Dr. Margaret Cary, who wrote the foreword to LOVE ADDICT: SEX, ROMANCE AND OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS, often sends me articles she thinks I’ll find interesting. Research papers on the genetics of addiction, usually, or lactose intolerance.  This week, she sent a piece from THE WEEK about advances in epigenetics.

        Epigenetics — literally “on top of genetics” — is the recently discovered process by which our DNA blueprint will express, or not express, itself as a genetic command.  Our genes are malleable, not immutable; they adjust and alter throughout our lives, This explains why identical twins become less identical over time.  Science has lately confirmed what many have long suspected: our environment and our behavior can literally change us to the core.  It now appears that everything from childhood hugs to drinking from plastic bottles can turn our genes on and off.

        One simple example: Two siblings inherit a genetic predisposition to lung cancer.  The one who smokes… gets lung cancer.   How many times have we heard about the hardy old sod who smoked until she was 93, healthy as a horse until she got run over by a truck?  (Okay, maybe not that specifically….)  You need both the gene and the catalyst to activate it to get the outcome.

        So, how does that apply to love addiction?  When I was researching my book, I encountered two distinct and seemingly mutually exclusive schools of thought on the causes and conditions for sex and love addiction.  The neuroscientists say it’s all biology.  They point to brain scans and statistical studies that clearly demonstrate addicts are wired differently from non-addicts.  We have more white area in our gray matter.  We produce different quantities of different neurotransmitters.  We have specific, quantifiable genetic variations.

        The psychologists, on the other hand, tell me it’s all caused by childhood trauma.  You were sexually abused as a child?  You grow up to be a sex addict.  You were emotionally abandoned as a baby?  You grow up to be a love addict.  Addiction is the great psychic hole caused by parental abandonment, a hole the addict seeks to fill with food or love or alcohol or cigarette smoke… whatever you got, baby.

        Nature or nurture?  It’s hardly a new argument, but maybe there is a new solution.  The answer is C: All of the above.  For example, according to a 2009 study reported by the University of Utah, “Child abuse leaves an epigenetic mark on the brain. In a comparison of suicide victims who were abused or not, only the abused victims had an epigenetic tag on the GR [glucocorticoid receptor] gene. Interestingly, the GR gene receives a similar epigenetic tag in rat pups who receive low quality care from their mothers.”

        In other words, hit your kid or forget to feed your furry rat baby, and you leave permanent changes on its double helix.  Changes which may lead to self-destructive behavior. Changes which can be inherited by the next generation, by the way.

        So go ahead, blame childhood trauma if you want.  Or blame neurochemistry.  But epigenetics tells us that you need both the gasoline and the match to start the fire.  It’s a concept those crusty old alcoholics who started the 12-step programs came up with back in the 1930s: Addiction is an allergy of the body, an obsession of the mind, and a malady of the spirit.

In my experience, Alanon is a great help if you find yourself obsessing on your significant other’s poor driving habits. It doesn’t do as much if you find yourself obsessing on driving your car through your married lover’s living room window.

It’s quite common to suddenly find ourselves face-to-face with our Affection Deficit Disorder only after stripping away all the mind-altering substances we were using to cover up the existential pain of it all.  Amend that: Mind-altering substances and behaviors; overeating, gambling and smoking work perfectly well on that front, thank you.  

Sex and love addiction are codependency on crack. That’s why the S programs — SAA, SCA and SLAA — are currently the fastest growing of the 12-step programs. Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA or ACOA) couldn’t hurt, and I’m glad it’s serving you, but I have always found that the deep identification of fellow sufferers that formed the basis of AA back in 1935 is the best route to healing. Hence, SLAA.

Here’s what the old farts who wrote the Big Book (I always think of them as old farts; they were, of course, quite young at the time) figured out, based on their own experience and observation: Addiction is an allergy of the body, an obsession of the mind, and a malady of the spirit. This has since confirmed by modern science. To heal, we need to treat mind, body and soul.

You can work the triangle with therapy, yoga and volunteerism. Or church, charity and medication. For me, the 12-step model of recovery, unity and service addresses all three damaged areas in one neat package. It’s available all over the planet, it’s open every day, and it’s free. 

For someone who is in between health insurers, that looks darn good to me.

Dr. Margaret Cary, who wrote the Foreword to LOVE ADDICT: SEX, ROMANCE AND OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS, passed along a couple of interesting articles, and I pass them along to you.

First, the New York Times published a piece by Richard A. Friedman, professor of clinical psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College, called I Heart Unpredictable Love, about how some people (guess who?) are neurochemically drawn to inconstant lovers.  Dr. Cary smiley-faced, “You could have told them this years ago.”

Then, from the same source — both Dr. Cary and the Times — is a piece by Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. New Love: A Short Shelf Life again connects the dots between surprise, lust and dopamine.  The professor also offers advice on how to keep a long-term relationship fresh — in case any of you are in long-term relationships, and somehow I suspect that’s not too many of you.

Check ‘em out.

Ticker as in tick-tock.  Why is my watch so often set on The Perfect Future?  In this latest Huffington Post blog, I explore the concept that our problem isn’t always gravitating to Mr. Wrong.  It’s gravitating to Mr. Blank Canvas and assuming he’s Mr. Right … based on no evidence whatsoever.

