
By contrast, nobody yearns to become addicted to heroin (for example), or cigarettes, or slot machines. Nevertheless, although we do sometimes use the language of addiction when referring to love, there is at least one major feature that distinguishes love from the kinds of substance-based addictions typically described in the psychological and medical literature: nearly everyone aspires to fall in love at least once in their life. These phenomena-including cycles of alternating ecstasy and despair, desperate longing, and the extreme and sometimes damaging thoughts and behaviors that can follow from love’s loss-bear a resemblance to analogous phenomena associated with more “conventional” addictions like those for drugs, alcohol, or gambling. We may even become depressed, or withdrawn from society ( Mearns 1991). When relationships come to an unwanted end, we feel pain, grief, and loss. In 2011, over 10% of murders in the United States were committed by the victim’s lover ( FBI 2011). In the worst case, they can become deadly. Lovers can become distracted, unreliable, unreasonable, or even unfaithful. Other times, love’s pull is so strong that we might follow it even to the point of hardship or personal ruin ( Earp, Wudarczyk, Sandberg, and Savulescu 2013). When our feelings are returned, we might feel euphoric. Love can be thrilling, but it can also be perilous.
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Contemporary film expresses a similar sentiment: as Jake Gyllenhaal’s character famously says in Brokeback Mountain, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” And everyday speech, too, is rife with such expressions as “I need you” and “I’m addicted to you.” These widely-used phrases capture what many people know first-hand: that when we are in love, we feel an overwhelmingly strong attraction to another person-one that is persistent, urgent, and hard to ignore. Ovid was the first to proclaim: “I can’t live with or without you” ( Amores III, xi, 39)-a locution made famous to modern ears by the Irish band U2. Throughout the ages love has been rendered as an excruciating passion.
