Love is a concept we become familiar with from an early stage. All of us need it for our happiness and satisfaction. If it’s absent, we almost always look for it elsewhere. So, is it possible that love is some drug we’re addicted to? And if that’s the case, what scientific evidence backs that claim up? Here is a discussion on the topic to give you some insight.
Are love and emotional attachment the same thing?
To correctly answer the question, we must first ask ourselves whether love and emotional attachment are the same. Love’s most straightforward definition is an emotion or feeling of intense affection. So in that sense, love and emotional attachment could be said to be the same.
But some experts argue that they aren’t quite the same thing. Emotional attachment, they say, is more like neediness that comes from a lack of self-sufficiency. On the other hand, love is said to be more like a feeling of admiration and respect. So there are some subtle differences between the two, even if they are similar in many ways.
In this discussion, we’ll treat love and emotional attachment as the same.
History of the theory
Sigmund Freud was the first person to suggest that love is an addiction from a scientific perspective. In his seminal work “Civilization and Its Discontents,” he proposed that love is a form of sublimated sexual desire. In other words, we want what we can’t have, and the forbidden nature of sex makes it all the more desirable.
Psychologist Dorothy Tennov later expanded upon this theory. In her book “Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love,” she described love as an involuntary state similar to an addiction. She argued that the feeling of being in love is caused by a cocktail of chemicals in the brain, including dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.
These chemicals produce feelings of joy, euphoria, and obsessiveness. Sound familiar? That’s because they are also the same chemicals released when someone uses drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine.
So there is some scientific evidence suggesting that love and addiction share similarities. But what does the research say? Let’s take a look.
Love’s effect on the brain
An experiment done by neuroscientists at Rutgers University provides insight into how love affects the brain. They used fMRI scans to look at the brains of people who had just fallen in love.
They found same areas of the brain activated by drugs like cocaine were also activated in these participants. These areas include the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus.
In other words, love does seem to share some similarities with addiction from a neuroscientific perspective. But that’s not all the evidence there is.
Another study looked at people who had been in long-term relationships. They found that when participants were shown pictures of their partners, the same areas of the brain were activated as when drug users were shown pictures of drugs.
So there is some scientific evidence suggesting that love and addiction share similarities.
Does love make you compulsive as drugs do?
There is scientific evidence from animal studies to suggest that love can make you behave similarly to how drugs make you behave. A survey of prairie voles found that when they were given a drug that increased oxytocin levels, they became much more monogamous.
Oxytocin is sometimes called the “love hormone” because it plays an essential role in bonding and attachment. It’s also been found to be important in drug addiction.
An experiment on humans found that when people were given oxytocin, they became more generous and trusting. Oxytocin has also been found to increase eye contact and social interaction.
So there is some evidence to suggest that oxytocin, essential in both love and addiction, can make you behave similarly to how drugs make you behave.
So what does all this evidence mean? Does it mean that love is an addiction? Some evidence suggests so.
However, one clear thing is that love is a complex emotion we don’t fully understand. And it may share some similarities with other emotions, like as addiction.