Love addiction
- Clinging to an idealised relationship, despite a different reality
- Returning time and again to an abusive and damaging relationship
- Placing responsibility for emotional wellbeing on others
- Craving attention from many different relationships and seeking new sources of attention
Sex addiction
- Engaging with multiple sexual partners
- Excessive masturbation
- Interactions with prostitutes
- Excessive use of pornography
Like with other addictions, the act of sex and love creates pleasure to the individual. The person may want to create this sense of pleasure over and over again. As the brain sends of chemicals such as dopamine, the need to recreate this pleasure can become stronger and stronger.
This can lead to someone becoming an addict.
There are a vast number of reasons why someone may have a sex or love addiction. Experiences in early life are a very common reason for someone to develop these addictions. The difficulties some may have faced in early life such as abuse or neglect can impact on someone.
In other cases, some individual’s parents may have been sex or love addicts.
There are also feelings of pleasure and euphoria created by sex and love which can become addictive as some individuals will want to achieve those feelings again and again.
