Love addiction or is it love?

Being in love is not an addictive behavior. You may prefer to be with this person, but you don’t lose your identity, nor do you ‘need’ to be with that person all the time.

Some signs of love addiction:

Feeling of isolation, detachment from family and friends

Keeping romantic relationships separate from other parts/people in your life

Trying to avoid rejection and abandonment

Trouble truly trusting and relinquishing ‘control’ in the relationship for fear your partner will leave.

Need to be in a relationship all the time

Feeling that a relationship/sex completes you

High risk behaviors

Feeling of helplessness when outcomes, situations or people are out of your control

If you can identify these warning signs, you can overcome them More on sex addiction

Q & A

Q

My husband has been in recovery from alcohol for about twenty years. When he gets upset he yells at everyone in the house for the entire day.

Yesterday our seventeen year old son asked his father to donate money to a cause for children. My husband got enraged over the fact our son would ask him for money to help other children. My husband told him that if he is doing volunteer work every weekend, he will not be able to use the car.

I am embarrassed that all my neighbors heard him raging at my son and then me.

This was a rerun from the night before. Is this normal for a recovered alcoholic to behave?

My husband has twenty years of sobriety and refuses to attend meetings unless it is his anniversary. Whenever I mention maybe you should attend a meeting I am told that it is not my concern.

I do not know what to do. I am emotionally drained.

Barb

A

What you're experiencing is what AA calls being a 'dry drunk' -- meaning that although your husband is not drinking, he's under a lot of stress -- alcohol used to take the 'edge' off.

This hostility gives him temporary relief, but it's inappropriate, detrimental to his physical health as well as the emotional/psychological health of the family.

He goes to a meeting on his anniversary date, acknowledging his abstinence and receiving recognition, but the program is more than that. It's also about having 'sober' thinking. This is achieved by going through the steps with a sponsor Most likely he's done this before, but as the pressure of life changes, the steps should be repeated.

If your husband still has a sponsor, I suggest he contact him and redo the steps.

It may be helpful to go to Al-Anon meetings to find out how others are dealing with this problem, and couple counseling or anger management can also be affective.

Should he be closed to these options anxiety medication can relieve the stress as well. This can be prescribed by his family doctor.

Bev

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From Love Addiction to Stop Being Addicted

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