Can love be equated with addictive substances?

[Gestahl]

So, I was doing some thinking the other day after reading lifegazer's thread (while listening to NIN's "Perfect Drug" (yes I know that is really lame)), how much would you people agree that the experience of being in love (the Eros type) is similar, or perhaps even the same, as drug experiences? The more I though, the more I started convincing myself this is true:

1) Love is addictive. When you are in love, you seek the object of that love in order to continue this feeling. Some people do so to their own detriment.

2) There are *definitely* withdrawal symptoms associated with "getting dumped".

3) Being passionately in love increases the level of natural psychoactive chemicals: [url="http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/Columnists/clairemcloughlincolumn1.htm] info. [/url] Many of these same chemicals are the ones affected by amphetimines, cocaine, and normal anti-depressants (which can be habit forming).

4) Being in love can significantly affect thinking processes, often causing unreasonable behaviors. Many people who have pre-existing mental problems can become dangerous when love is involved. (I do not evidence for this last statement, except for perhaps people becoming violent over cheating, and suicidal over an ended relationship).

Now, if "love" is a drug, what could that mean? That we can become slaves to it? Could taking certain substances recreationally be viewed as simply artificially inducing this love feeling?

Personally, after thinking about this for a while, I started to think how this cheapens the traditional view of love. Can feelings and emotions be reduced to mere chemicals, which we have very little control over? It would seem that there is an uncontrollable chemical monster underneath the thinking mind, and personally that unsettles me a little.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Some people think so..

Love and Addiction by Stanton Peele

I read this book many years ago and it helped me overcome some problems with jealousy..

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Personally, after thinking about this for a while, I started to think how this cheapens the traditional view of love. Can feelings and emotions be reduced to mere chemicals, which we have very little control over? It would seem that there is an uncontrollable chemical monster underneath the thinking mind, and personally that unsettles me a little.

Hey, don't worry about that unsettling feeling. It's just an uncontrollable chemical reaction.

 

[c4ts]

Chemicals contribute to the cause of emotions. Since I do not think the chemicals themselves are emotions, they are not "cheapened" in any way. But biological explanations are fascinating, and lend insight into why you might feel a certain way for no apparent reason.

 

[DangerousBeliefs]

Love is a byproduct of the need for genetic propogation.

Sex is much more addictive.

Why do men feel the need to sleep with anything that moves?

Why are women (in general) so selective in their mates?

Evolution.

I just wonder how monogamy came about in humanity...

 

[El Greco]

Erotic love is not "addictive" itself in the pharmacological sense of the word. People don't need it once they have experienced it. It's just that many people are generally more in need of feeling in love, like others are in need of feeling loved. People need the object of their love, so you could say that people get addicted to a person and not to a feeling. Small but important difference.

Is it the result of mere chemicals ? You bet. What else could it be ? All brain processes are the result of chemical reactions. But this doesn't make it any more uncontrollable than physical movement or the urge to eat. You can exert control over it, within your genetic limitations of course. This fact doesn't "cheapen" anything. Knowing the material that a beloved artifact is made of, doesn't make it less precious for you.

Erotic love can be a beautiful feeling as long as it doesn't compromise your ability to think and act rationally. You can say that it is like the effect of alcohol. It is nice as long as you have only had 1-2 glasses of wine, it is miserable when you get drunk. It is even more miserable when you experience the hangover. So I think that a quantification is in order here, no matter how unromantic this may seem to erotic purists. Generally speaking, when you are too much in love, you are too much in trouble.

What else is erotic love if not an over-beautification of the object of your love ? You tend not to see his/her imperfections and to overrate his/her virtues. This may not hurt you, unless you happen to wake up and see the naked truth. And then you'll probably realize that the altered image that your passion created, has also led you to some miserable behaviors that you now regret. Fortunately, the vast majority of people wake up sooner or later. Unfortunately, many times it is "later".

