This weekend, March 15-17, I present two workshops on sex and love addiction at the Counseling Advances Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.  It seems an odd location for a conference of addiction professionals: Las Vegas, ground zero for all manner of behavioral and substance abuse.  Maybe they want easy access to field research.

            My MacBook and I will give a slideshow on THE TOXIC TRIO: LOVE, LUST AND LIMERENCE, followed immediately by ADVANCES IN NEUROSCIENCE: THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON LOVE.  My throat and I will be talking almost non-stop from 1:45 to 5pm.  That’s not the part that scares me.  The part that scares me is that my audience knows what I’m talking about.

            These aren’t the readers from, say, the Huffington Post, still convinced that calling snorting cocaine an addiction is just a get-out-of-jail-free card for willful misbehavior.  No, I will be speaking alongside the very people who schooled me in my own recovery.  John Bradshaw, the dean of the codependency movement, will be there.  Remember the ‘80s?  Remember your inner child?  I still have the teddy bear.  Dr. Patrick Carnes, the man who wrote that first daring book about sex addiction, OUT OF THE SHADOWS, will be there.  I quote him extensively in LOVE ADDICT: SEX, ROMANCE AND OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS, not because I’m lazy, but because he’s the man with the research.  I’ve got what you call empirical data — a.k.a., been there, done that.

            And that, it was pointed out to me, is my strength.  It’s exactly what I do have to offer this audience of professionals, who may have all the data in the world but no idea what it feels like to look at a guy who looks like the guy you like and feel your brain boil, expand and burst through your skull.  I was in therapy for years, jumping from one hopeless affair to the next, wrapping my arms around my knees and rocking my self to sleep night after night before the shrink finally said “I think you may be a love addict.”  The minute I read the characteristics of love addiction I snarked, “No duh!  Why didn’t you tell me this before?”  “I only just found out about it myself,” he replied.

            The workshop is for him.  Okay, not him specifically.  But for those like him with a client or patient or victim with a weird mental twist when it comes to sex and love affairs.  Otherwise smart, capable, successful, even-self-aware people who have a massive blind spot in this one area.  These therapists can’t help if they have a similar blind spot.  My job is to point out the red flags.  I will bring pictures.  Here’s a photo of My Big Gay Boyfriend - that should have been a clue.  Here’s a photo of Younger Man Number One, and Younger Man Number Two, followed by Married Man, followed by Guy Living Overseas, followed by Married Man Living Overseas,  followed by Younger Man Number Three… stop me any time.

            Please stop me any time.

Here’s why I love 30 Rock: Amid the show’s caricatures, cartoons and buffoons, they still manage to slip in a Temple Grandin porno pun.  They did go with the “rammed in” wordplay, and I would have riffed off “gangbang”… but each to their own poor taste.

 The point is, it served to remind me of HBO’s The Temple Grandin Story, about the austic animal behaviorist, and also of a fascinating blog I read on www.WrongPlanet.net about Aspberger’s Syndrome — one of many neurological hues on the autism spectrum — and how it relates to love addiction.

My research leads me to believe that, biochemically, love addiction is closer to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder than what most people would characterize as love.  If you read this blog, you already know that interaction of dopamine, oxcytocin and serotonin and what we think of as attraction, affection and attachment — or, for us slightly sicker souls, Lust, Limerence and Longing.  If the blog isn’t enough, I also have a book on the topic.

Turns out, the same neurochemicals play a role in Asperger’s Syndrome.  

“Research showed similarities between serotonin’s role in OCD and the role serotonin plays in neurochemical bonding, more commonly known as ‘love,’” wrote blogger Alexander Plank.  “You could say that the lovestruck couple going to prom together for the first time have actually fallen into OCD with each other.

“Serontonin is the chemical that plays a role in causing aspies to pursue their special interests, and similarly causes people with OCD to be obsessive or anxious. Certain levels of serotonin are also linked with the autistic tendency of ‘stimming.’” 

Plank continues by quoting the Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology,which published a study in 2003 entitled Oxytocin Infusion Reduces Repetitive Behaviors in Adults with Autistic and Asperger’s Disorders.  As the title indicates, researchers found that if you dose an autistic adult with oxytocin, he is less likely to do things like rocking, tapping, or counting,  This is what Plank calls stimming, and which I contend is hiding somewhere behind the love addict’s obsessive text messaging, drive-bys, or writing “Mrs. Davey Jones” 100 times in your notebook.

