Halpern and Peele have a point. Obsessing about a person or a relationship is symptomatic of being sex and love addicted. To clarify this point further, let me explain how the addiction process works. It all begins with what seems like an innocent attraction to someone, which quickly turns into an infatuation (idealizing  someone you don’t know very well). The potential love addict, who is insecure and hungry for love, takes this infatuation much too seriously and easily becomes blinded by the exhilarating effects of “love at first sight.” (By “blinded” I mean incapable of being practical or unable to avoid potentially unhealthy situations.)

Once Cupid has hit his mark, the soon-to-be love addict quickly becomes excessively preoccupied with the loved one. Every other aspect of his or her life becomes less important than this new lover, and endless hours are spent fantasizing about how the relationship is going to develop. Of course, to a certain extent we all go through this when we fall in love, but with the sex and love addicted addict there is no holding back or common sense. Responsible behavior flies out the window and everybody and everything takes a back seat to this new relationship. (For those who think this is normal behavior, think again. Even if romantic love is blossoming, it is not healthy to turn your life upside down and become a slave to your feelings.)

At about this point, sex and love addicted addicts will project onto the loved one all of their dreams for eternal happiness via the reinforcing effects of romantic love. Of course, someone who is emotionally secure realizes that one person cannot be totally responsible for another person’s happiness, but love addicts (who are looking for someone to “fix” them) don’t comprehend this idea, and they proceed to pin all of their hopes for happiness on this one person. (To one degree or another, we all fall victim to the illusion that someone else is responsible for our happiness, but love addicts cling to this idea as if it were a life or death situation. They are totally convinced that their happiness lies in the hands of someone else and life for them is just an endless search for the holder of their dreams.)

Once the sex and love addicted addict has projected all of his or her dreams for happiness onto the new lover (unconsciously making the decision that only this person can make him or her happy), the dependency stage of the addiction is triggered. That is when its time to seek professional help.

What is sex and love addiction?

Sex addicts lack the ability to control or postpone sexual feelings and actions, with the need for arousal often replacing the need for intimacy. Eventually, thrill seeking becomes more important in sex and love addiction than family, career, even personal health and safety.

The sex addict follows a routine or ritual leading to acting out on desires, and is then fraught by feelings of denial then shame, despair, and confusion. Sex and love addiction aims at restoring balance to people lives. It involves removing distortions of the mind that are created to avoid pain of trauma and other emotional issues. Importantly sex and love addiction treatment may have many different faces to it like prostitution, pornography addiction and so on. Underneath it all the issues however remain the same. People suffering from sex and love addiction can’t, don’t realize, or don’t know better ways to handle their emotional needs. SLA as sex and love addiction is often called is often referred to as intimacy disorder for this very reason.

Characteristics of being sex and love addicted

1. Having few healthy boundaries, we become sexually involved with and/or emotionally attached to people without knowing them.
2. Fearing abandonment and loneliness, we stay in and return to painful, destructive relationships, concealing our dependency needs from ourselves and others, growing more isolated and alienated from friends and loved ones, ourselves, and God.
3. Fearing emotional and/or sexual deprivation, we compulsively pursue and involve ourselves in one relationship after another, sometimes having more than one sexual or emotional liaison at a time.
4. We confuse love with neediness, physical and sexual attraction, pity and/or the need to rescue or be rescued.
5. We feel empty and incomplete when we are alone. Even though we fear intimacy and commitment, we continually search for relationships and sexual contacts.

For help for yourself or someone you may feel is sex and love addicted contact Pathways Plett rehab Centre in Plettenberg Bay. We treat depression, dual diagnosis, all addictions and focus on client wellness, from the clients perspective.