Drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. Recognition. Prevention. Treatment
20/20 Parenting. Recognizing and mitigating early vulnerabilities and risk factors.
Letters to Kerry
Stories of Victory, Struggle, Tragedy, & Workplace Concerns
June 19, 2006:
Kerry,
Some response to you and your June 15th writer:
There was I time I thought I might be a candidate for what they call “Dual Diagnosis”.
This is where someone is addicted to a drug at the same time as having a mental problem. (Fortunately this was not the case for me.) But during the investigation a psychiatrist made some important points: He asked the question, had I had any homosexual experiences? I was very surprised at the question, as by now he must have known I was straight.
He said it was very common among men that during heavy cocaine or some other drug use that all reasoning, care, understanding and normal thinking was blocked out and the body just wanted some form of sexual gratification and didn’t care where it came from.
The urge can be very strong and overwhelming at that time only. All forms of justification are present. (I did experience this feeling.) All forms of resistance and reason can be negated. Generally the need only lasts during the short period of the greatest high. Upon the following period of coming down or detoxing, the shock of what happened or almost happened naturally causes great concern to the user. In virtually all cases the person never had any other form of homosexual urge or need before or after.
What can and often does happen results in “excessive masturbation” often lasting for many hours. It is just about what the drug temporarily creates. It’s important to know that it’s about the drug not the person. It’s important for those men out there to come to know it is not uncommon and the real person is not suddenly changed or gay.
I have asked this question of women while in the field and my findings are that this is not the same with them. They rarely experience a homosexual urge or act (cocaine for example can turn most women off) but they do experience some need for excessive masturbation.
This comes from what I know but for the whole story you might talk to an addictions doctor. Hope this helps,
David Paur
Team Director