I think it also explains why I find Freecell computer solitaire so damn soothing.  All those lovely numbers piling up and floating off, mindless yet logical, click click click until that blessed mental dial tone… anyone with Asperger’s would recognize this as stimming behavior.  It’s no wonder that the most basic digital game outside of Pong still resident on Microsoft computers.  Observers have long surmised that Bill Gates has Asperger’s.  I have no idea whether he also has (and successfully controls) love addiction.

If he has, I would like some hints.  A research grant would also be nice; I’m dying to stick a bunch of  love addicts in an fMRI.  I would ask him for a new computer, as well, but I use a Mac.

Confidential to WellsFargoHomePage: LAA is a very small program; you may find more compatible SLAA or even Alanon meetings locally. Or group therapy.  Keep looking.  It’s worth the effort it takes to heal love addiction.  This disease hurts like hell; sometimes, it kills.

Well, this has been interesting.  As you may know, I’ve been blogging on the subject of love addiction for the Huffington Post recently.  Usually, my columns are ghettoed in the Women’s Section, garner 40 or 50 comments apiece, and sink into happy obscurity.  Last week, I wrote a piece I called “Portrait of the Love Addict as a Young Woman,” detailing some colorful behavior dating back to my college years.  It was a different time, the Seventies; the worst thing you could get from sex was crab lice, and cocaine wasn’t even officially habit-forming.  Even non-addicts racked up some serious notches on their bedposts.

HuffPo, in their marketing wisdom, headlined the blog “Why Sleeping With 75 Men Didn’t Make Me Promiscuous.”  Overnight, it got picked up by the AOL portal and has amassed, as of this morning, 741 comments.  I stopped reading after about 200. 

 Mostly they fall into three categories.  The first category is variations on the theme of “You go, girl!!”  Women should own their sexuality, said the women.  Screw the double standard; no one would call a man promiscuous with the same track record, said the women.  Can I have your phone number? said the men.

Apparently, lots of men read the Women’s Section.  Who knew?

The second category is variations of “You are, too!”  You may not recognize a slut when you see one, but I do and you’re It, said the women.  You poor thing, you must have horribly low self-esteem, said the women.  I want to marry a virgin, said the men.  Also, can I have your phone number?

The third theme is variations of “You are me!”  You told my story, said the women.  I always thought I was alone, said the women.  Love addiction doesn’t only happen to women, said the men.  That’s the target I was aiming for.

Themes 1,2 and 3 got into some lively debates with one another online.  So far, I have stayed out of the fray.  I was tempted to point out that, come on, it was a long time ago and that I am hardly  promoting this behavior; I equated it with lung cancer, fergawdsakes   But nothing I say is going to change anyone’s mind, after all, and what other people think of me is really none of my business.

So I say to Group 1, thank you for your support but the wheels fell off that toy a while ago.  What it was doing to me overpowered what it was doing for me.  

To Group 2, since you seem so darn worried about my health, my father’s feelings, and the example I’m setting for my daughters — I have never had an unwanted pregnancy or STD; my father is dead; and, my son doesn’t read my blogs. 

To Group #3: Welcome.  You are not alone.  There are resources like Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Patrick Carnes’ sex addiction website, Susan Peabody’s love addiction bulletin board, and more, to give you the nonjudgmental support and encouragement we all need to heal.

By the way: If you’re a guy who reads the AOL Women’s Section looking for sexy stories, then comes on to total strangers online — welcome, you’re not alone.  There are resources, like…

“I don’t care how long you’ve been clean and sober.  Drug addicts and alcoholics should not have handguns in the house.”  That advice was given to a roomful of clean and sober addicts and alcoholics, me among them, twentysomething years ago.  The advice-giver went on to say that addicts and alcoholics are by nature over-sensitive and over-reactive, and can’t trust ourselves not to make a lethal snap judgment.

 All these years later, science has proven her right.  The recent, much-publicized sibling study at Cambridge University demonstrated an inherited defect in the decision-making brain tissue of addict families.  It doesn’t matter whether or not the sibling is actually using drugs (although I would love to get a look at the “normal” sibling’s eating, smoking and gambling habits!) — some people are hard-wired for impulsivity.

