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by Beth Birney

 
Joe spent the night at Sarah’s house last night. When he left in the morning he told Sarah he would phone her in the afternoon. Sarah decided to sleep in late since she had the day off. She awoke at 11 AM and wanted to take a shower, but was afraid Joe might call early, so decided to wait by the phone instead.

When Joe finally did call at 4:30 PM, he said that he would be over for dinner at 7:00 PM sharp, so Sarah quickly got dressed and prepared the meal. At 7:30 PM Joe still had not arrived. She phoned his home, office, and cell numbers, but no answer. So she waited on the couch wondering what she did wrong and wound up crying herself to sleep.

At 11:00 PM the phone rings: ‘It’s Joe, sorry I got tied up. Let’s do it tomorrow.’

Sarah agrees. After all, if she complained he might leave her.

Some people may find this story ridiculous, but others may relate. This is a common scene for ‘Love Addicts’. Much like alcoholism, love addiction is a disease, except the drug of choice is another person.

“Seven out of ten people suffer from this addiction, says A.C.O.A. educational therapist Sherry Baker. “The definition of love addiction is when someone is so involved in another person they lose themselves completely. They become enmeshed with the other person and lose themselves mentally, spiritually and physically. They sacrifice their own needs and wants.”

Conducting love addiction seminars since 1983, Baker currently handles eight to ten seminars a year; with anywhere from 60 to 140 people attending each one, indicating this indeed is a serious addiction.

“People in love addicted relationships tend to usually come from dysfunctional homes,” continues Baker. “Dysfunctional homes are those in which there has been some kind of abuse: physical, sexual, mental. These parents did not nurture and love, so the child feels isolated and unworthy of love”

As adults we usually try to attach ourselves to a person, much like the parent that was least present in our childhood. For instance, if we had a workaholic father, as adults we may start a relationship with a workaholic.

We then try to change this person to get our own needs met, similar to what we wanted when we were children. But this doesn’t work. We keep the abuse going because of fear: fear of pain, deprivation, failure, anger, rejection, loneliness, craziness, or death. Our false belief is that this relationship will fix our fears.

Denial of this addiction is strong. It is easier to rationalize and justify what is going on. Alcohol addiction is easier to detect. Says Baker, “A police officer can pull someone over to the side of the road and give them a test to examine their blood/alcohol level. But what kind of test can you give for love addiction?”

“Love addicts are usually very forgetful people,” she continues. “They have a lot of accidents and they are not very dependable because so much of their concentration is on that other person and not upon the task at hand.”

“Love addicts will invade their lover’s privacy by opening mail, eavesdropping, going through pockets, wallets and purses, calling in the middle of the night, driving b y their house, calling at work and even following them, just so they know what he or she is doing.”

Love addicts usually know that something isn’t right in the relationship, but not all are willing to enter therapy. According to Baker, women are more prone than men to seek help.

Therapy helps the addict regain a sense of self-worth, realizing that their worth comes form within and not from another person.

There are several self-help organizations. CODA – Co-Dependents Anonymous – helps us learn how to form healthy relationships. Al-Anon is for people who are in a relationship with an alcoholic and need assistance from that end.

ACOA is for Adult Children of Alcoholics and deals with the core issues of how people learn to be co-dependant. The attendance in these self-help programs increased rapidly in the 1980s.

People need to know that love addiction is progressive, deadly and catchy. It affects the entire family. We need to break the cycle so that our children don’t suffer. “They need to follow the direction of a counselor to the best of their ability, even if it means terminating the relationship for a period of time,” asserts Baker.

“That’s where you lose them. They are not willing to set their drug of choice down,” she notes. “This is similar to telling an alcoholic, ‘Okay, you can drink, but we are going to work on therapy.’ An addict can’t work on therapy until they put the drug down.”

Love addiction is not a product of modern society. It is age old. “Society never addictions have become more clearly defined. There are more self-help groups and better trained therapists willing to work together to combat the problem.”

Today there are more places for people suffering from this addiction to visit, such as residential treatment centers, halfway houses, and underground railroads.

Since the 1980s was the decade of awareness, we can only hope that 30 years later, this decade will bring action and solution to an increasingly serious problem.

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