![]() These phenomena-including cycles of alternating ecstasy and despair, desperate longing, and the extreme and sometimes damaging thoughts and behaviors that can follow from love’s loss-bear a resemblance to analogous phenomena associated with more “conventional” addictions like those for drugs, alcohol, or gambling. We may even become depressed, or withdrawn from society ( Mearns 1991). When relationships come to an unwanted end, we feel pain, grief, and loss. In 2011, over 10% of murders in the United States were committed by the victim’s lover ( FBI 2011). ![]() In the worst case, they can become deadly. ![]() Lovers can become distracted, unreliable, unreasonable, or even unfaithful. Other times, love’s pull is so strong that we might follow it even to the point of hardship or personal ruin ( Earp, Wudarczyk, Sandberg, and Savulescu 2013). When our feelings are returned, we might feel euphoric. Love can be thrilling, but it can also be perilous. ![]() Contemporary film expresses a similar sentiment: as Jake Gyllenhaal’s character famously says in Brokeback Mountain, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” And everyday speech, too, is rife with such expressions as “I need you” and “I’m addicted to you.” These widely-used phrases capture what many people know first-hand: that when we are in love, we feel an overwhelmingly strong attraction to another person-one that is persistent, urgent, and hard to ignore. ![]() Ovid was the first to proclaim: “I can’t live with or without you” ( Amores III, xi, 39)-a locution made famous to modern ears by the Irish band U2. Throughout the ages love has been rendered as an excruciating passion. ![]()
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