One of these regrettable behaviors is jealousy. This is a powerful feeling that when examined closely, we can actually ascertain that it opposes the very essence of "love". Love is unselfish, jealousy is selfish. Love need not be reciprocal, but erotic love without requital is a torture. In Greek we have two different words for "Eros" and "Love"; it is rather awkward to use the same word for two so fundamentally different feelings. A story that I like to cite as an effective description of unrequited love and the sense of helplessness it brings, is "Breakfast At Tiffany's". Not the movie, but the book. There's no happy-end in the book.

There are people who can only fall in love when their love is returned; a mechanism of self-defense. There are others who are attracted by a disinterested object and tend to experience frequent disappointments; a manifestation of emotional masochism. By examining people you can observe many repeating patterns of "falling in love"; maybe erotic love is much more predictable than we tend to believe after all.

What is the role of insecurity in all this ? Paramount, I'd say. The more secure we are, the less we depend on a particular person in order to support our ego. People often fall in love 1) with the objectively more sought-after person they meet and 2) with the most responsive person they meet. These are just different ways of boosting their ego via a social and an intimate form of acceptance respectively. Generally speaking, the more sought-after one is, the less you will see him/her falling desperately in love. It's just the law of supply and demand. So, a way to reduce your susceptibleness to love, is to increase your market value. Unromantic, but true.

People with interests, with fulfilling and creative jobs, with social acceptance, will usually not fall in love easily. They are happy before erotic love and without it. They know that they will eventually be happy even after it. It's like food: they don't eat because they starve, they just enjoy good food. The way I see it, these people are also capable of a more unselfish love. They will not love you because they need you.

People, even not particularly skeptical ones, are usually very good in analyzing love affairs of their friends and relatives. Yet, they usually go completely blank when they are about to analyze their own love affairs. In my opinion, the astonishingly blind faith of humanity in erotic love is in desperate need of debunking. I daresay that preconceptions, oversimplifications and misunderstandings about erotic love, opress modern societies much more than religion or politics.

 

[Dymanic]

I agree wholeheartedly with pretty much everything you said

Originally posted by El Greco

Erotic love is not "addictive" itself in the pharmacological sense of the word

In a psychological sense though, it might not be unreasonable to say that we are born addicted to parental love, and the hormonal spikes during puberty transform us into romantic love addicts even before the experience of our first dose.

Erotic love can be a beautiful feeling as long as it doesn't compromise your ability to think and act rationally.

If it doesn't compromise your ability to think and act rationally, it isn't love, at least not in the sense of the 'getting hit with a thunderbolt' kind. Evolution has discovered that in competition with others, the most rational course of action is often to forget about methodical weighing of costs and benefits, and get crazy (if those others happen to be smart, acting crazy isn't good enough; it has to be the real deal). Certain irrational states (love, anger, jealousy) are not bugs, they are features with specific purposes; they serve as manipulative tools. For us, they may provide an edge by persuading others that what we are promising -- or what we are threatening -- should be taken seriously. But they also serve as manipulative tools for our genes, by making us want to do things that benefit them, even if it involves risk to us that might cause us to hesitate.

 

[El Greco]

Re: I agree wholeheartedly with pretty much everything you said

If it doesn't compromise your ability to think and act rationally, it isn't love, at least not in the sense of the 'getting hit with a thunderbolt' kind.

But there is a "scale" of how much one is in love. The "thunderbolt" kind is but an extreme of this scale. People can fall in love without becoming irrational. This is why I spoke of quantification.

Evolution has discovered that in competition with others, the most rational course of action is often to forget about methodical weighing of costs and benefits, and get crazy (if those others happen to be smart, acting crazy isn't good enough; it has to be the real deal). Certain irrational states (love, anger, jealousy) are not bugs, they are features with specific purposes; they serve as manipulative tools. For us, they may provide an edge by persuading others that what we are promising -- or what we are threatening -- should be taken seriously. But they also serve as manipulative tools for our genes, by making us want to do things that benefit them, even if it involves risk to us that might cause us to hesitate.

Perhaps you are right, but this doesn't mean we have to trust evolution. Evolution has made great mistakes as well. Besides, it is excruciatingly slow. I bet our genes will not get easily adjusted to the money-hunting or to the quest for the hairless body Fortunately, our logic seems quite adaptable to those new demands posed by modern societies.

