer wellbeing service London Friend, Antidote has offered alcohol and drug assist to the UK’s LGBTQ+ inhabitants since 2002. “When we look at the factors that can contribute to higher levels of drinking or drug use – isolation, poor self-esteem, low confidence or poor mental health – we know that these are all more common among LGBTQ+ people too,” Monty Moncrieff MBE, the service’s chief govt says. “Queer people are more likely to experience harassment, prejudice and discrimination, and this too can contribute to drinking or using drugs, almost like a form of self-medication.”

Although Antidote doesn’t have any particular statistics concerning the drag performers which have used the service, Moncrieff sees how their working environments could make them prone to growing alcohol and drug issues. “Most people there are on their downtime, relaxing after work, but drag performers are doing their jobs. Many venues will want to be generous to their performers and offer free drinks as a genuine act of kindness. But do they let their bar staff drink while they’re working?”

It’s key to word that queer venues have offered a protected place for the LGBTQ+ group to meet, socialise and specific themselves when fairly actually nowhere else has. The level, then, isn’t to criticise these areas, however to as a substitute consider how they will evolve to match wider wants, and to uplift the wellbeing of their performers.

Steps are, at the very least, being taken to supply the queer group and performers alcohol-free occasions, from sober Pride events to sober drag strolling excursions and reveals. But Nana says that these occasions are troublesome to market and, from the attitude of most venues, difficult to justify primarily based on the cash that is available in. “Let’s say half an audience is sober and drinking £1.60 lime and sodas rather than £5 pints,” she says. “How would we possibly repair that without saying to everyone, ‘let’s do some shots?’”.

Although sober areas are rising, Moncrieff says that conventional bars and golf equipment – which are already closing at an alarming fee within the UK (greater than half closed between 2006 and 2022) – are nonetheless the popular choice for a lot of. “Alcohol and drugs are right there all around us as we take our first steps to build our queer friendships and communities,” he says. “That’s not the case for non-LGBTQ+ people.”

Two issues are clear: the way in which the group talks about alcohol wants to change, and illustration, as all the time, issues. “I think there needs to be more tact and consideration when it comes to our language around drinking,” Mars says. “I’ve had people shove drinks in my face and persistently tell me to have some. When I’ve told them I don’t drink, I’ve been asked why, which is an unbelievable question to ask someone.” They add that there’s generally a feeling within the drag scene that to not be a part of within the chaos is to be a little bit of a killjoy.

Awareness that drag and sobriety don’t have to be mutually unique can be paramount. Heidi tells me she beforehand labored as a “sober angel” on the common London queer get together Feel It, the place it was her job to make sure the consolation of clubbers who weren’t ingesting or taking medicine. “It was great, I had a lot of conversations with young people,” she says. “It felt like something that hadn’t been done before.”

Nana, too, often updates her on-line following about normalising being sober within the scene – and hopes that it makes a distinction.

“It’s important for your peers,” she says, “to know that there’s going to be others in the room that also aren’t absolutely off their face.”