Love is an Addiction

Poets carve a life from it; musicians often try to evoke the feeling; bookshops have whole sections devoted to it and websites are there for people that don’t have it. Even Plato said that ‘the god of love lives in the state of need’, and it can feel that way, like a need for water and food, so hard to ignore, but what is love?

Love is an addiction, beginning with cravings, growing with tolerance levels leaving you wanting more and more. Once the drug is gone we feel withdrawal and occasionally relapse. A song comes on the radio and you are hit with memories and feelings you would rather keep buried.

The same region of the brain that responds to cocaine is at work in people that are in love, an area called the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) near the base of the brain responsible for our reward system, part of what is termed the ‘Reptilian Core’ releases dopamine in response to the subject of our emotions. This is why we can’t help but think of another; or as an 8th century Japanese poet put it ‘My longing has no time when it ceases’.

A study by Helen Fisher of MRI scans of people who had recently been dumped had some interesting findings; the area associated with intense romantic love was firing strongly; the feelings of love are as strong when we can’t have the object of our desires. Terence Thereaux put it better; ‘The less my hope the hotter my love’. Similarly the area responsible for gambling and calculating odds, gains and losses was active; a likely source of the ‘what went wrong?’ questioning that comes after a break-up. It’s not just flowery prose to say that love is lifes greatest prize. Finally the area responsible for the sense of attachment to another was active; We just can’t get that person out of our head.

A questionairre of American college students contained the questions ‘Have you ever been rejected by someone you really loved?’ and ‘Have you ever dumped anyone who really loved you?’. Over 95% of both men and women answered yes to both – there is no escaping the pain associated with love. Emily Dickenson said ‘Parting is all we need to know of hell’.

So why do we love one person over another? Studies have shown that we generally love someone of similar intelligence, looks and socio-economic background but that doesn’t really explain it. If we were at a party full of people matching these criteria why would we not be attracted to everyone there? There must still be an x-factor; something that just ‘clicks’. Will science ever find it? Will that destroy the magic of love?

Tags: Emo, Introspective, Love, Questions