 

[CBL4]

Lust is equivalent to heroin:

Lust, of course, involves a craving for sex. Jim Pfaus, a psychologist at Concordia University, in Montreal, says the aftermath of lustful sex is similar to the state induced by taking opiates. A heady mix of chemical changes occurs, including increases in the levels of serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin and endogenous opioids (the body's natural equivalent of heroin).

Romantic love is a form of obsessive compulsion disorder

Then there is attraction, or the state of being in love (what is sometimes known as romantic or obsessive love). This is a refinement of mere lust that allows people to home in on a particular mate. This state is characterised by feelings of exhilaration, and intrusive, obsessive thoughts about the object of one's affection. Some researchers suggest this mental state might share neurochemical characteristics with the manic phase of manic depression. Dr Fisher's work, however, suggests that the actual behavioural patterns of those in love—such as attempting to evoke reciprocal responses in one's loved one—resemble obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2424049 (This may require a subscription to view.)

CBL

 

[MoeFaux]

I think it's important to point out that you can control who you call in love with. People do it all the time by saying, "oh, that person is too fat", or "that person is too short", or better yet, "that person believes in the most ridiculous things and is therefore stupid and I cannot possibly be attracted to them".

Perhaps what people are addicted to, then, is the need to feel good about themselves and the desire for intamacy. A person doesn't need to have sex or be with someone. People go on with happy, productive lives without ever being in relationships.

"Addict" is also a term that doesnt' have a really valid definition. I think people just use the term as a crutch. But that's just my opinion.

 

[Gestahl]

Erotic love can be a beautiful feeling as long as it doesn't compromise your ability to think and act rationally. You can say that it is like the effect of alcohol. It is nice as long as you have only had 1-2 glasses of wine, it is miserable when you get drunk. It is even more miserable when you experience the hangover. So I think that a quantification is in order here, no matter how unromantic this may seem to erotic purists. Generally speaking, when you are too much in love, you are too much in trouble.

People, even not particularly skeptical ones, are usually very good in analyzing love affairs of their friends and relatives. Yet, they usually go completely blank when they are about to analyze their own love affairs. In my opinion, the astonishingly blind faith of humanity in erotic love is in desperate need of debunking. I daresay that preconceptions, oversimplifications and misunderstandings about erotic love, opress modern societies much more than religion or politics.

Well put points, Greco. However, I would submit to you two facts:

1) People are not able to tell if they themselves are acting rationally. See schizophrenia, and paranoid delusion. The only way they know they are not rational is when they talk to others. I.e. people's "state of mind" determines how they think, and what they think is valid.

2) Are you able to control how in love you are? I would submit that you are not.

Given these two points, I would say that being educated and "knowing" all these things about the state of "in love" will do nothing when you are in the grips thereof. I wasn't even thinking about this when I started the thread, but my signature (when does anyone actually read their own signature) is almost custom tailored to this discussion.

 

[Gestahl]

I think it's important to point out that you can control who you call in love with. People do it all the time by saying, "oh, that person is too fat", or "that person is too short", or better yet, "that person believes in the most ridiculous things and is therefore stupid and I cannot possibly be attracted to them".

You really think so? I have fallen in love with several people who I had no intention of falling in love with (roommate). I had several rational reasons why I would not fall in love with them. I did anyway.

Perhaps what people are addicted to, then, is the need to feel good about themselves and the desire for intamacy. A person doesn't need to have sex or be with someone. People go on with happy, productive lives without ever being in relationships.

Bull. No man is an island. Everyone needs some amount of companionship/intimacy. Some people need less than others.

"Addict" is also a term that doesnt' have a really valid definition. I think people just use the term as a crutch. But that's just my opinion.

Addiction is nothing more than shorthand for "something for which another person strives for irrationally". Criteria for irrationally include "to ones own detriment" or "conflicting with other stated goals". Addiction is real and powerful. Ask someone who has been chemically addicted.