Love Addiction My Road to Recovery

First warning sign I ignored was his rush to commit. Two weeks after we met, he asked me if we could just love each other forever and how could he keep me? Did he have to marry me or what? I said I loved him, but wasn’t ready for marriage. I thought his words were beautiful. They fed me like I was a starving child needing milk, and I didn’t see what a major red flag a rush to commit was. I thought we had found a true, strong love, a soul mate relationship, and that everything with D was just a lie.

I’ve promised to tell how I got in and then got out of love addiction, codependency, domestic violence, and destructive relationships. I’ll talk about S first.

I didn’t know S for more than five hours when he said he loved me and wanted to be with me forever. That should’ve been a red flag, but I was so disillusioned with my relationship with D, his words were the balm my rejected heart needed. D wasn’t into words. S was. D wasn’t into reading, writing, philosophy. S was. To him, I was the smartest, kindest, most beautiful, loving person he’d ever seen. I felt empowered, validated, and fell for him like he was a rock star and I was his groupie.

But I didn’t know S had other lovers that would come way before me. Crack. Meth. Powdered cocaine. Pills. Pot. Booze. Anything except heroin.
And our mutual addiction served to nearly end us both as people.

Codependency in relationships and love addiction have been common themes in my life whether it is a holiday or not. While I’m far from “recovered,” my first holiday in full-fledged love addiction and codependency recovery was rather successful.

I suffered both mild and major depression for a couple of days, blamed it totally on missing D, but then realized I had forgotten to take my Prozac. Yes, self-care is a huge part of what I’m working on. I hate taking Prozac, but will admit I’ve been less impulsive and able to eat better while on it.

It was my first “vegetarian” Christmas and I didn’t miss the chicken, beef, and ham at all. We had seafood and vegetarian foods only, so I think I’m going to actually practice the Buddhism system I believe so much in and go to seafood-only.

Last night I was majorly depressed over D. My mom even asked me if I was thinking of, well, killing myself. I’m so grateful I’m not. But this is very hard around the holidays. I can’t help remembering last year, as insane as it was. If I love D so much, then I wouldn’t have been with S as well. If I love D so much, I wouldn’t have left him to begin with. Friendships cannot be restored, because it keeps the pain and dream alive. I have to carry on. I realize D was a “drug” but I also did have as much genuine love for him as someone with my addictive, sometimes empty personality could have. And though I’m not religious, Christmas is about love. I have to remember to find love within myself.

I once heard a woman say in an Al-Anon meeting that certain people are like shooting up heroin into her veins.

Well, D’s like heroin.

I’m recommitted to avoiding prolonged thinking about him, not looking him up on MySpace or other Web sites, and taking care of myself.

If you’re in a similar boat, you may empathize but wonder just how to do this.

I go to a LOT of phone and face to face meetings. I read 12-step and inspirational literature daily. I try to write in my own journal daily, and want to be better about keeping up this blog every day. Just think, “I’m not going to deal with him/her no matter what.”

I feel like if I can do it, anyone can. D was far from my first “heroin.”

This year, as I approach my second year in love addiction recovery, I want to focus on so much more than just getting and staying “sober.” I’ll always miss and love my exes, but choose to love myself a lot more.

I plan to go to Bali this year, write more professionally, go to a Zen meditation retreat, finish steps 8 through 12, and keep losing weight. I also will stay OUT of touch with those men who became “drugs” to me, and avoid dating until cleared by my SLAA sponsor. I need to really keep building that loving relationship with myself before I can be available for anyone else.

1.       Pray. Even if you aren’t religious. I often pray the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Or I pray, “God, please remove my obsession for (D, X, etc.)

2.       Meditate. Sitting silently and counting your breath from 1 to 10 does wonders. If your thoughts drift, bring them right back.

3.       Write. Blog, journal, write poetry, write you hate writing, do something to get your real feelings out. Because in my experience, when I’m craving a lover or fantasy, I really am feeling something I’m trying to escape.

I’m spending a lot of time of phone meetings for Sex Addicts Anonymous and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous this week because I really miss my ex-lover, D, this time of the year. I’m on step 8 in SLAA and starting step 1 in SAA as soon as I get their step book.

I shouldn’t miss D. He’s a user, liar, thief, and also broke so many promises to me. He shacked up with a married woman and now she’s pregnant – but I wasn’t good enough to even “shack up” with in the end, despite all I did for him and his daughter. So yeah, love addiction really sucks.

Imagine feeling like you can’t live with, or without, the person you love the most. Spending every waking second waiting for their call. Calling him yourself, then waiting some more. Not sleeping because you wonder if the person you love so much didn’t call back because he’s dead, or just plain doesn’t love you. It’s like heroin, crack, meth, cocaine, all the drugs at once. One call starts it all, and even a thousand calls would never be enough. You make love to him, and just want more. Then you want to marry him. And the idea of living without him is comparable to death, or maybe even worse.

Since I was a little girl, I was always mildly obsessed with the opposite sex. I thought I was a hopeless romantic. As I got older, the obsessions grew in nature and number. And though I never hurt anyone, except myself, it completely consumed my life. Finding that “one” person, keeping that “one” person, became all-consuming.

I didn’t think anything was wrong with me until I ended up losing all my savings and possessions, having to hide in two domestic violence shelters from a violent lover, and then landed in two psychiatric hospitals.

I had to nearly lose my life to realize my love addiction. That’s what this blog is going to be about: where I’ve been, how I got out, and where I hope to go now that I’m celibate and sober.