Co-Dependants Anonymous
Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: Characteristics of Love Addiction


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 124
Date:
Characteristics of Love Addiction
Permalink  
 


Characteristics of Sex and Love Addiction

  1. Having few healthy boundaries, we become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.
  2. Fearing abandonment and loneliness, we stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.
  3. Fearing emotional and or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.
  4. We confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or to be rescued.
  5. We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.
  6. We sexualize stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy. We use sex or emotional dependence as substitute for nurturing, care, and support.
  7. We use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others.
  8. We become immobilized or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsession or fantasies.
  9. We avoid responsibility for ourselves by attaching ourselves to people who are emotionally unavailable.
  10. We stay enslaved to emotional dependency, romantic intrigue, or compulsive sexual activities.
  11. To avoid feeling vulnerable, we may retreat from all intimate involvement, mistaking sexual and emotional anorexia for recovery.
  12. We assign magical qualities to others. We idealize and pursue them, then blame them for not fulfilling our fantasies and expectations.

It may take several forms -- including (but not limited to) a compulsive need for sex, extreme dependency on one person (or many), and/or a chronic preoccupation with romance, intrigue or fantasy. Sex and love addiction may also take the form of a compulsive avoidance of giving or receiving social, sexual, or emotional nourishment. This avoidance of intimacy is known in SLAA as anorexia.

 

Psychological perspective

Love addicts are characteristically familiar with desperate hopes and seemingly unending fears. Fearing rejection, pain, unfamiliar experiences, and having little faith in their ability or right to inspire love, they wait, wish, and hope for love, perhaps their least familiar experience.

Addictive sexuality is like most other compulsive behaviours: a potentially destructive twist on a normal life-enhancing activity. Defining sex addiction depends less on the behaviour itself than on the person's motivation.

 

Sex addicts display a lack of the ability to control or postpone sexual feelings and actions. The need for arousal often replaces the need for intimacy. Eventually, thrill seeking becomes more important than family, career, even personal health and safety.

 

As sexual preoccupation increases in terms of energy and time, the sex addict follows a routine or ritual leading to acting out on desires which is then followed by feelings of denial then shame, despair and confusion.

 

It may be helpful to examine the definition of addiction more closely. Addiction is characterized by the repeated, compulsive seeking or use of a substance or activity despite adverse social, psychological and/or physical consequences. Addiction is often (but not always) accompanied by physical dependence, a withdrawal syndrome and tolerance. According to S.L.A.A., physical dependence is defined as a physiological state of adaptation to a substance, the absence of which produces symptoms and signs of withdrawal.

 

Withdrawal syndrome consists of a predictable group of signs and symptoms resulting from abrupt removal of, or a rapid decrease in the regular dosage of, a psychoactive substance or activity; the syndrome is often characterized by over activity of the physiologic functions that were suppressed by the drug and/or depression of the functions that were stimulated by the object of addiction.

 

Tolerance is a state in which a drug or activity produces a diminishing biologic or behavioural response; in other words, higher doses or in the case of sex addicts, riskier behaviour is needed to produce the same effect that the user experienced initially.

 

Symptoms

For love addicts, love:

· Is all consuming and obsessive

· Is inhibited

· Avoids risk or change

· Lacks true intimacy

· Is manipulative, strikes deals

· Is dependent and parasitic

· Demands the loved one's devotion

 

Sexual addictions usually are revealed in stages:

 

· Preoccupation: continual fantasies about sexual prospects or situations. This can trigger an episode of sexual "acting-out"

· Ritualization: a preferred sexual activity or situation is often stereotyped and repetitive

· Compulsion: continual engagement in sexual activity despite negative consequences and desire to stop

· Despair: guilt or shame over their inability to control behaviour or feel remorse

· Other behavioural problems, particularly chemical dependency and eating disorders

 

Causes

 

In the case of love addicts, often their own growth and development were thwarted earlier in life. Similarly, many sex addicts report some form of abuse or neglect as children and frequently see themselves as diminished or damaged in the process. Their parents are often sex addicts themselves.

 

Stress also plays a part in fuelling compulsive sexual behaviour by feeding the addict's need for withdrawal and fantasy.

 

Levels of phenylethylamine (PEA) a chemical in the brain involved in the euphoria that comes with falling in love rise with feelings of infatuation, boosting euphoria and excitement.

 

Love and sex addicts, may simply be dependent upon the physical and psychological arousal triggered by PEA and stress-related neurotransmitters.

 

Treatment

If you discover you are in an addictive relationship, you may want to seek professional assistance. Specialized counselling is available for those dealing directly or indirectly with this form of addiction.

Overcoming sexual compulsivity and addiction starts with recognizing that you are out of control sexually. Getting to that point requires taking a hard look at yourself and the problems emotional, physical, or financial caused by your sexual behaviour.

