In his book “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, “David Kessler — former head of the Food and Drug Administration — posits that the modern food industry intentionally layers fat, sugar and salt in its products to trigger our craving for more food.

“They aren’t selling just any commodity,” says Kessler. “They’ve designed highly stimulating products, substances that excessively activate the reward circuits of the brain, and consumers come back for more.” The end result is a population in a desperate, lifelong battle to control its ballooning weight… much like Kessler himself.

This is the scientific basis for banning 64-ounce sodas in New York City movie theaters: junk food doesn’t just take advantage of food addict. It turns us into food addicts. Well, sugary food isn’t the only easily available, highly stimulating product on the market with a risk of triggering obsessive and destructive behavior. Internet pornography is the junk food of sex and love addiction. Maybe Mayor Bloomberg should google “free streaming porn” next time he enjoys his 8-ounce glass of unsweetened iced tea. Internet porn is to monogamous sex as salted caramel ice cream is to baked chicken and a green salad.

Now, I am no more anti-sex — or anti-porn — than I am anti-food. Food and sex are both vital to human survival, and curiosity about human sexuality (e.g., images of people having sex) is normal and healthy. The question I propose is, is salted caramel ice cream really food? And is Live Cam Teen Asian Double Penetration Party really sex?

It used to be, sex outside marriage and French fried potatoes were both rare and special treats. One involved ruining a pot and wasting a load of cooking oil. The other involved spending cash and risking public exposure, if not actual arrest. Today you can get both fries at MacDonalds and sexual fantasies on your smartphone 24/7. No wasted oil, no being rousted by the Vice Squad. For most teenage boys, access to pornography 24/7 generally means pornography, 24/7. But there’s a larger problem: the nature of the sexual fantasies themselves. Like the complex, supercharged flavors of pretzel M&M’s or chocolate-covered bacon, the intensity and variety of pornographic images available online go right for the brain’s reward circuits, creating that instant gratification feedback loop that easily turns into an addictive groove.

Recent studies show that watching pornography stimulates more brain activity in the dopamine receptors than having actual sex does. Dopamine is the neurochemical that signals not just pleasure and gratification, but the anticipation of pleasure and gratification, which is often even more exciting. (For me, sorry to report, the anticipation is almost always more exciting than the event. Whatever the event may be…)

As rock star John Mayer told Playboy magazine in a revealing interview, “It’s a new synaptic pathway. Internet pornography has absolutely changed my generation’s expectations. You wake up in the morning, open a thumbnail page, and it leads to a Pandora’s box of visuals. There have been days when I saw 300 vaginas before I got out of bed.”

Mayer may not be speaking for his entire generation, but he certainly speaks for the percentage who have gorged themselves on the junk food of porn to the point of clinical sex addiction. Maybe you are (or know someone who is) one of them.

How do you know when you’ve become an addict? Mayer describes his own invisible line pretty well: “You’re looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish. Twenty seconds ago you thought that photo was the hottest thing you ever saw, but you throw it back and continue your shot hunt and continue to make yourself late for work.”

Addiction: A chronic and relapsing brain disease characterized by compulsive use of a mind-altering substance despite negative life consequences. When you continue to do it (whatever it is) despite the fact that it makes you late for work… your spouse leaves you… you feel ashamed and dirty… it costs money you don’t have… this is what we call negative life consequences. I don’t care if the mind-altering substance is ingested or if you manufacture it in your brain by masturbating to pornography.

Addiction is a hunger that can never be satisfied, and junk food will never truly satisfy your hunger. Both the food and porn industries know this, and they are not above using it to their advantage. Nothing is more profitable than a consistent demand. Why else do we get ink jet printers, cartridge razors… and the Kardashians?

Imagine for a moment that you went to a movie.  The movie was about an alcoholic who wanted a bottle of whiskey.

That’s it.  That’s the whole plot.

He gets close to his scotch, becomes thirsty, mishaps keep him from it, and he hurts other humans, damages them in his obsessive need to get to his scotch.  He encounters huge obstacles.  But through wit, charm, and deceit, he at last secures it, and drinks it down.

Is that a happy ending? 

