Is it sanity and sobriety that you are striving for, or is it 'understanding' that you feel you need? What would satisfy you, really?
Do you think that sobriety without understanding "why" will make you look like a fool? Well, why is it important to you not to be/look like a fool? I'm an idiot, and I'm still sober and living the good life, which is why I am posting to you, at all.
It is clear to me that when we are done figuring stuff out, we remain fools anyway.
Besides the fact, that after figuring it all out and getting all the "power" to do right, all it'd take for me to make a complete a** out of myself and screw my life up, is a woman who is 'attractive enough' to walk by me at the wrong moment. Or a lust fantasy to just pop out of nowhere, perhaps... (Nu, but maybe everyone else is better and stronger than me).
As for me, b"H, somewhere along the way early on, I gave up on getting the brains to win and on figuring myself out so that "I" could finally beat this thing. I really don't beat it at all - Hashem takes care of me when I reach out for help and follow instructions for my own good. And any idiot can do it (trust me, I know plenty who are! :-)
Perhaps you are trying to figure stuff out so that Hashem can finally save you? But does He really demand that admission price? If you believe that, I'd like to know why. I'm really just curious. (Promise).
My own experience tells me that He's a much cheaper date than that, really.... maybe that's why Jews Love Him so much! (a joke, a joke...)
You know (by now) that I am skeptical of the value of any philosophical endeavor around something so primevally and viscerally powerful as lust is in my life. I'm an addict. I have never met a sober guy who was still obsessed with figuring things like that out. Addicts in recovery are generally too busy with living to discuss philosophy over-much. And the poor fellas who twist the steps into just more 'self-help' material to "smarten up" with, just sit there wondering why they can't get control of things - while their lives schlep by... I've seen it a hundred times, at least.
So you may be the first. May it be so. Let me know. And now, off I go!