 

40 Questions for Self Diagnosis excerpted from 1985 S.L.A.A. The following questions are designed to be used as guidelines to identifying possible signposts of sex and love addiction. They are not intended to provide a sure-fire method of diagnosis, nor can negative answers to these questions provide absolute assurance that the illness is not present. Many sex and love addicts have varying patterns that can result in very different ways of approaching and answering these questions. Despite this fact, short, to-the-point questions have often provided an effective a tool for self-diagnosis as have lengthy explanations of what sex and love addiction is. Diagnosis of sex and love addiction is a matter that needs to be both very serious and very private. These questions will prove helpful.

 

What is sobriety in sex and love addiction?

Sobriety is the return of choice, sanity, and personal dignity which comes from surrender to sex and love addiction, followed by involvement with S.L.A.A.'s Twelve Step Program of recovery. There are no absolutes for sobriety in S.L.A.A. as individual patterns of sex and love addiction vary. However, each SLAA identifies for him/herself major addictive behaviour which is personally relevant, and becomes "sober" by abstaining from this behaviour on a daily basis.

How can I tell if I am a sex and love addict?

Only you can tell if you are physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually addicted to sex and/or love. Going to several meetings will tell you if you can identify with other sex and love addicts. Obtaining the pamphlet Sex and Love Addiction: 40 Questions for Self-Diagnosis will help you evaluate your sexual activities, romantic behaviour, and emotional involvements.

What is acting out?

Acting out is becoming involved (or re-involved) with addictive "bottom line" behaviour. Addictive indulgence is hall marked by loss of control over rate, frequency, or duration of bottom line behaviour. This loss of control always leads to negative self-destructive consequences which, over time, continue to worsen. Acting out patterns, and therefore "bottom line" behaviour, can differ markedly among individual sex and love addicts. This acting out behaviour can run the range from obvious promiscuity involving countless individuals, to solitary acts such as compulsive masturbation, voyeurism, and exhibitionism, to obsessive commitments to fantasy and romantic intrigue.

It may include hyper dependency problems involving one (or many) individuals. Some acting out patterns can involve all of the above, but more often a "bottom line" acting out scenario highlights one or two major areas.

 

Characteristics of sex and love addiction

 

· Having few healthy boundaries, SLAAs become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.

 

· Fearing abandonment and loneliness, SLAAs stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.

 

· Fearing emotional and or sexual deprivation, SLAAs compulsively pursue and involve ourselves inone relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.

 

· SLAAs confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or to be rescued.

 

· They feel empty and incomplete when they are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, they continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.

 

· SLAAs sexualize stress, guilt, loneliness, anger, shame, fear and envy. They use sex or emotional dependence as substitute for nurturing, care, and support.

 

· They use sex and emotional involvement to manipulate and control others.

 

· They become immobilized or seriously distracted by romantic or sexual obsession or fantasies

 

· SLAAs avoid responsibility for themselves by attaching to people who are emotionally unavailable.

 

· They stay enslaved to emotional dependency, romantic intrigue, or compulsive sexual activities.

 

· To avoid feeling vulnerable, SLAAs may retreat from all intimate involvement, mistaking sexual and emotional anorexia for recovery.

 

· They assign magical qualities to others. SLAAs idealize and pursue them, then blame them for not fulfilling their fantasies and expectations.

 

The Questions:

 

  1. Have you ever tried to control how much sex to have or how often you would see someone?

  2. Do you find yourself unable to stop seeing a specific person even though you know that seeing this person is destructive to you?

  3. Do you feel that you don’t want anyone to know about your sexual or romantic activities? Do you feel you need to hide these activities from others—friends, family, co-workers, counselors, etc.?

  4. Do you get “high” from sex and/or romance? Do you crash?

  5. Have you had sex at inappropriate times, in inappropriate places, and/or with inappropriate people?

  6. Do you make promises to yourself or make rules for yourself concerning your sexual or romantic behavior that you find you cannot follow?

  7. Have you had or do you have sex with someone you don’t (didn’t) want to have sex with?

  8. Do you believe that sex and/or a relationship will make your life bearable?

  9. Have you ever felt that you had to have sex?

  10. Do you believe that someone can “fix” you?

  11. Do you keep a list, written or otherwise, of the number of partners you’ve had?

  12. Do you feel desperation or uneasiness when you are away from your lover or sexual partner?

  13. Have you lost count of the number of sexual partners you’ve had?

  14. Do you feel desperate about your need for a lover, sexual fix, or future mate?

  15. Have you or do you have sex regardless of the consequences (e.g. the threat of being caught, the risk of contracting herpes, gonorrhea, AIDS, etc.)?

