I think I am a Love Addict. I can say this from my experience and researching a lot on this topic from different resources, websites and discussion forums. And I am glad to find out that I am not alone who is suffering from such a strange disease. This is a common phenomenon and thousands of people across the globe are suffering from it.
What is Love Addiction?
Love addiction happens when you become addicted to some person you think your are in love with. You become completely dependent on this person and give complete control to him/her. You can do anything to please this person even if that means you are neglecting your own life, family and welfare.
Love addiction is very much similar to cigarette, alcohol and drug addiction where you know the addiction is toxic for you and harming you but irrespective of that you want to be with that thing/person of your addiction.
When you are love addicted you think round the clock about the person of your addiction (PoA). You will need them to talk to you…to keep sending you messages and to keep sending mails and giving replies. In other words the love addicted needs the person of his addiction to keep him/her occupied with his/her thoughts, to take care and provide moral support.
They become totally dependent on their PoA and loose their self respect, ego and self esteem. Even if a love addicts person of addiction is ignoring, insulting and abusing, cheating or manipulating they would like to continue this relationship just for the sake of it.
This can result in very dangerous consequences and problems for both persons. When the love addicted seeks complete attention of his PoA, the other person may start avoiding this person which can result in more problems.
When the relationship ends it may cause withdrawal symptoms like any other addiction. The love addict will do anything to get in touch with their person of addiction, will do anything to restart the relationship, will even beg and cry in front of their PoA to help and bail them out of this situation. They may even experience destructive tendencies like hurting themselves or their person of addiction.
Types of Love Addicts:
Are you a Love Addict?
Love Addiction Process
Frankly speaking, love and addiction do not have anything at all to do with one another. They are poles apart. Nothing could be further removed from genuine love. A typical process of falling into love addiction starts when a person begins to feel sympathy or attraction with another person after going through an initially innocent moment of attraction and start idealizing the other person to the point of divinity.
The individual then becomes blindly attached to the other person, even feeling incapable of making a realistic analysis of the situation; they may project all sorts of illusions onto the other person, believing them to be the only one who can bring happiness. This process can be very fast. There are, however, people who never go past this stage of blind love, and remain ‘addicted to people, sucking on them and gobbling them up…which can be best described as parasitism, not love’.
Obsession can be called as the primary symptom of any addiction. In love addiction, an individual’s insecurity and low self esteem gives rise to an obsessive attachment to the object of their affection. It generally manifests as an insatiable hunger which distorts the person’s perception of reality and often results in multiple unhealthy behaviors and suffering.
Those people are at high risk for love addiction include recovering alcoholics/addicts who use relationships as a form of substitution, and/or individuals who grow up in alcoholic/dysfunctional families.
The Addictive Love Relationship
Like other addictions (drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, work, and the list goes on), the dependency to their PoA (their object- drug of choice) allows love addicts to feel alive- a sense of purpose- and to attain a sense of meaning and self-worth in the world: they are driven by ‘a fantasy hope that the drug of choice – a person – will complete them’.
‘Most love addicts start out trying to meet some known or unknown emotional need, then become dependent on the intoxicating feelings’ of being in love itself. Unfortunately, as in the case of drug addicts, “love addicts”, too, may become incapable of getting the desired satisfaction, which in turn increases their addiction’.
They often feel a burning, passionate love which gives and gives, destroying their sense of humanity when they lose the person they’ve given to, sometimes causing them to feel and act out in a vengeful way. The love addict suffers from a lack of bonding as they did in childhood, including an inability to give and receive affection, self-destructive behavior, problems with control, and lack of healthy long term relationships.
Withdrawal Symptoms
With addiction come inevitable negative consequences. The consequences of addictive love are most revealed as the love addict experiences withdrawal symptoms when a relationship ends, or when it is perceived as falling apart. When a break up happens, an addictive lover longs for the attachment and apparent loving feelings of the lost relationship, as much as a heroin user craves heroin when the drug is no longer available. This want may result in extreme debilitating pain, obsession, and otherwise avoidable destructive and/or self-destructive behaviors.
Depending on the level of one’s love addiction, negative consequences during withdrawal can result in extreme debilitating pain, obsession, and otherwise avoidable destructive and/or self-destructive tendencies including violence (to others or self), in addition to increased feelings of shame, depression, impaired emotional growth, chronic emptiness, loneliness, loss of intimacy and enjoyment in life
Recovery / Moving On
Since love addiction is fueled by fantasy, self-awareness and modifying your thoughts is the best way to get over your person of addiction. To break the cycle, love addicts can use the following steps to help forget the past and focus on the future.
What is Love Addiction?
Love addiction happens when you become addicted to some person you think your are in love with. You become completely dependent on this person and give complete control to him/her. You can do anything to please this person even if that means you are neglecting your own life, family and welfare.Love addiction is very much similar to cigarette, alcohol and drug addiction where you know the addiction is toxic for you and harming you but irrespective of that you want to be with that thing/person of your addiction.
