It is often said that the quickest way to get over someone is to get under another, that the best medicine for heartache is mind-blowing sex with someone new.
But how do you know if you have a problem, if you’re love addicted? Researchers in the US compare this addiction to that of a drug.
“Romantic love is an addiction,” said Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University and author of a study conducted last July. “My guess is that our modern addictions - nicotine, drugs, sex and gambling - are simply hijacking this ancient brain pathway that evolved millions of years ago for romantic love. The brain system evolved to focus your energy on an individual and start the mating process.”
As with any addiction, lovelorn people trying to go cold turkey on love to gain better perspective have found that they need a replacement.
Fisher and her researchers found a certain chemical reaction in the brain that can be compared to that of other substance addicts.
Certain brain points of participants lit up the same way a drug junkies’ do at the sight of their favourite drug, whenever a photo of their rejecters was shown to them. In response to the brain’s command, jilted lovers opt for a quick solution. They find themselves new love fast.
“But as we all know the ripple effects of short cuts, new love on the rebound gives birth to more heartache, sometimes for both parties,” says relationships counsellor Stan Bopape.
“Getting over someone is a process, though it is highly subjective in terms of how long or how difficult it is for an individual. Bottom line, unless you go through a thorough grieving process, you are just piling up or putting a carpet over your sorrows by jumping on the next available love wagon.”
It is not always the case, though. In the movie Addicted To Love starring Meg Ryan and Matthew Broderick, good-natured astronomer Sam is devastated when the love of his life, Linda, leaves him for a suave Frenchman named Anton. He does what most reeling dumpees do: goes to New York and sets up home in the abandoned building opposite his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, with the intention of winning her back and waiting until she decides to leave her lover. Sam’s convinced that Linda is just going through a phase, and when she gets tired of Anton, he, Sam, will be there to pick up the pieces.
Sam soon has company in his obsessive watch over Linda’s new flat. Anton’s former girlfriend, Maggie, crashes Sam’s hideout and joins him in his spy mission. While Sam just wants Linda back, Maggie is seething with rage against Anton after he dumped her - and she’s out for revenge. Eventually the two abort the mission, having realised they are cut from the same cloth. They fall in love.
But life is not a movie and Bopape says to stay away from fantastic sweeping love stories because they rarely happen in real life and are the major cause of distress when love goes wrong.
“These things we call chick flicks are called that because only women can dream of the things that are orchestrated to have the type of happy ending they all have,” he says.
“Imagine the low after the high of thinking you and your better half could walk towards the sunset together hand and hand despite dynamics like compatibility. You would crash for sure.”
But human nature dictates that when you hurt, you go looking for solace, even in the arms of an ogre. “Pain distorts our vision and makes us drop the bar,” warns clinical psychologist Debra Going. “Many relationship hoppers find that their standards drop with each relationship because they are intent on making the pain go away and moving on at whatever cost.
“And the cost often leaves the ignorant partner reeling from the experience. And if that soul decides to go seeking their own replacement elsewhere, the rippling effect can be devastating and widespread. Before long we will have a political party of the jilted.”
The solution is easy. Love rehabilitation centres. We have one organisation with a specialised programme for this addiction: Addiction Action Campaign (AAC). The organisation’s CEO, Warren Whitfield, says it offers cutting-edge programmes at a lower cost than you can expect from mainstream rehab centres.
“Our organisation was started because of the absolute love addiction epidemic in South Africa,” he says. “There was no NGO championing the rights of addiction victims of this nature in our country. It costs around R25 000 to treat addictions. How many people can afford that?”
Although many would still consider love addiction a passing phase for a disturbed few, Whitfield disagrees. “One in three of our citizens have one form or more of addition like gambling, pornography, and sex and love addiction. We are seeing more and more people coming out to seek assistance on love and sex addictions. “
On Fisher’s chemical findings, Whitfield differs slightly. “The chemical reaction is not the same. The chemicals stimulated are the same but the stimulus cannot be identical because sex and love addiction are dependent on perception, whereas substance addiction is acquired.”
But because there is a chemical link to this kind of sickness and an even closer link to fantasy, medicine for mental wellness is only prescribed in special cases. These are when a patient’s fantasies overlap logic altogether and when the condition borders on bipolar disorder and insanity. Moreover, the programme is lifelong.
“Any dysfunction is a lifelong learnt habit. Rehabilitation is also acquired with time and this depends on the individual’s depth of the problem.”
While you cannot stay in one relationship or alone out of fear of being addicted, you can be honest with yourself and ask: “How do I know I’m addicted to relationships?”
According to AAC, sex and love addicts usually:
* Have few healthy boundaries. They become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.
* Fear abandonment and loneliness. They stay in and return to painful relationships, concealing their dependency needs from themselves and growing more alienated from friends and loved ones.
* Fear emotional and or sexual deprivation, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.
* Confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or to be rescued.
* Feel empty and incomplete when they are alone. Even though they fear intimacy and commitment, they continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.
* Use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others.
* Become immobilised or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsession or fantasies
* Avoid responsibility for themselves by attaching to people who are emotionally unavailable.
- Sunday Independent