Homosexual addiction

As I've suggested on more than one occasion, I think addiction may be a good model for homosexuality. In my observation, addiction (and recovery) ranges along a continuum. At one end are hopeless addicts. They are in and out of rehab, but never kick the habit. They try everything, but nothing works for them. Eventually they either die from a drug overdose or medical complications.

At the other end of the spectrum are ex-junkies who used to do hard drugs. They did everything. Yet at some point they are able to make a clean break with the past and never look back. Somehow they find the motivation or inner resources to put that decisively behind them. 

Then you have people in the middle. Recovering addicts. For them, it continues to be a struggle. They have good days and bad days. They occasionally relapse. But their former habit no longer controls them. They are able to reduce the problem to manageable proportions. They lead a successful life. 

I suppose it's mysterious why you have this wide variation. Certainly I'm no expert. In some cases it may have something to do with variable body chemistry or a physiological predisposition.

It may also have to do with why they got hooked in the first place. In some cases, people experiment with drugs out of curiosity, or boredom. Or because doing drugs is one of the social activities their friends are into. 

But in other cases you have people who escape into drugs to mask deep-seated psychological needs. Emptiness. Unhappiness. Feelings of personal inadequacy. They just find life unbearable. 

Going to rehab to dry out does nothing to treat the underlying problem which drove them to escape into drugs in the first place. Unless their psychological needs can be met, unless they can undergo emotional healing, they will keep returning, moth-like, to the flame.

By the same token, I doubt there's a one-size-fits-all solution to homosexual inclinations. Some homosexuals convert to Christianity. They try to "pray the gay away," but fail. They become bitter and disillusioned. They assume that if it didn't work for them, then homosexual inclination must be unalterable. They think all ex-homosexuals who claim to be happily married to a member of the opposite sex are lying to themselves. Self-deceived. An accident waiting to happen. 

And this is necessary to justify the failure of those who were unable to ameliorate (much less eradicate) their condition. The "once homosexual/always homosexual" explanation is a way to exonerate their own frustration. 

I also expect that if a person's only sexual experience is homosexual, if he's never fallen in love with a woman, then that's his only frame of reference. Heterosexual inclination is alien to him. To some extent he's an outsider because his experience has made him an outsider. He can't relate to those feelings because the die was cast by his own activity. That's all he knows. He lacks empathy. It's self-reinforcing. 

To take a comparison, some men are trapped in a self-destructive rut. Then a woman comes into their life. She "saves" himself. Five years later, they are happily married. Give years earlier, this would be inconceivable to him. Trapped in his self-destructive run, he couldn't even comprehend having a different life. There seemed to be no way out. 

Surprising things can happen. What seems impossible at one point in life may be effortless at another point in life.