And we’re back.  Still working my way through the pile of reader questions from JEZEBEL.  Hoping to have it completed before October, when I will be the Guest Expert of the Month at www.AddictionLand.com (“Easy to get in, but can you get out?”) and the floodgates will open once again.  

So far, the top contenders for my Dear Abby/Ann Landers’ Evil Other Twin name are: MISSED MANNERS, ANN BLUNDERS, DEAR ABBY-NORMAL and the one up there in the header, DOWNTOWN ABBY.  Feel free to add your own.

Minnesota 2012 asks:  Why do I continue to have sex with someone who doesn’t care about me? I know it’s a waste of time, I know I deserve so much better, blah, blah, blah - This doesn’t change that I still do it. Willingly. What is it about the sex act that makes a woman forego all logical self-respect?

It’s not the sex act; it’s the neurochemicals produced by the anticipation of sex (dopamine) and the cuddling afterwards (oxytocin) — not to mention the barrage of endorphins during the delightful bits in between.  And it’s not all women; it’s you.  Also me, and a bunch of us who are addicted to said feelgood brain chemicals.

So while the logical and rational front brain is saying “This guy doesn’t care about me, it’s a waste of time, I know I deserve better,” the lizard brain tucked way in the back is saying “Oh baby, oh baby. harder faster more.”  It’s a contest the lizard brain will always win… unless you stack the deck.  The process of  recovery is learning how to stack the deck: a supportive group, a counselor, contrary action, bottom lines/abstinence, blah blah blah.

You gain self-respect when you behave in a way that respects yourself.  I have to act myself into right thinking, because I can never think myself into right acting.  Stupid lizard brain always gets in the way.

Woman 23 asks: I would love to hear your thoughts on jealousy, open relationships, etc..

When I was in the throes of love addiction, I was pathologically jealous.  I was the kind of girl who would read his journals and freak out over women he was with before he ever met me.  When I was getting clean from cocaine, I gave up four months of sobriety because I saw the guy I liked dancing with another girl.  (I say “girl,” but I was 35 at the time and assume she was about the same.  This isn’t the junior prom we’re talking about, here.)  I never actually cut up anyone’s clothes or burned his car — I know women who have done both — but I have fantasized about it. 

I’m not like that any more, thank God.  I wouldn’t be with a guy I didn’t trust, for one, and I also know that having a man’s attention 100% of the time is not the stairway to heaven.  That being said, open relationships are not for me.  I don’t poke sleeping dogs with sharp sticks, and love addiction is a very large, very dangerous dog.  I could pretend I had no problem with polyamory, either out of sheer denial or in vain hopes of converting the guy to monogamy, but for me that’s just a heartache looking for a place to happen.

And Precious Little of That asks: How do you convince a stubborn Baby Boomer to get into therapy when they don’t want to see a “head-shrinker?” I’m asking for…um…the child of a friend.

You’re singing my song, sister!  I tried to get my hypercontrolling, manic-depressive, gambling addict mother into therapy, into Gamblers Anonymous, into Alanon, into anything that might help her heal.  For probably 20 years.  Not only didn’t she go, but she resented that I judged and criticized her all the time and kept wanting her to change.

Kind of like I resented her all my life for judging and criticizing me, and forever wanting me to change.  Go figure. 

In the end, we can never change anything but our own actions and our own attitude.  The weird thing is, that changes everyone around us.

In your… um, friend’s case, I recommend being as happy as possible and, if asked, credit your tiny, shrunken head.

Erin Gloria asks:I once read that your romantic sophistication/development as a person ends when a long period of never being single begins — say, if a woman spent ages 20-3o hopping from boyfriend to boyfriend and suddenly finds herself single, when she tries to go out and date, she’ll approach it like a 20-year-old would.

What would your experience say to that? Do you believe that constant relationships impede personal development? Did it impede yours?

For most people, I credit this more to acculturation than personality development.  Dating  habits are formed when you were last dating, so you’ll revert to that until you learn new habits.  Other than creating some awkwardness that will make cute dinnertable chit-chat on your next internet date, I don’t see it as a big issue.

In the world of addicts (AdditionLand!  Easy to get in, but can you get out?), however, it’s a different story.  An addict’s personality development and life coping skills stop when they start using.  For most of us, this is smack dab in mid-adolescence because, after all,  there’s nothing to make you need a drink like puberty.  So we begin our “sober dating” life at 30 or 40 or 50… with all the romantic sophistication of a 15-year-old. 

This is past awkward to the point of potentially lethal, like underage driving.  We should all get learner’s permits. 

Publicly exposing yourself the way I have — the unvarnished truth way, that is, as opposed to the Chat Roulette way — also exposes a gal to certain risks.  When my blog posts get picked up by AOL, for instance, six or seven hundred strangers leave angry comments accusing me of being an immoral, selfish slut.  And calling me “selfish” really wounds me. 

I just remind myself that these are the same women who cheered for the adulteress Carrie Bradshaw to get back together with the adulterous Big, and that they’re probably not mad at me in the first place.  They’re mad at the husband who betrayed them/ mother who abandoned them/ father who broke their heart.  I try not to take it personally.

