Are you in love, or is that gnawing need to always be with the apple of your eye just addiction? The compulsion to be close to your beloved, the high that their touch brings, the dose of tremendous happiness and passion one person brings…all these have similarities to being addicted to substances such as drugs and alcohol.
This is because, as many studies would show, the same areas responsible for feelings of love, romance, attraction, and affection are also responsible for addiction and compulsion. In other words, those in love also show the same basic symptoms of addiction.
Love symptoms that are the same as addiction
First of all, someone in love is laser-focused only on their love object. This is the same with addicts who are only focused on their chosen substance–always thinking about when and how they would again get their next fix.
The lover constantly, and obsessively, thinks about their love, even does everything to keep in contact with them, calling, writing, texting, anything to keep in touch almost compulsively.
Aside from this, impassioned lovers tend to also distort reality to revolve it around the center of their world–their love. They change their priorities, routines, behaviors, and even preferences to accommodate their romantic relationship. This can even go too far to cause them to do inappropriate or risky behaviors to impress their special someone or just be with them. Telling their loved one that they love them and are willing to die for them might even be a literal profession of love and passion, as they can even sacrifice for the other person’s sake.
The same goes with addiction, as the addicted person would do anything to get their next fix–even if it means they are going to put themselves and other people in danger.
In fact, besotted people show the four primary traits of an addict:
- craving
- tolerance
- withdrawal
- relapse
When they are with their loved ones, or even just see them, they feel a sense of exhilaration and euphoria. Then, the more they see each other, the more they want to see more, to be closer, to the point of wanting to possess the other person. And then, when they breakup, there’s the feelings of withdrawal characterized by extreme sadness to depression, lethargy, insomnia, loss of appetite or binge eating, and crying spells.
Still, despite romantic love’s similarity with substance addiction, this shouldn’t be a deterrent for you to love, or a way for you to excuse addiction. The sooner we embrace the correlation, the better we are to understand addiction, our drives and motivations, and who we are as humans.
Furthermore, this gives us more insight into the single most powerful and natural addiction: romantic love.
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