We already knew that anecdotally, of course, but it’s always nice to see it in a controlled double-blind research paper. And as long as we’re applying it to handgun ownership, I don’t mind one way or the other, since I never felt the need to own a handgun.

But if we extend the science  — and we should, although even I don’t like where this is heading — sex and love addicts really shouldn’t be cruising online, either, whether in recovery or in active addiction.  Internet dating is not a good idea for any addict or alcoholic, really.  Here’s why:

Those of us with the genetic predisposition for addiction not only have quirky deciding brain cells, we also have quirky rewarding brain cells.  When these reward cells — the dopamine receptors — work poorly, you have trouble feeling pleasure.  So, impulsively and without much thought to the consequences thanks to Quirk A, addicts-in-training do things to increase our dopamine production.  Fast cars, maybe, or sky-diving.  Usually, it’s your basic sex, drugs and rock’n’roll.  Works great to increase dopamine production.  Sadly, all that nice positive feedback sets us up for some pretty negative habits.  

What has this got to do with online dating?  Novelty and anticipation stimulate dopamine production.  A lot.  Think about the gambler at the slot machine, compulsively pulling the handle because the expectation of a jackpot is so enthralling.  Or the rat in a Skinner box, tapping the lever in expectation of food.  How different is that from you clicking your way through QuickMatch on OK Cupid? 

“Next!  Next!  Next!”  This the happy cry of a brain feeding on hits of dopamine.  Which is fine, as long as you keep feeding it.  A neurochemical surge is invariably followed by a neurochemical withdrawal, followed by a craving, followed by another hit, followed by… yeah, you’re way ahead of me.  Be honest: How many years do you want to speed date?  

Don’t shoot me; I’m only the messenger.  You aren’t even supposed to have a handgun in the house, remember?

I’m now blogging for the Huffington Post.  Most of my entries can be found in the Women’s Section or on the HuffPo Sex & Love page.

Say nice things about them so Arianna will invite me back :-)

You’re expecting me to say that love addiction killed Whitney Houston, aren’t you?  When all you have is a hammer, after all, every problem looks like a nail.  My hammer is the addictive model of romantic fantasy.  I’m the one who said Amy Winehouse died of love addiction, that drug and alcohol dependence were her coping mechanism for an underlying problem.  I said that Etta James — who wrote “I’d rather go blind/ Than see you with another girl” — was the vocal standard-bearer for the love addict.

And now there’s Whitney Houston, simultaneously a transcendent world-class talent… and a hope-to-die drug addict.  She first gained fame thanks to an Eliza Doolittle/Professor Higgins relationship with record executive Clive Davis, who famously locked a roomful of music critics in a studio and made them listen to her debut album from start to finish.  Later, her insane marriage to Bobby Brown played out in the tabloids and on reality TV.  Still, her most destructive love affair was with the pipe.

Scratch an alcoholic and you’ll usually find a codependent, which is the nicer way of saying love junkie.  And crack addiction is alcoholism… well, on crack.  An addict in recovery will tell you that drugs and alcohol were a solution before they became a problem, a way to soothe an existential dis-ease that permeates the very marrow of our bones.  A neuroscientist will tell you that cocaine activates the same chemical “reward cascade” in the brain as being in love. 

When Kenny Rogers sang about “love or something like it,” he probably didn’t realize that “something like it” sells by the $20 rock.  But, chemically, it does.

Which brings us in a roundabout way to Dolly Parton, who wrote Whitney’s signature hit “I Will Always Love You.”  It sounds like just the sort of pop song I decry, a desperate declaration of undying enmeshment.  Pop music has always specialized in the longing and the loss; anything between “I want you so bad” and “I miss you so much” is generally overlooked by the Top 40.  Not so “I Will Always Love You.”

“I hope life treats you kind/ And I hope you have all you’ve dreamed of/ And I wish to you, joy and happiness/ But above all this, I wish you love.”  A sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous may recognize this sentiment as the template for a Resentment Prayer.  When we simmer with anger towards another — and who isn’t angry at their ex? — we’re supposed to pray for them to have all the gifts we would wish for ourselves.

Personally, I usually preface the prayer with “Okay, God, you and I both know I really want him to eat glass and die.  But….”

