Addicted to Love

"Your lights are on, but you're not home

Your mind is not your own

Your heart sweats, your body shakes

Another kiss is what it takes

You can't sleep, you can't eat

There's no doubt, you're in deep

Your throat is tight, you can't breathe

Another kiss is all you need

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah

It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough

You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

You see the signs, but you can't read

You're runnin' at a different speed

Your heart beats in double time

Another kiss and you'll be mine, a one track mind

You can't be saved

Oblivion is all you crave

If there's some left for you

You don't mind if you do

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah

It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough

You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

Might as well face it, you're addicted to love

Your lights are on, but you're not home

Your will is not your own

You're heart sweats, your teeth grind

Another kiss and you'll be mine

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah

It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough

You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

Might as well face it, you're addicted to love"

                                     Addicted to Love, Robert Palmer

Much can be written concerning sexual addiction as a form of mental illness and deviance related to obsessive-compulsive disorder, to stalkers, to child abusers, to customers of prostitutes, and to those who engage in a variety of unsafe, promiscuous sex practices. It is not hard to see that such individuals have serious troubles relating to their own sexual drives. A number of specific disorders, related to sexual addiction, are well known in the field of psychopathology. Such discussion, however, masks the fact that conventional romantic (and sexual) relationships bear many hallmarks of addiction.

This idea is the over-arching theme of a book by psychologist Frank Tallis called Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness. This theory of romantic relationships is quite consistent with such well-known folk maxims as “love is blind” or “all’s fair in love and war.” But, actually, quite a bit of scientific evidence now points in the same direction:

One study compared the brain activity of people looking at pictures of loved ones or at pictures of non-romantic friends. The pattern of activity in the cortex was markedly different depending on which type of face the subject was exposed to. FMRI scans of brains processing a romantic gaze bear a striking resemblance to … brain images of people under the influence of cocaine…. All of which suggests that the phrase "addicted to love" may be more than poetry.[1]

One finding is that the brain centers associated with addiction become flooded with a hormone called oxytocin. It has been hypothesized that this drug tends to reduce the tolerance that is normally associated with addictive substances – such that the addict constantly requires more and more. In this way, human love addictions (or attachments) can last longer.

One researcher, Helen Fisher, has hypothesized that there are three different brain systems involved in romantic love. The first of these is the sex drive (related to the hormones estrogen and testosterone). The second is a system of “attraction” that determines the particular individuals with whom we mate. The third is the system of attachment (or addiction) related to the peptides vasopressin and oxytocin.

Of course, it is something of an overstatement to maintain that all human, romantic attachments are actually addictions. Such a reductionist approach does an injustice to a subject as deep and complicated as monogamy and other long-term commitments. But, the relationship between the early stages of romantic love (i.e., “falling” in love) and addiction are more salient. And, considering the many unfortunate choices that people can make, while in this phase, it is perhaps a worthwhile perspective to consider. The difficulty, of course, is that individuals experiencing an addiction also experience disorders in their thought processes that make it extremely difficult to achieve any distant perspective.

In my earlier blog on self-awareness in romantic relationships, What  You See is Who You Are, I pointed out that the possibility of telepathy in intimate relationships can readily be blocked by the common, psychological defense mechanism of projection. Imagine how much more potential for mental distortion arises during the early stages of romantic attraction, when peptides flood the addiction centers in our brain. At such times, the mind’s natural capacity for clear seeing (or clairvoyance) become clouded by a myriad of whirling thoughts and emotions.