SKANK INTERVENTION

I have a friend and co-worker who recently lost a lot of weight due to a gastric bypass operation. She has gone from being one of the best friends a person could have to being a complete horror. She has alienated almost everyone with catty comments, constant partying, drug use and obnoxious public behavior. She’s been accused of theft both at the office and at friends’ homes, she goes out every night, is using a lot of cocaine, is late for work all the time, and has gone from shy and demure to extremely promiscuous. She’s even traded sex for drugs in cheap encounters in bar parking lots (at least one incident of this was confirmed by the woman herself). Anyone who says anything disapproving to her is accused of being jealous—of what I don’t know—and she really seems to think that her friends are just used to taking her for granted as someone who never had anything to do and never got any attention. Nobody wants to participate in this behavior or watch it continue, so most people have just cut her off. Some friends and family members think an intervention is in order, but it’s not really the drugs or drinking, it’s the sleaziness that’s hardest to deal with. Can you have an intervention with someone for being skanky? —Fed Up

The Gay Perspective: I think your own priorities are out of order. You assert that “it’s not really the drugs or drinking, it’s the sleaziness that’s hardest to deal with.” I strongly disagree. What, after all, is promiscuity, but a lifestyle in which someone else enjoys more sex than you’re getting? Your friend deserves as much fun as anyone, but it would seem that her increased attractiveness has led her down the road to perdition. In short, her beauty is her curse! I’ve seen it many times. In a way, it is heartening to know that true beauty emanates from within. Still, we have a problem here. I can respect a certain degree of wantonness, but never a wanton lack of discrimination. For me, it is hard to separate the substance abuse from the “skankiness.” To be specific, I find two details alarming: 1) the exchange of sex for drugs; and 2) the accusations of theft. Your friend is a crack whore. I’d be totally sure of this if she started calling in the middle of the night asking for cash. If so, expect her to tell any lie and stoop to any behavior in order to feed her habit. That’s what drug addicts do. Friends are, perhaps, wise to steer clear of her for their own protection. Still, it is hard to stand by and watch someone you love self-destruct. As you have discovered, it is almost impossible to get an adult to seek help if she is disinclined. Those who love her, however, can seek professional help. I strongly recommend Al-Anon. Their 24-hour hotline number is (716) 856-2520. They can refer you to meetings and counselors. They also post meeting dates and times at www.niagaraintergroup.com. Your social world sounds distinctly hetero to me, but just in case, there is a gay Al-Anon meeting held at the Pride Center, and you can get information by calling (716) 852-PRIDE. Good luck to you.

Dr Sigmund Fraud says: In 1969, Dr. Oliver Sacks discovered that catatonic patients suffering from encephalitis lethargica responded miraculously to a new drug called L-Dopa. The story was made famous by the book and later the movie Awakenings. While every patient responded to the drug, many of the middle-aged subjects had been catatonic since childhood and were faced with comprehending entirely new lives in new bodies, in a distant time and place. Tragically, the L-Dopa offered only a temporary reprieve, as all of the patients eventually slid back into catatonia.

Due to her extreme weight loss, your friend is experiencing a similar “awakening” into a sick culture that celebrates artificially thin, decadent people. Some of the skanky behavior you object to is in fact the dream of many shy, lonely, overweight people. It’s also the preferred recreation of many young celebrities. If you want to help, remind her to use condoms. Then simply be there for her without question when she recognizes the emptiness of her new lifestyle and seeks to replace lines of blow from strangers in dark alleys with pints of Haagen Dazs with an old friend in front of the TV.

Alternately, you could drop a few pounds yourself, ditch the puritanical relatives and take your skanky friend out to Vegas with me for a week, because, hey, you only live once.

Ask Anyone is local advice by and for local people. If you have a question for our panel of experts, please send it along to advice@artvoice.com.