That’s the beginning of a blog post on “Addiction and Relationships” at www.RiparianChurch.com by a fellow called Otter.  Yet, notes the Otter, isn’t that the plot of every romantic comedy every filmed?  And more than a few supernatural dramas, we might add.  Unlike any other form of intoxication, the giddy high of romance is never condemned, only celebrated.  Obtaining the object of obsession is the goal, and when that goal is reached —- “kissed and kissed often, by someone who knows how” (to use the G-rated Gone With the Wind wording) – bluebirds sing and the end credits roll.

Now imagine those soft-focus sunsets accompanying a scene of the ingénue shooting heroin.  The euphoric neurological response is identical, after all.  But no.  Leonardo diCaprio finding ecstasy with Kate Winslett in Titanic, we like.  Leonardo diCaprio finding ecstasy with smack in The Basketball Diaries, not so much.  Never mind it’s the romance that actually proved fatal.

Popular culture glorifies only one addiction, the addiction to love.  There are no feel-good movies about anorexia.  Drugstore cowboys and cocaine kings do not get any happy endings.  Even the shopaholics in Sex and the City knew their spending habits were dangerous, no matter how deep their denial about their romantic lives.  

I realize that I am powerless to be hold back the tide of songs and movies celebrating addictive love, so I’ve decided to do the next best thing:  I’m going to even the playing field.  Better yet, we’re going to even the playing field.  We’re going to come up with some titles praising the less-lauded addictions out there.  I’ll start.

“I Can’t Live, If Living is Without Booze”: a full-throated power ballad about an alcoholic and his Jack Daniels.

Speed: a documentary about the daring backyard chemists who mix up methamphetamine in the washtub.

“I Wanna Hold Your Hair”: a classic tune about a bulimic and the loyal friend who keeps her ponytail out of the toilet. 

Codependence Day: a big-budget special effects movie about siblings with mushy boundaries.

“The Gambler”: this time, the country ditty ends with the old guy winning the railroad in a card game.

We close with a musical medley to nicotine junkies everywhere: “Every Breath I Hack”/”When Smoke Gets in Your Lungs”/”You Light Up My Pipe”

Now it’s your turn.  Go!

THEY’RE ALREADY AT IT:

Britt suggests:  Along Came Xanax….My Best Friend’s Needle….The Wedding Drinker….When Heroin Met Sally….

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…

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.

I let two calls go to voicemail this evening.  The first was from Minnesota, so it was probably Senator Al Franken’s campaign office asking for money (dude, you already got elected; let it go) and the other was from one of those fake numbers that’s probably someone calling via Skype to sell me prescription drugs from India, which is a mean thing to do to a recovering drug addict.

     The point of the story, though, is not the insanity of our cash-mad political system or the lure of gray market Ambien.  The point is that I didn’t pick up the phone.  

     In the past, I might have convinced myself that the caller from Minnesota could have been that cute guy I met on that trip to St. Paul that time.  Or reminded myself that the Australian bodybuilder I once dated would call on Skype.  The love addict gremlin that lives in my reptile brain could always come up with some reason to grab for the phone and anticipate the mail. 

     My insanity is, if nothing else, optimistic.

     I think the quickest way to spot a sex and love addict is to see how easy he or she is to reach.  Sex and love addicts leave forwarding addresses.  We transfer our calls to our cell phones.  We leave word where we can be found at any hour of the day or night.  God forbid that our soulmate should try to contact us and not be able to!  Somewhere in the back of every love addict’s head is the fantasy that Prince Charming is out there somewhere, and you never know if today is the day he’s going to reach out and touch you.  Maybe this is the morning your unrequited crush will realize you were The One all along.  You never know. 

     Yes, people are more wired today than they were only a few years ago, and you can tell me you’re glued to your devices purely for business purposes.  But in your heart, you know what call you’re expecting.  And every time the caller isn’t your true love, but just another fundraiser from Minnesota or telemarketer from Bangalore, doesn’t your heart sink a little?  It fills every day with a parade of disappointment and unmet expectation.  No wonder love addicts get depressed.

     In my book, it’s a signpost of recovery for any sex and love addict to not pick up a phone.  Prince Charming can leave a damn message. 

I had emergency root canal surgery yesterday.  I tell you that, first, to make you go “awwww, poor baby” and feel sorry for me and, second, to explain why I had a wackadoodle Harlequin Romance dream last night

Here’s the connection: As a former drug addict, I avoid all mind-altering substances when humanly possible.  As a root canal patient, I will take a painkiller as prescribed.  The endodontist sent me home with a temporary filling and a handful of Vicodin.  Now, I haven’t had a drink or a street drug in more than 20 years (23 years, 7 months, and 13 days, to be precise) and one hydrocodone probably isn’t going to send me to the nearest bar or dope dealer.  But it can — and did — trigger my addiction.  I had a love addict slip dream.

