Celebrate Recovery - Love and Relationship Addiction
Love and Relationship Addiction
Love addiction consists of three components: Romance, Relationship, and Sexual Addiction. We acknowledge all three as valid addictions. The following are characteristics of the Romance and Relationship addiction. The Sexual Addiction is dealt with elsewhere.
Addicted to Love Characteristics
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Lack of nurturing and attention when young
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Feeling isolated, detached from parents and family
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Outer façade of “having it all together” to hide inner disintegration
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Mistake intensity for intimacy
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Hidden pain
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Seek to avoid rejection and abandonment at all costs
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Afraid to trust anyone in a relationship
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Inner rage over lack of nurturing, early abandonment
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Depressed
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Highly manipulative and controlling of others
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Perceive attraction, attachment, and sex as basic human needs, on a par with food and water
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Sense of worthlessness
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Escalating tolerance for high-risk behavior
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Intense need to control self, others, circumstances
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Presence of other addictive or compulsive problems
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Insatiable appetite in area of difficulty
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Using others to alter mood or relieve pain
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Continual questioning of values and lifestyle
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Driven, desperate, frantic personality
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Existence of secret “double life”
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Refusal to acknowledge existence of problem
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Defining out-of-control behavior as normal
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Defining “wants” as “needs”
Last Published: April 17, 2007 11:43 PM
