​Love addiction consists of three components:

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*Romance

*Relationship

*Sexual Addiction

We acknowledge all three as valid addictions. This group will be dealing with Romance and Relationship Addiction only. Sex, can and usually does play a significant role in both of these other addictions.

However, incorporating Sexual Addiction into this group would make it too broad and unfocused for us at this time.

 

Addicted to “Love” Characteristics:

• Lack of nurturing and attention when young

• Feeling isolated, detached from parents and family

• Outer façade of “having it all together” to hide         internal disintegration

• Mistake intensity for intimacy

• Hidden Pain

• Seek to avoid rejection and abandonment at all cost.

• Afraid to trust anyone in a relationship

• Inner rage over lack of nurturing, early abandonment

• Depressed

• Highly manipulative and controlling of others

• Sense of worthlessness

• Defining “wants” as “needs”

• Perceive attraction, attachment, and sex as basic human needs on a par with food and water

• Escalating tolerance for high-risk behavior

• Intense need to control self, others, circumstances

• Presence of other addictive or compulsive problems

• Insatiable appetite in area of difficulty

• Using others alter mood or relieve pain

• Continual questioning of values and lifestyle

• Driven, desperate, frantic personality

• Existence of secret “double life”

• Refusal to acknowledge existence of problem

• Defining out-of-control behavior as normal

 

 

Relationships – The Addiction Cycle

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1. OBSESSION

Hurts from the past

Feelings of abandonment

Negative emotional state

 

2. THE HUNT

Looking for love in all the wrong places

An available victim

Well-rehearsed ritual of enticement

 

3. RECRUITMENT

Tricks of the trade

Submissive nature

Mating calls

 

4. GRATIFICATION

New energy

Solving another person’s problems

New attachment

Instant feeling of relief

 

5. RETURN TO NORMAL

A new companion

Feeling of completeness

 

6. JUSTIFICATION

I need it

I deserve it

I had no choice

 

7. BLAME

Usually focused on parents first

Spreads to others

 

8. SHAME

​Recognizes attachment to the “wrong person”

Self-betrayal

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9. DESPAIR

Feeling trapped

​Over-responsibility

 

10. PROMISES

“Never again!”

Focus on returns to hurt and pain

Obsession re-starts addictive cycle

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