Most of all, I remind myself that they’re not who I’m cracking my chest open for in the first place.  I’m doing it for people like Miss J of… let’s just say a popular Midwestern state, from whom I received the kind of letter that makes the ALL-CAPS SCREEDS on HuffPo worthwhile.

J. says: I felt compelled to write to tell you I just finished reading LOVE ADDICT from cover to cover for the third time.  It was — I guess you could say a relief to learn that there is a name and explanation for what has been my so-called “lovelife.” 

I am single again at 50.  I have had  four marriages plus countless engagements and exes in my past.  Although I’m not an athlete or rock star, my number of sex partners are closer to the four-digit number than the three digit.  I would never say I was a real beauty — I was just good looking (and sexy) enough to catch almost any eye I wanted, and catch I did.  I was a master at flirting and the high I got from it would match the best high from any drug around.  My friends compared me to Blanche on The Golden Girls and, more recently, Samantha on Sex and the City.  I never apologized for it.  

That was me.  I could tell you about the “love of my life” — he had a wife and three children.  Or the gorgeous lifeguard on St. Thomas, almost 30 years younger than me.  At least I sent that one away!  I have slowed down, a little, but it’s still there.  That never-ending quest for the feeling of infatuation, whether short-lived or not…. there was no name for it - until now.  

I am going to Alaska this summer.  Am I going to stare at Mt. McKinley?  Not so much.  I’m more excited at the prospects of saucy Alaskan men to flirt with, you betcha.  I know that might sound desperate, but I shouldn’t be desperate.  I have a job, many friends, a close family, and a beautiful daughter… even a grandson that my heart bursts with love for.  Yet the addiction for that feeling of infatuation, or as you say “limerence,” still consumes me.

Thank you again for a very enlightening, funny, and well written book.  Best to you - J.

Okay, maybe it isn’t as wholesome as the math teacher who does it for the excitement a kid feels when he finally understands long division.  Or as graceful as the ballet teacher who stumbles under the weight of two-dozen long-stemmed thank-you roses.  But when someone puts down my book and announces “My name is J. and, damn it, I’m a Love Addict…” well, my eyes just well up with tears.

What can I tell you?  I’m an immoral, sentimental slut.

Las Vegas is a counterintuitive place to hold a conference of substance abuse counselors in the first place.  Choosing St. Patrick’s Day weekend to do it is total cognitive dissonance.  Still, if it weren’t for the lingering pall of cigarette smoke — the entire state smells like a stale ashtray — and the lingering sting of nasty comments directed toward me on the Huffington Post, I’d say the trip was a hoot and a half.

            There was a lot of interest in my workshop on love addiction, if only because there’s a big mushy overlap between people in the “helping professions” and people in the “codependency addictions.”  Plenty of card-carrying (or, in this case, badge-wearing) therapists are themselves romance junkies.  There were also plenty of attendees interested in the workshops on sex addiction, because so many more people are being identified as sex addicts these days… and not all of them self-identified, either.  Parents nationwide are throwing their hands in the air and throwing their teenage boys into sex rehab.   

            From the Fall of Rome until the Rise of the Internet, anyone desirous of a sexual encounter had to first raise cash money, then leave the house, and risk embarrassment, exposure and even arrest to meet his or her fleshly needs.  Those barriers to entry no longer exist.  In the digital age, all anyone needs is a smartphone and, voila, hot and cold running sexual fantasies 24/7.   For many teenage boys, this often translate as, well, hot and cold running sexual fantasies 24/7.

            You can’t fault the parents for freaking out.  In their workaday world, someone who spends all day every day beating off to porn probably would be a sex addict.  In their kids’ virtual world, there’s a 94% chance it’s just a combination of curiosity, hormones, and habit.   It’s the 6% with the genetically addictive brains that I deal with, and those brains don’t usually even resolve themselves until about the age of 25.

            Here’s an example.  One of the things that traditional mental health centers do that drives me crazy is what they call “harm reduction.” Get the patient to do less of the bad behavior.  But anyone from the 12-step recovery world knows that telling an alcoholic to drink less, or a cocaine addict to just use on weekends, is useless.  Addiction is, sorry to report, an all-or-nothing proposition.  

            And yet the counselors at the conference did have some success getting kids to cut down their hours of internet porn.  My favorite story was about the kid who was persuaded to switch from porn sites to Angry Birds.  He really just wanted to zone out on the internet; the digital content was less an issue than the digital delivery.

             Harm reduction works great if you’ve picked up a bad habit.  Therapy works great if you’ve developed self-destructive behavior patterns.  But if you’re an addict, one of the lucky 6% with a chronic and relapsing brain disease characterized by the compulsive use of a mind-altering substance or behavior with negative life consequences, the most you can hope for is that you’ll switch to a different addiction and get your parents off your back.  

            Hardly anyone ever nags an exercise addict.

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.

Exactly what hole are you trying to fill? I mean that in the most existential sense, I promise. 

Do you see yourself in this description?  If you do, don’t worry.  You’re not alone.