Member-only story
How I overcame my homophobia
In No Easy Steps — It took an evolution and an acceptance
The road back from alcoholism would not be an easy one for me, at age 22. Most people my age were just getting started drinking, as the drinking age in Pennsylvania, where I’d grown up, was 21. I’d been at it since I was 15, including 4 years of extremely hard drinking and drug-taking in the Navy, and I was done with it. It nearly killed me in that short period of time, and left me on quite shaky ground, mentally and psychologically. I was really shot out.
What would make my journey back more possible and doable would be the relationship I had with my brother Ken, whom I’d just learned was gay. I needed him more than I needed anyone in the world.
Raised in the Roman Catholic faith, the issue of homosexuality really hadn’t come up that much in my formative years. It simply wasn’t talked about, beyond the occasional taunts on the playing fields of “faggot” when you didn’t like someone or wanted to get under their skin.
There had been the times when a friend of another of my older brothers would force me to rub his dick while I’d be giving him a…
