Does love addiction exist?

When we fall in love and begin to love someone special, it is common to feel that we are "hooked" on that person. Sometimes we experience this as something exciting and a source of happiness, such as when the experience gives rise to a relationship as a couple that gradually consolidates, and sometimes we experience it just the opposite, something that can happen if the feeling is not mutual or if dynamics of dependency or even manipulation arise under the guise of a love relationship psychological.

For all these reasons, it is not uncommon to hear that love is a kind of addiction. What is true in this reasoning? Does addiction really exist in love or through love? Here I will give my point of view on the subject.

• Related article: "The 14 most important types of addictions"

What is an addiction?

Addictions are a set of psychiatric and neurological disorders in which the person develops a strong dependence on the consumption of certain substances or the performance of certain actions, to the point that you experience clinically significant discomfort if you go for several hours or a few days without make them

These kinds of pathologies have a biological and a psychosocial basis.. On the one hand, as they consolidate in the body of the person suffering from the disease, the reward system of his brain is altered by the addiction, so that it reconfigures all brain activity so that the performance of the addictive behavior (for example, drinking alcohol) becomes the absolute priority, and over time, the only source of motivation of the individual. On the other hand, addiction makes the person internalize certain routines and habits that constantly expose the person to the temptation to continue with that behavior dynamic (for example, substituting your lifelong friends for the company of other people with your same addiction), so that even if you want to "unhook" from all that, the risk of relapsing is increases.

Although most psychiatric and psychological disorders put the person in a vicious circle from which it is increasingly difficult to get out, addictions are especially good at this, given that as time goes by the person runs out of options to break with that dependence: the withdrawal syndrome becomes very strong, and also each time you need to consume more or engage in addictive behavior to experience the same level of relief or momentary pleasure.

The latter, which is a phenomenon known as tolerance, occurs because addiction leads the brain to transform itself to direct all processes physiological and mental towards the constant repetition of that experience that generates pleasure or well-being for a few minutes, so that exposing yourself to that class of experiences no longer "collides" or interferes so much with their functioning dynamics, but rather fits better into them, thereby losing the forcefulness of the effect. This also explains the withdrawal syndrome; the nervous system gets used to being subjected again and again to these floods of chemical substances, whether they are generated by the brain itself (in the case of non-substance addictions) or supplied through drug use, so that removing that “for” suddenly makes everything wobble for a few days, the time needed for the neurons to learn to relate to each other again in a more or less normal.

• You may be interested: "The brain's reward system: what is it and how does it work?"

Can a love addiction arise?

From what we have seen so far, love and the desire to be with the person we love have some characteristics that resemble the typical addictions that year after year lead thousands of people to seek therapeutic support to get rid of, for example, a drug such as alcohol, cocaine or methamphetamine. Now… Can it really give rise to an addictive disorder without substance use, as occurs with the tendency to participate over and over again in games of chance (pathological gambling)? The answer is that, technically, love addiction does not exist as a mental health disorder and this term can only be used as a metaphor or simplified explanation of a psychological problem of another type.

This is due to various reasons, but in short, we could say that addictions are not just a dependency that generates discomfort, but a very specific type of dependency that generates discomfort.

In the first place, as we have seen, addictions generate an effect known as tolerance, by which the person becomes increasingly dependent on the addictive experience to the point that their social life and physical and mental health are left to it. mental. This does not happen with love: we do not need to spend more and more time or gradually sacrifice everything we have to be with someone for the simple fact of loving someone.

In the same way, when we separate ourselves from her for a few hours or days, we do not suffer the typical symptoms of withdrawal syndrome, which can be very intense and uncontrollable, both psychological and physiological: tremors, high stress levels, somatic changes, fatigue, in some cases fever etc.

On the other hand, if by "love addiction" we mean the need to go through the experience of falling in love over and over again, the comparison doesn't work either. Addictions are related to a very concrete and objective action or experience: taking drugs or interacting in a specific way with an object or place. Instead, falling in love is an experience much more based on abstract thoughts and in the context, and it is not reduced to a type of place or objects to interact with. And besides, practically no one would be able to consolidate an addiction to something relatively exceptional, because very rarely do we fall in love several times in a row in a matter of hours or a few days.

That temporary scale would hardly cause our brain reward system to undergo significant structural and functional changes, given that between a falling in love and the next, another class of stimulating situations would exert their influence on our neurons, modifying the way they interact with the rest.

• Related article: "How do you know when to go to couples therapy? 5 compelling reasons"

Does that mean that infatuation disorders cannot arise?

Not quite: poor management of love relationships can facilitate the appearance of psychopathologies, but not in the category of addictions, but of another type.

For example, in part of the diagnostic manuals a psychopathology based on emotional dependence is defined, and in addition, the Borderline personality disorder it is also known for often giving rise to dependency dynamics. What happens is that in these cases the problem itself is not love (naturally), but rather a whole series of fears associated with fear of abandonment and insecurities with oneself, which leads the person to seek emotional refuge in someone special constantly.

• You may be interested: "This is how anxiety problems caused by emotional dependence are"

Are you looking for professional psychological support?

If you are looking for psychological support services, whether for individuals or couples, contact me.

My name is Thomas Saint Cecilia and I am a psychologist specialized in the cognitive-behavioral intervention model, very effective and versatile in the face of emotional problems. I attend in person at my office in Madrid and also online by video call.