“You generate an addiction so strong that it can become irreversible,” says this man who was diagnosed with HIV
“I know very few people who haven’t gotten out of hand with the ‘chemsex‘. If you fall, your world only revolves around this practice.“You interact with people who are the same as you, you suffer from tremendous drug dependence and you get a lot of health, social and mental problems along the way.”
‘Arnau Spain’a forty-year-old man from Murcia, fell into the clutches of the ‘chemsex‘ (practice that uses mixture of different drugs to maintain prolonged sexual relations for hours and even days) when I was about 22 years old. She was diagnosed with HIV once he had “gone out of his mind, when he was already hanging around saunas” and now he wants give visibility to what he experienced a few years ago.
“Until now it has been a Taboo subject because it only happens in the gay world. It is doubly stigmatizing because it is homosexuality and drugs,” he explains. “Now I want to claim the importance of saying that this problem exists, that it has happened to me and that, if you do it right, nothing happens,” he says.
The man from Murcia points out that the problem with this practice is that “it begins to be a priority and you start multiple hangouts with people you don’t know. Your living space is now only occupied by he sex and the drugs: it is born as something playful and in the end you end up needing it.” This man, who is part of the Murcian HIV-positive associationassures that he reached rock bottom at the moment in which “you begin to do orgies with different groups without knowing how or why for several days in a row.
The “collateral damage”
“The level of addiction is such that Sex seems absurd to you if there are no drugs involved“. Now, completely out of that ‘pit’, ‘Arnau Spain’ recalls the multiple “collateral damage” that the practice caused him. In his case, he explains, the mixture almost always appeared between GHB (liquid ecstasy), methamphetamines or mephedrone. “To this day I still don’t have one stable emotional relationship“I suffer from depression, anxiety… They had to admit me, go through a therapeutic community and now I’m trying to put my life back together.” Among the main problems, he says, is that “very few people know how to control it. “It’s a matter of, the more you have, the more you need.”
To achieve “recompose your life”He points out that he visited numerous psychologists who at that time “told you that you were just another drug addict.” Now, she explains, “medical and health professionals should be much more aware of these problems and take a gender perspective. It is a drug addiction problem, yes, but “It has different causes, consequences and patterns.”. It should be treated, he argues, as if it were “a risk group with special characteristics.”
“The downturns are tremendous”
“When you build a daily tolerance that is so strong and you stop using it, the downturns are tremendous and they may be irreversible. There is already talk of ‘chemsex culture'”, he assures. Given the rise of this practice in recent times, especially among members of the LGTBI community, warns that “the line is so fine that it can enslave you later.” She insists that this ‘explosive cocktail’ “can sink your life, destroying your plans and you mentally.”
In this sense, he says that anyone who tries it should try to control it and that “the moment you have the slightest indication that you are losing, you should know that it has a name, it is called ‘chemsex’ and you can get out of it.” .