What is Love Addiction?
Love addiction is an addiction that causes individuals to compulsively seek relationships or romance, despite negative social, emotional, financial, or physical consequences.
Love addicts are sometimes called “serial monogamists” or “relationship addicts.” Love addicts use love, or the pursuit of love, as a way of distracting themselves from uncomfortable feelings or emotions. Love addicts tend to have unrealistic expectations for giving and receiving love.
Some love addicts get caught in toxic relationships and become codependent. Love addiction and codependency often go hand-in-hand, because love addicts will do anything to take care of their partners. Toxic care-taking can take many forms, including enabling immature behaviors or “rescuing” partners in hopes that they will not be abandoned. Love addicts allocate an unbalanced amount of time, attention, and value to the person that they are addicted to (i.e., their “qualifier”), and this focus usually has an obsessive quality. It is not uncommon for love addicts to neglect themselves “in service to the relationship.” Self neglect usually leads to resentment and anger, rather than intimacy and harmony.
Understanding the Symptoms
Common symptoms of love addiction include:
- Tending to become consumed and obsessive about an individual or relationship
- Having an inability to focus on or think about anything other than an individual or relationship
- Equating love and relationships with self-esteem or self-worth
- Limited participation in important activities
- Limited time with friends and family
- Using love as an excuse to avoid creating positive change for yourself
- Relationships lack true intimacy and are often filled with jealousy
- Co-dependency
Using love as a form of manipulation - Confusing sex with love, and offer sex with the hope of receiving love
- When a love addict realizes their partner is not perfect, the chase may continue for validation and attention outside the relationship. Seeking validation outside of the relationship may lead to emotional or physical affairs. Love addicts are slow to leave a toxic relationship due to feelings of low self-worth. A love addict becomes fixated on his or her partner and tries to control the partner. A love addict will attempt to use sex to receive what they really crave: emotional intimacy.
Men and women who are concerned about love addiction should take the Center for Healthy Sex’s Love Addiction Screening Test.
Our Approach to Addiction Care
At Core Recovery, we have extensive experience in providing specialized care for individuals struggling with addiction. We offer intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization programming for individuals struggling with various forms of addiction and mental health challenges, and our partner Center for Healthy Sex offers individual therapy, psychoeducation and coaching, intensive programming, and other courses and workshops. Those programs include:
- Intensive Outpatient Program
- a. The Center for Healthy Sex weeklong IOP program offers various therapeutic interventions, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Art Therapy, Somatic Therapy, as well as psychoeducation. Our program helps individuals struggling with sex addiction to:
- i. Understand their cycle of addiction and how they use sex as a drug
- ii. Excavate the source of their trauma that drives their sexual addiction
- iii. Replace distorted thoughts with healthier belief systems
- iv. Deconstruct the shame and guilt that keeps one out of their integrity
- v. Graduate the program with a solid aftercare plan for ongoing recovery
- Individual Coaching Courses
- a. The Center for Healthy Sex’s 12-week coaching courses provide psychoeducation around sex addiction, helping individuals:
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- i. Understand the roots and origins of their love addiction
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- ii. Identify characteristics of addictive love relationships
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- iii. Assert healthy boundaries for more equal relationships
Experienced and Compassionate Team
Through its partnership with Center for Healthy Sex, Core Recovery offers treatment to individuals in Arizona who are struggling with love addiction. The treatment team consists of licensed therapists, addiction specialists, and support staff experienced in and committed to treating addiction. They provide compassionate care and create a safe, non-judgmental environment where individuals can navigate their recovery journey. Through specialized IOP, individual therapy, coaching courses, and workshops, our goal is to help individuals regain control of their lives and establish long-term sobriety.
Contact Us Today
If you or a loved one are struggling with the effects of love addiction, we’re here to help. Contact us today to learn more about our addiction focused programs and take the first step toward a brighter, healthier future.
In CA By O360®