Love Addiction

Love Addiction

Love addiction effects more people than you might think.  Terri has been in and out of a relationship with Jack for 15 years.  However, Jack always has other women.  Sometimes he has several sexual relationships going at once.  Jack is a sex addict.  Terri, a love addict, is addicted to Jack. Beth is a rageaholic.  For the last 18 months, she and Tim have been breaking up for a week or two but then getting back together until the next blow-up.  Tim's friends cannot understand why he keeps going back for more.  What they don't understand is that Tim is addicted to Beth.

Most people do not understand love addiction or know how to identify it, but there are recognizable roles, underlying emotions and a common cycle of behaviour that you can learn to spot.  Here is what to look for.

The Roles in Addictive Relationships

There are two roles.  The first role is the Love Addict who has an addiction to someone who has another primary addiction.  The second role is the Addict.  Like Jack or Beth in our examples, the Addict has an addiction to something such as alcohol, drugs, sex, work, raging, etc.

The Underlying Emotions in Addictive Relationships

The Love Addict has an overwhelming fear of abandonment but underneath there is also a fear of intimacy.

The Addict is terrified of being controlled, smothered or engulfed but has an underlying fear of abandonment.

A Common Cycle of Behaviour in Addictive Relationships

Pia Mellody, in her books and tapes on love addiction, identifies the following pattern in the cycle of addictive relationships.  There are several steps in the pattern.  Like a dance, this pattern begins, progresses and ends but then begins again.  This cycle can last for years if not interrupted by treatment.

Hope for Change in Addictive Relationships

Whether someone has an addiction to a substance, an activity or another person, they are attempting to medicate or distract themselves from the emotional pain of their life.  It is through courageously facing and ultimately resolving their underlying pain that people can finally free themselves from an addictive relationship cycle. 

Often the underlying pain that people seek to avoid or find distraction from is so painful and overwhelming that traditional talk therapy is not helpful.  In such cases, what can help are specific treatments designed to relieve emotional trauma.  

Since 1992, emerging and evolving treatments are making the job of easing intense emotional pain possible.  Treatments that research and clinical experience prove powerful enough to eliminate the pain of traumatic events include Quick REMAP, the REMAP process, EFT and EMDR.  Easing this type of pain allows us to change an underlying and driving dynamic in love addiction.

Although it will require professional help, love addicts can change and they can replace their addictive patterns with a healthier version of love.  They can learn to say good-by to love addiction.

Edited by : Jennifer Jude Ann