“I wish you joy and happiness… I wish you love” is not the wounded cry of the love junkie.  That’s the prayer of a healthy person who can separate and remain whole.  It was written by a woman who’s been in a “monogamish” relationship with the same man since 1964.

So, yes, I think Whitney Houston was addicted to love and I think it contributed to her early and tragic death.  But she leaves us with a transcendent soundtrack of recovery.  It is possible to let someone go with love, instead of leaving claw marks all over them.

(Photo by Jim Steinfeldt c1987)

            Here’s an old AA story for you: A man falls in a well (I told you it was old; who gets water from a well any more?). He’s trapped down there in the cold and dark.  He calls out for help.  A priest passes by, hears his cries, leans over into the well and asks, “What’s the matter, son?”  Imagine a dramatic boomy echo on the dialog. “I’m stuck in this damn well!” yells the man.  “That’s no call for bad language,” says the priest, “but I’ll pray for you.”  And off he goes. The guy is getting steamed.

            Next, a social worker passes by.  “What’s the matter, friend?” “What does it look like?  I’m at the bottom of this well.”  “Aha!  I’ve got just what you need,” says the social worker.  She tosses a blanket and a length of rope down the well, and walks off with a smile.  The guy is really pissed off now.

            Along comes a doctor.  “Do you have a problem, sir?”  “Fucking A I have a problem!  I’m stuck in a well.”  “Are you anxious? Worried? Can’t relax?”  ”Whadda you think?”  “This should fix you up,” says the doc, and tosses a prescription for tranquilizers into the hole.

            It’s getting darker.  It’s getting colder.  The man considers hanging himself with the stupid rope, but there’s nothing to attach it to.  Finally, a new face appears at the rim of the well.  It’s a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.  “Looks like you’re stuck in a well,”  he calls down to the man.  “Brilliant deduction,” says the trapped man, now thoroughly disillusioned and angry at the world.  Unexpectedly, the AA member jumps down into the well.

            “Are you insane?  Now we’re both at the bottom of a goddam well!” shouts the man.  “Maybe so,” says the sober alcoholic.  “But I’ve been down this well before.  And I know the way out.”

            The point of the story — and I’m sure you’re a step ahead of me on this — is that no one can help you the way someone can who’s been where you’ve been.  Professionalism and expertise are great, but there’s nothing that compares to the deep identification you feel with someone’s who’s struggled your struggle.  It’s so easy not to take advice from someone, even good advice, when you can get up in their grill yelling “You don’t know what it’s like!”… and be correct.  

            This is one reason 12-steps programs have no leaders, no facilitators, no administrators, and millions of success stories.  It’s why Weight Watchers counselors have lost a lot of weight, and why the best treatment centers are started by former addicts and alcoholics, even if they do have lousy credit. 

            Which brings me to Broken Heart RX, from whom I recently received a press release.  According to the publicist, “Broken Heart RX is the first ever break-up, love addiction and emotional trauma support system that includes a proprietary blend nutraceutical supplement, a 30-day email support program and a referral network of experts created to help guide people to recovery. No one wants to feel crippled by a broken heart and now they don’t have to.”

            Indeed, in shades of the Schick-Schadel weekend recovery program for alcoholics, Broken Heart RX will, for the low low price of $34.95, provide you with a 30-day supply of their vitamin supplement, a month of “inspirational emails,” a 10-mninute phone consultation and a referral to a local therapist “if desired.”

            Ten minutes?  Have you ever talked anyone out of their fetal position on the floor in ten minutes?

            To be fair, 35 bucks isn’t going to break anyone’s piggy-bank and the nutritional supplement — full of St. John’s Wort, magnesium and amino acids — won’t hurt you and might even help stabilize your mood.  But the only way a 10-minute phone call is going to anything towards curing love addiction is using the time to recommend my book, Susan Peabody’s Addiction to Love bulletin board, and few years in 12-step meetings.

            I say this as someone who has tried every prayer, every prescription, every rope and blanket.  There’s no shortcut out of the well.

Craving is a hunger so deep no amount of ANYTHING will truly fill it.  But we love addicts keep trying, and trying, and trying…

The main criteria for labeling something an addiction are the phenomena of Craving, Tolerance and Withdrawal. Some find it hard to get their heads around the concept of tolerance in sex and love addiction. I don’t.