Love and Other Drugs

I have a friend, who started seeing someone awhile ago. It's always a bit awkward in the beginning...oh, you're a smoker, oh, you have an 8 year old daughter, oh, you're actually 6 foot, three and a half.

Oh, you have a problem with addictions. Having an addictive personality often means you replace one addiction with another. Drugs? Alcohol? These can translate into many things: work, dating, sex, love. Love is a bad one. I have friends who have battled with addictions. And I can't blame them. I've struggled with my addiction for 3 years. His name was Adam.

Is Adam. He's still around, and I still struggle with it. Of all the addictions, Love really sucks. There's no support group. Your therapist gets sick of hearing about him. Your friends are fed up.

But I also know people who, while they might not be fixating on one person like me, are still love addicts. They can't be alone. They go from one new, exciting love to the next with lightning speed, thinking they will finally feel whole, if only this new person will love them back.

Maybe the only thing we can do is find a group of people who feel the same way, talk about it over and over, stay away from the thing that makes us crazy.

Or maybe we can change.

We can. Addictions, of any kind are not healthy. Anything that makes us act crazy, takes us outside of ourselves, hurts us or others and compels us to act a certain way, has no place in a healthy lifestyle.

This doesn't mean I think we shouldn't follow our heart. I did, and it didn't work out for me, but I still live feeling free and honest.

But we have to be honest with ourselves about why it's happening. Do you really love that person, or are you lonely, insecure, afraid to be alone? Do you need constant company or need to be needed?

The truth of the matter is, we are already enough, just as we are. If we find that love we instinctively crave, all the better for us. But to love someone unsuitable, just for the sake of loving someone, will never fill that void inside us that we wish would go away. The one that haunts us at night and interrupts our dreams with nightmares.

If we take the path of least resistance, we will always feel hungry. And whether it's love or other drugs, there will never be any real satisfaction.