If Love Were A Drug You Would Be Addicted Too

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Author: Wes Goodman-Levy

Is it just a realization I’ve come to or is there a stigma surrounding drug addicts attempting to remain clean and drug free? When I hear about drug addicts falling into remission and kick-starting their drug habits again, I can’t help but think, “If they want to stay clean, why don’t they simply not do drugs anymore? It can’t be that difficult.”

Yet, if you’ve ever seen the first season of “The Wire” you might remember when a recovering drug addict explains, “Getting clean is the easy part, now comes life.” As an inexperienced person in the realm of drug addiction, simply not doing drugs after going through detoxification doesn’t seem too tough. Yet time and time again drug users will resume abusing drugs after a period of sobriety, leaving me disappointed in their efforts and thinking negatively of them for failing to stay clean.

As humans we can’t help but form deeply emotional and romantic relationships with certain people around us. If you’ve ever been in love, or thought you were, you know that such a relationship becomes deeply ingrained in your personality, way of life, and actions. Even relationships that exist without romance but include love are special in this way. Love between the best of friends, lovers, and even pets are examples of this type of relationship. As such, in a relationship, the parties involved develop patterns of interactions with each other and their bodies begin to become accustomed to the presence of the other’s hormones.

Allow me to explain. All animals produce hormones. Most widely known is the female production of pheromones, yet even males produce similar chemicals that are expressed externally; smell constitutes one such example. When two people begin to spend a great deal of enjoyable time together, their brains associate the presence of these hormones with positive feelings, releasing natural opiates such as endorphins (also produced when we exercise) that produce positive emotions such as joy and happiness. Essentially the two parties involved become addicted to each other in the sense that they react positively in the other’s presence because of emotion triggers.

If you’ve ever lost somebody with whom you had a deep emotional relationship such as a parent, grandparent, sibling, or lover, you’ll understand the deep emotional pain that occurs. Such loss can even cause physical pain as the body readjusts to the absence of the hormones associated with that person from which positive feelings stemmed. Widowed individuals may grieve and be depressed for about six months to a year before beginning to feel normal again. This time frame is similar to the time it may take a drug addict to fully recover from an addiction.

When an individual uses an opiate, the drug stimulates release of chemicals in the brain that make the person feel good.

When this occurs on a regular basis, as in the case of drug addicts, the body seeks to reassert the normal level of opiates activated in the brain and body. It does this by producing less of the body’s natural opiates and shutting down the body’s receptors for such opiates. The drug addict will build up a tolerance for the drug and then be forced to consume a greater quantity of the drug to achieve the same result.

However, when drug addicts go through detoxification and clean their systems of external opiates, their system is left without any chemicals that produce feelings we associate with happiness or joy. The drug addict’s body has become accustomed to having external opiates pumped into his or her system that their body must undergo a long period of reconstruction as they adjust to life without them. This includes beginning to produce natural opiates and rebuilding the receptors for these opiates. This process may take about six months to a year to complete. Until that happens, however, drug addicts will experience depression, as they have little to no natural opiates in their system.

As you can see, the withdrawal symptoms in both of these cases are similar, leading scientists to believe that similarities exist between these addictions and all other types.

So the next time you see a drug addict who fails to stay clean you may say to yourself, or him or her if you are so bold, “I feel your pain.”

Wes Goodman-Levy is an undeclared first-year. He can be reached at goodmanlevy@oxy.edu.

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