http://www.care2.com/greenliving/addicted-to-love.html
Addicted to Love
By Laura Sessions Stepp, SexReally.com
It has happened to most of us at least once.
You can’t stop thinking about him — or her. You dance until dawn in each other’s arms. You can’t sleep and you can’t get down more than a couple of spoonfuls of dinner.
You’re in love. And yes, it’s in your head. Literally.
So say a growing number of experts in the social and natural sciences. Scientists like Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University, say that when a person is in love, the brain makes dopamine, a natural stimulant. It sprays that stimulant to many regions of the brain, including the system “for craving, for wanting, for motivation, for focus and for elation,” says Fisher, author of Why Him? Why Her?: Finding Real Love by Understanding Your Personality Type.
Fisher, whom I interviewed for a recent podcast on SexReally.com, says “When you fall in love, the first thing that happens is a person takes on special meaning. Every single thing about them is special and you focus on it. You’d like to have sex with them, but what you really want them to do is call, write, invite you out, tell you that they love you.”
If your beloved doesn’t share your feelings, you’ll feel hurt — and still deeply attached.
The biology of love is not the biology of lust. Lust, says Larry Sherman, a neurologist at Oregon Health and Science University, is driven by testosterone and estrogen, and rarely lasts very long.
A lovesick person, on the other hand, can act like “an obsessive-compulsive cocaine addict who has high blood pressure” for quite a while, he says, especially if his or her love interest breaks off the relationship. According to Fisher, studies show that 40 percent of people rejected in love demonstrate signs of clinical depression.
What do you do if you’re rejected? Use the 12-step program that alcoholics and other addicts use, Fisher advises. Throw away the cards and letters, don’t write, don’t call and don’t try to be “just friends.”
And what if the relationship lasts? It probably will become a different, calmer kind of love, Fisher says, spurred by activity in the part of the brain that encourages pair-bonding, or attachment.
She adds that long-term love need not be boring, however. Doing new things with your partner — vacationing somewhere you’ve never been, learning a new sport together — will drive up the dopamine and may have you dancing until dawn again. Or at least wanting to.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Laura Sessions Stepp is Senior Media Fellow at The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, where she hosts a podcast for The Campaign’s new website, sexreally.com. SexReally seeks to foster conversations about relationships and sex while addressing gaps in people’s knowledge about fertility and contraceptive use through polling, videos, and other content.
For more about love as an addiction, visit www.sexreally.com.
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19 comments
add your comment »There is only one thing 2 do rly: sit bk and watch the situation. DO NOT and i mean DO NOT assume ur in love, or that the other person loves u, until u c it 4 ur self. That might take time, cause some conflict, but its a lot easier than dealing with pain.
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From http://12step.org/the-12-steps.html
I just read the 12 steps as listed above, and wow.
A lot of the 12-step programme seemed to use replacement therapy--replacing one thing for another, not dealing with the underlying problem (as with Scientology? Kirstie Alley claims it cured her of cocaine addiction, but it really appears--I'm no doctor or expert--that she replaced drugs with food).
Love is NOT simply in the head. Any idiot (self included) who has had a serious heartbreak has felt the physical pangs which aren't heartburn. Then one day the pain stops.
And forgive me for being offended that love (and lust) are fleeting. Why should they be? Of course things may change over time, but it doesn't mean that one has to make an excessive effort (vacation is when we're in love, otherwise, you sleep in the other room and leave me alone!) to maintain a high level of respect, lust, love, or dopamine levels. Mutual respect and active communication do a lot. As does laughter.
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RE: "...so that we can determine if OUR falling in love is REAL or fake..."
Wow. I'm 63 years old, and am still not sure about that one. It sure isn't simple. When that other person is irressistably beautiful, and becomes your significant other for 7 years, and mother of your child, I think that qualifies as "real". And yet, even that can end in heartbreak and divorce when the relationship turns sour.
Was it any more or less real than something that lasted a shorter period of time?
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I think it would be very useful if we became more AWARE of that the pitfalls of falling in love may be, so that we can determine if OUR falling in love is REAL or fake. I have written my own story of 'fake falling in love' here, and I hope it helps understanding one example of falling in love which is not falling in love at all! http://www.mysearchingforlove.com/Fake-Love-whilst-searching-for-love-example.html
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Evelyne,
Then you wrote:
"The people who are helped by that system should be left to enjoy their new found success if they see it as such and there are plenty of people who do."
In other words, please go away and quit telling the truth about the 12 Steps.
But but what about all of the people who were harmed by 12-Step insanity, and who didn't enjoy the bad advice? Are we supposed to just be silent about that, and go away and "leave you to enjoy your new-found" religion?
