If you’ve ever been in love, you likely understand the intense feelings and chemicals associated with the experience. In fact, some people form such an unhealthy attachment to love that it becomes addictive in nature. Hence the term: love addiction.
What Exactly Is a Love Addiction?
According to research, “Love addiction presents itself as an incessant need for the presence of the other, indispensable for one’s life, a relationship within which purely dysfunctional behaviors associated with a recurrent fear of abandonment are implemented.”
Surely, this extends beyond the typical desire to spend time with your partner.
“When we refer to love addiction, we are alluding to all those changes that suffocate and suppress the [lives] of these ‘addicted’ subjects and the people who are close to them,” the researchers continued.
When love becomes obsessive, and fear of loss becomes crippling, then you might be falling into love addiction.
Forms of Love Addiction:
There are various forms of love addiction, or different ways it presents itself. For example, love addiction can present as partner-focused (an addiction to a particular person) or emotion-focused (an addiction to the feeling of love itself).
According to AddictionHelp.com, the four main types of love addiction include:
- Obsessive Love Addiction: a preoccupation with a romantic partner or with the idea of romantic relationships in general.
- Codependent Love Addiction: an apparent need to “save” or care for a partner to feel fulfilled or valued themselves (often at their own expense).
- Avoidant Love Addiction: a strong desire for connection, yet contradicting fear of intimacy.
- Serial Love Addiction: an addiction to relationships/the feeling of love itself, rather than a specific person.
Is It Love or Addiction?
You might be wondering…are you really in love, or are you just chemically addicted to your partner or the feelings they provoke?
“Partly what we call love is just being addicted to another person,” says Dr Brian Earp, associate professor of biomedical ethics, philosophy, and psychology at the National University of Singapore, per The Guardian. He described love itself as “phenomenologically identical to being high … an altered state of consciousness that’s very pleasurable and thrilling, somewhat scary, but very, very enjoyable.”
When you put it that way, it’s no wonder so many of us fall into its alluring trap. Love is, of course, a beautiful feeling—but also a powerful commitment. When love addiction is involved, however, an otherwise healthy relationship can grow toxic in no time. Our feelings become hijacked by the chemicals in our brain, as love acts almost as a drug, driving unhealthy behaviors.
Is Love Addiction Dangerous?
An article published in The National Center for Biotechnology Information found that romantic love can, in fact, be addictive in nature, leading to dangerous outcomes.
“Love can be thrilling, but it can also be perilous,” the researchers wrote. “When our feelings are returned, we might feel euphoric. Other times, love’s pull is so strong that we might follow it even to the point of hardship or personal ruin (Earp, Wudarczyk, Sandberg, and Savulescu 2013). Lovers can become distracted, unreliable, unreasonable, or even unfaithful. In the worst case, they can become deadly.”
Additionally, the authors explained that love can drive aggression (think: crimes of passion), while love loss can trigger immense grief, even leading to depression and withdrawal from society.
“These phenomena—including cycles of alternating ecstasy and despair, desperate longing, and the extreme and sometimes damaging thoughts and behaviors that can follow from love’s loss—bear a resemblance to analogous phenomena associated with more ‘conventional’ addictions like those for drugs, alcohol, or gambling,” the researchers wrote.
If you’re finding yourself battling symptoms of love addiction, it’s important to speak with a professional—as you would if you were battling any other form of addiction. Thankfully, there are programs and treatment plans specifically designed to support love addicts.
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