  16. Do you find that you have a pattern of repeating bad relationships?

  17. Do you feel that your only (or major) value in a relationship is your ability to perform sexually, or provide an emotional fix?

  18. Do you feel like a lifeless puppet unless there is someone around with whom you can flirt? Do you feel that you’re not “really alive” unless you are with your sexual/romantic partner?

  19. Do you feel entitled to sex?

  20. Do you find yourself in a relationship that you cannot leave?

  21. Have you ever threatened your financial stability or standing in the community by pursuing a sexual partner?

  22. Do you believe that the problems in your “love life” result from not having enough of, or the right kind of sex? Or from continuing to remain with the “wrong” person?

  23. Have you ever had a serious relationship threatened or destroyed because of outside sexual activity?

  24. Do you feel that life would have no meaning without a love relationship or without sex? Do you feel that you would have no identity if you were not someone’s lover?

  25. Do you find yourself flirting or sexualizing with someone even if you do not mean to?

  26. Does your sexual and/or romantic behavior affect your reputation?

  27. Do you have sex and/or “relationships” to try to deal with, or escape from life’s problems?

  28. Do you feel uncomfortable about your masturbation because of the frequency with which you masturbate, the fantasies you engage in, the props you use, and/or the places in which you do it?

  29. Do you engage in the practice of voyeurism, exhibitionism, etc., in ways that bring discomfort and pain?

  30. Do you find yourself needing greater and greater variety and energy in your sexual or romantic activities just to achieve an “acceptable” level of physical and emotional relief?

  31. Do you need to have sex, or “fall in love” in order to feel like a “real man” or a “real woman”?

  32. Do you feel that your sexual and romantic behavior is about as rewarding as hijacking a revolving door? Are you jaded?

  33. Are you unable to concentrate on other areas of your life because of thoughts or feelings you are having about another person or about sex?

  34. Do you find yourself obsessing about a specific person or sexual act even though these thoughts bring pain, craving or discomfort?

  35. Have you ever wished you could stop or control your sexual and romantic activities for a given period of time? Have you ever wished you could be less emotionally dependent?

  36. Do you find the pain in your life increasing no matter what you do? Are you afraid that deep down you are unacceptable?

  37. Do you feel that you lack dignity and wholeness?

  38. Do you feel that your sexual and/or romantic life affects your spiritual life in a negative way?

  39. Do you feel that your life is unmanageable because of your sexual and/or romantic behavior or your excessive dependency needs?

  40. Have you ever thought that there might be more you could do with your life if you were not so driven by sexual and romantic pursuits?



-- Edited by LinBaba on Wednesday 13th of April 2011 01:25:28 PM

__________________

it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful



Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 124
Date:
Permalink  
 

Sorry, phone rang before I was done editing this, anyway, I think there is a great deal of "cross-over" between co-dependency and love addiction, in that the two share many characteristics, such as picking unhealthy partners and having relationships without any boundaries, for me when I was young I was a full blown sex addict, I guess you could call it, but later in life I became addicted to relationships, not a lot of them, just the one I was in, haha, but in between them I did the celibate thing, or sometimes I did the single thing, where I'd get laid here and there, "Dating" I guess they call it, but years later I still have a few vestiges where I confuse codie with relationship addiction, so I thought I'd post this, since it helps to know what the problem is, Like I wouldn't -completely- fit in at an SLAA meeting, or even a Coda meeting, but I'd fit in with a group of people that have worked the steps and realize they still have little bits of this and that from both, unhealthy sets of characteristics from childhood and early adulthood I have somehow missed in all my trips through the steps, Now the funny thing is I learned this after being supposedly "healthy" for many years, healthy robust sobriety, happy, healthy relationship (for the most part) but when I got involved with my family at close range it was like when an alcoholic drinks after a period of sobriety, "more was revealed" and I got very sick, and it's my theory that that stuff wasn't addressed but swept under the rug, because I got mentally sicker then I have ever been, I just didn't have the tools to deal with those people

__________________

it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful



Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 170
Date:
Permalink  
 

Hi,

I went to acoda meeting last night and had a realisation about how dpendent I am on my Sober partner.  The woman within the group talked about how they obsessed about their partners, how they wanted them all to them selves.  I as a co dependent am very good at looking at others lives and I am feeling a little scared at the moment.  I really did not realise how needy, controlling and dependent I was.  I know I am co dependent because I have similar behaviors with frien not just my partner.  but it looks like I am a love addict too.  I also attend al anon because my partner is a sober alcoholic.  I am currently attending coda and al anon carnt add another 12 step programme lol.  My Hp is shinning the light on me and bringing me lots of awareness i find i am very anxious

but can not brush this under the carpet anymore

Thanks for the information.



__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.