Clean and sober addicts and alcoholics know what a slip dream (or “using dream”) is. It’s when you don’t actually drink or use drugs, but you have such vivid dreams about it that you wake up thinking you did.  Slip dreams are pretty common early in recovery, and tend to lighten up over time.  But when I quit smoking, I kept dreaming about snorting cocaine.  And when I swore off married men, I found myself dreaming about smoking cigarettes.  Just another day in the life of that cosmic whack-a-mole game that is addiction.

Last night I came down off Vicodin, and I dreamed a fairytale love-at-first-sight romance with… okay, the details are fuzzy.  I remember he was tall and tousled with a golden tan — I think he was the handsome heir to a Greek shipping fortune or something equally exotic.  There was a beach, and horses.  What I do remember is that it felt sexy and sunny and warm and I never wanted to leave.  We were in love and it was utter bliss.  It felt like… Vicodin.

My subconscious simply can’t tell the difference between one addiction and another, an empirical observation which is currently being confirmed by hard science.  In Nick Kristof’s New York Times op-ed column last week, he talks about the latest research by neuroscientist David J. Linden in a book The Compass of Pleasure.  The brain’s pleasure circuitry, Linden found, is all interconnected. Writes Kristof:

“Brain scans suggest that everything from sugar to sex lights up the brain’s pleasure circuitry. These all can have neurological consequences that correspond to what we think of as addiction. Lab rats can develop an addiction to exercise on a wheel. Orgasm, in men and women alike, lights up the pleasure centers much like cocaine… Gambling and overeating can be addictive behaviors, analogous to narcotics addictions. In particular, foods with sugar or fat seem to trigger cravings that then rewire the brain’s pleasure circuitry to amplify that craving.

“One study found that rats fed foods like cheesecake and chocolate showed differences in brain circuitry after just 40 days. The impact was that the pleasure centers of their brains were numbed, so they apparently needed to gobble even more cheesecake to generate the same satisfaction. Whether it’s sugar or heroin, the body steadily ratchets up the quantity necessary to provide the same high.

“Cravings are complex phenomena with strong ties to brain chemistry and genetics. Maybe that’s why President Obama has shown astounding self-discipline in his political career while enduring a long struggle with nicotine.”

Neurological Whack-A-Mole.  It explains why Ethlie pops a Vicodin and dreams about Prince bloody Charming.  But it doesn’t make me like it.

I quit smoking 21 years ago.  No applause, please; you don’t congratulate someone for escaping a burning building.  But I am rather pleased with myself for Ethlie’s Three Tips for Quitting Smoking.

1. The craving to smoke will pass, whether you pick up a cigarette or not.

2. You never need to be 100% willing quit smoking.  You only need to be 51% willing.

3. Quitting smoking doesn’t make you angry.  You were already angry; you just didn’t notice.

What does this have to do with love addiction?  Everything.  Because while most of us suffering from affection deficit disorder think we have an emotional problem, we actually have a physical problem.  Sex and  romance — even the anticipation or illusion of sex or romance — create a neurochemical “reward cascade” in my head that is as addictive to me as nicotine was.  Dopamine, oxytocin, PEA, GABA… my brain adores that stuff, and it doesn’t cost me seven bucks a pack and bad breath, either.

Problem is, when the reward cascade stops cascading, it creates withdrawal symptoms every bit as uncomfortable as a nicotine fit. 

All love addicts (and most high school students) know what withdrawal looks like and feels like.  It looks like you on the floor in a fetal position, generally curled up around a telephone.  It feels halfway between stomach flu and chemotherapy — and I know one woman who, having survived both cancer and heartbreak, swears the heartbreak was worse.  Withdrawal looks like suicidal clinical depression, and is frequently treated as if it were clinical depression, but I rarely see that approach succeed because withdrawal is not depression. Withdrawal is withdrawal.

What does succeed?  The same things that work for quitting smoking.

1. The craving for him/her will pass, whether you pick up the phone or not. 

2. You never need to be 100% willing to get over him/her; you only need to be 51% willing. 

3. Not having him/her in your life isn’t what made you feel sad, empty and alone.  You already felt sad, empty and alone; you just didn’t notice.