What about the people who are going to be harmed by the 12 Steps tomorrow?
Then you wrote:
"If on the other hand, people do not find any benefit from their new way of dealing with addiction compared to struggling with it whatever way they did prior, then I guess the 12 Steps aren't for them."
But that is backwards order. To conclude that the 12 Steps are not good for some people after they were driven to relapse or suicide is not helping them at all. The moral and spiritual thing to do is tell people the whole truth about the 12 Steps beforehand, and don't be recommending the 12 Steps as a cure-all for everything from alcoholism to "love addiction" when they don't work, and have such a bad track record.
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Evelyne,
You wrote:
"...anyone person or organization that is not primarily trying to promote one's own ability to connect one-on-one with spirit isn't something I would recommend people pursue...."
It's a free country (more or less), and you can join any religion or church that you like. But the claim that "spirituality" (i.e., Dr. Frank Buchman's cult religion) will cure anything from alcoholism to drug addiction to compulsive gambling to obsession with love affairs is simply not supported by either the facts or the history of 12-Step programs.
For more on Dr. Frank Buchman and how his cult practices became the 12 Steps, see:
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-religiousroots.html
A lot of people have died in Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and Al-Anon because they were told not to take their medications that the doctor gave them, and to just trust God and the 12 Steps to heal them. Many other people got worse, not better, from such bad advice. I have a problem with such quackery and blatant faith-healing delusions.
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Evelyne,
Dr. Vaillant synthesized a control group from a population of untreated alcoholics, and compared their sobriety to the results of 8 years of A.A.-based treatment. A.A. produced no improvement, and Dr. Vaillant described the A.A. death rate as "appalling".
Dr. Vaillant also searched the professional literature and picked out four studies of other treatment methods. The A.A. 12-Step treatment death rate was the highest of any treatment method that Vaillant studied -- ranging from 128% to 580% of the other programs' death rates.
See:
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-effectiveness.html#Vaillant
And remember that Dr. Vaillant still loves the A.A. 12-Step religion, and recommends it for everybody -- including non-alcoholics -- so that they can "get an attitude change by confessing their sins to a high-status healer".
And Dr./Prof. Vaillant has been on the Alcoholics Anonymous World Services Inc. Board of Trustees for many years. He is one of the biggest promoters of A.A. on Earth.
And in spite of his extremely pro-A.A. bias, Dr. Vaillant still proved that A.A. kills more alcoholics than it saves.
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Terrence,
12 Steps increased the death rate.But the important question is: The death rate of whom and as compared to what control group? Alcoholics in other programs? Alcoholics not seeking treatment? The comparison of the different groups is what is informative in your statement if it is to be taken as serious a claim. Could you please state the exact samplegroups otherwise I am afraid the statistic is not very useful (As is always the case with bivariate relations not stated properly). As a sociologist I am afraid I need to make sure we both talk of the same things otherwise we can't have a worthwile discussion. Thank you.
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Terrence,
I can only speak for myself. anyone person or organization that is not primarily trying to promote one's own ability to connect one-on-one with spirit isn't something I would recommend people pursue. To me it doesn't really matter what you call it, God, or Spirit, or Higher Self. I know that if I am in tune with myself and with what is most loving to me, it feels a certain way. If the 12 Steps help some people build a connection to something that allows them to be more self-sufficient in dealing with their problems of addiction, I do by all means not see where the problem is. If on the other hand, people do not find any benefit from their new way of dealing with addiction compared to struggling with it whatever way they did prior, then I guess the 12 Steps aren't for them. The people who are helped by that system should be left to enjoy their new found success if they see it as such and there are plenty of people who do. For those of them who do not derive any benefit, I know there are many other avenues to deal with addictions that can work for them. In the end, this isn't about relinquishing responsibility because no God, or Spirit, can do what is one's work to be done. But to know, or to believe that one is not facing this challenge alone, but instead has spiritual guidance and help, I don't see how that is a bad thing. It's about tuning into your body. If an action makes you feel at peace and takes away anxiety and pressure or despair, it's a loving action.
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Assuming that A.A. or the 12 Steps make people get sober is like this:
I have seen hundreds of girls who went to Christian churches and prayed and participated in the ceremonies, and then got pregnant and had babies.
That proves it: going to Christian churches causes girls to get pregnant and have babies.
NOT!
Only carefully-controlled studies and clinical trials can reveal clear cause-and-effect relationships, and reveal what really causes what. And when A.A. was tested that way, it was a total failure. The 12 Steps actually harm people and increase the death rate.
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