When you are love addicted you think round the clock about the person of your addiction (PoA). You will need them to talk to you…to keep sending you messages and to keep sending mails and giving replies. In other words the love addicted needs the person of his addiction to keep him/her occupied with his/her thoughts, to take care and provide moral support.
They become totally dependent on their PoA and loose their self respect, ego and self esteem. Even if a love addicts person of addiction is ignoring, insulting and abusing, cheating or manipulating they would like to continue this relationship just for the sake of it.
This can result in very dangerous consequences and problems for both persons. When the love addicted seeks complete attention of his PoA, the other person may start avoiding this person which can result in more problems.
When the relationship ends it may cause withdrawal symptoms like any other addiction. The love addict will do anything to get in touch with their person of addiction, will do anything to restart the relationship, will even beg and cry in front of their PoA to help and bail them out of this situation. They may even experience destructive tendencies like hurting themselves or their person of addiction.
Types of Love Addicts:
- Obsessed Love Addicts
- Codependent Love Addicts
- Relationship Addicts
- Narcissistic Love Addicts
- Ambivalent Love Addicts
- Torch Bearers
- Saboteurs
- Seductive Withholders
- Romance Addicts
- Combinations
- Narcissists and Codependents
- Switch-hitting – Read More
Are you a Love Addict?
Love Addiction Process
Frankly speaking, love and addiction do not have anything at all to do with one another. They are poles apart. Nothing could be further removed from genuine love. A typical process of falling into love addiction starts when a person begins to feel sympathy or attraction with another person after going through an initially innocent moment of attraction and start idealizing the other person to the point of divinity.
The individual then becomes blindly attached to the other person, even feeling incapable of making a realistic analysis of the situation; they may project all sorts of illusions onto the other person, believing them to be the only one who can bring happiness. This process can be very fast. There are, however, people who never go past this stage of blind love, and remain ‘addicted to people, sucking on them and gobbling them up…which can be best described as parasitism, not love’.
Obsession can be called as the primary symptom of any addiction. In love addiction, an individual’s insecurity and low self esteem gives rise to an obsessive attachment to the object of their affection. It generally manifests as an insatiable hunger which distorts the person’s perception of reality and often results in multiple unhealthy behaviors and suffering.
Those people are at high risk for love addiction include recovering alcoholics/addicts who use relationships as a form of substitution, and/or individuals who grow up in alcoholic/dysfunctional families.
The Addictive Love Relationship
Like other addictions (drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, work, and the list goes on), the dependency to their PoA (their object- drug of choice) allows love addicts to feel alive- a sense of purpose- and to attain a sense of meaning and self-worth in the world: they are driven by ‘a fantasy hope that the drug of choice – a person – will complete them’.
‘Most love addicts start out trying to meet some known or unknown emotional need, then become dependent on the intoxicating feelings’ of being in love itself. Unfortunately, as in the case of drug addicts, “love addicts”, too, may become incapable of getting the desired satisfaction, which in turn increases their addiction’.
They often feel a burning, passionate love which gives and gives, destroying their sense of humanity when they lose the person they’ve given to, sometimes causing them to feel and act out in a vengeful way. The love addict suffers from a lack of bonding as they did in childhood, including an inability to give and receive affection, self-destructive behavior, problems with control, and lack of healthy long term relationships.
Withdrawal Symptoms
With addiction come inevitable negative consequences. The consequences of addictive love are most revealed as the love addict experiences withdrawal symptoms when a relationship ends, or when it is perceived as falling apart. When a break up happens, an addictive lover longs for the attachment and apparent loving feelings of the lost relationship, as much as a heroin user craves heroin when the drug is no longer available. This want may result in extreme debilitating pain, obsession, and otherwise avoidable destructive and/or self-destructive behaviors.
Depending on the level of one’s love addiction, negative consequences during withdrawal can result in extreme debilitating pain, obsession, and otherwise avoidable destructive and/or self-destructive tendencies including violence (to others or self), in addition to increased feelings of shame, depression, impaired emotional growth, chronic emptiness, loneliness, loss of intimacy and enjoyment in life
Recovery / Moving On
Since love addiction is fueled by fantasy, self-awareness and modifying your thoughts is the best way to get over your person of addiction. To break the cycle, love addicts can use the following steps to help forget the past and focus on the future.
- Assess yourself for love addiction tendencies honestly. Some signs include obsessive thoughts about another person which interfere with your life and feelings of worthlessness or depression when not in a relationship.
- Understand healthy love exists and how to identify it.
- Prepare yourself and be ready to face the pain letting go produces.
- Identify and address the underlying causes and psychological beliefs which support the compulsive/obsessive behavior. Ask yourself questions like, “What do I believe about relationships, love, and myself? Why might I fear closeness? Do I believe people will disappoint me or I will disappoint them?”
- Never forget the past; utilize it. Acknowledge that you will move beyond any painful experiences and focus on future relationship success.
- Find a support group such as Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous or a therapist trained in love addiction to bail you out through this transition.
- And most important of all…keep faith in your abilities, Belief that God is always there to help you, meditation and positive thinking.
Useful Resources
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