Like other addictions, love addiction may create strong feelings of pleasure – but also strong cravings and feelings of anxiety, which can vary depending on the newness of the relationship.

As described in a Daily Mail article, scientists believe that the reaction at the brain level that is responsible for characteristics like rewards and motivation is also activated in a love relationship. Because people are wired at the brain level to find a partner, the brain may be involved in dramatic and intense motivation to find and keep that partner.

The result can sometimes be love addiction, with similar symptoms like obsessive thoughts and an inability to control cravings that alcohol or drugs would create.

Researchers in the study, managed by New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, also said that strong feelings of anxiety can also accompany a love-related addiction. Feelings of both pleasure and anxiety are believed to be part of survival mechanisms, similar to the urge for sex.

When the love is strong or passion-filled, say researchers, key areas of the brain can actually be activated in equal intensity to when a person becomes addicted to alcohol or drugs.

Scientists used MRI imaging to look at how the brain responded when participants viewed images for their loved one or someone who looked like their loved one. For couples who were in established relationships, certain areas of the brain related to enjoying rewards or attachment were more activated.

Although the areas like passion seemed to lessen over time for these couples, the areas of brain activity related to anxiety lessened, too.

In turn, the people in the committed relationships showed fewer symptoms related to love addiction, such as lessened preoccupations with cravings for love and fewer anxiety-related symptoms.

A new research study says that these behaviors may be just the beginning of how women influence one another when eating. The research may have implications for the understanding of eating disorders, and how eating disorders tend to be clustered geographically and in social networks.

The study, published in The Public Library of Science 1, was conducted by researchers at Radboud University Nimegen in the Netherlands. The researchers found that when women sit down to a meal together, one woman is likelier to take a bite if her companion takes a bite.

The mimicry occurs within five seconds of one person putting a bite of food to their mouths, according to the study. The behavioral mimicry that happens during meals is all unsuspected by the participants.

Led by Roel Hermans, PhD., the research team was conducting the study based on previous studies showing that females have a tendency to eat more when their eating partner also eats alot, and eats less when their partner eats sparingly. Researchers have long suspected that behavioral mimicry took place during meals, but the theory had not been backed by scientific research.

The researchers recruited 140 females with an average age of 21, all in their young adult years. There were 70 pairs observed as they shared a meal in an imitation restaurant that looked the same as the one located in the university.

One person, in each pair, had been instructed how to eat. Each person was given one of six options, based on meal size and how much they were told to eat. There were small, medium as well as large portions used, and the participant was instructed to eat a small, medium or large amount of that portion.

The other person in each pair wasn’t told anything about how much food she should consume during the meal.

The researchers measured behavioral mimicry by counting how many times an uninformed participant, within five seconds of her partner, took a bite. There were a total of 3,888 bites taken during the course of the study. The informed participant ate about 30 mouthfuls, while the partner ate about 41 bites.

The researchers found that though both women tended to mimic one another’s eating behaviors, the women who were uninstructed mimicked three times more than those who were instructed how to eat.

The information may prove useful in understanding why participation in certain groups, such as sororities where multiple meals per day may be taken together, there is clustering of eating disorder symptoms.

It’s normal to feel down sometimes. In fact, there are times in recovery, especially in early recovery, when it may seem as if all we do is encounter turmoil and stress and challenges too tough for us to bear, let alone get through. It’s at times like this that we need the support and encouragement of others around us. We can find this support readily available to us in the form of our 12-step sponsor and fellow group members, in our loving family and close friends.

This doesn’t make the storms go away, necessarily, but it does make it easier for us to navigate our way through them. At a certain point in time, we may find that we are able to stand up to the storm, face the challenge and work through it, thanks to the strength we have built up for ourselves as we’ve done the work of recovery.

Still, we may find ourselves feeling down or blue at times. There’s simply no getting around it. Some days are like that. We’re not always going to feel on top of things, no matter how many months and years we have in effective recovery. It may be that we’re encountering some financial difficulties or someone we care deeply about has suffered a tragedy or we ourselves have a medical condition that causes us pain or worry. Prayer may help console us and ease our way out of the pain. Being around others may also help, whether or not they’re part of our support network.

Life isn’t predictable. We never know what storms may lay ahead or how we’ll react once we do come across them. We may think we know. We may plan how we’ll take charge and master the situation. But the truth is that we cannot know until we are actually facing the situation, the challenge, the stress, the storm, just how we will act.

We need to prepare ourselves as best we can so that we have alternative actions we can take. Developing a strategy with different courses of action will not only give us peace of mind now, it will also give us a variety of choices available to us at the point when we most need it.

Let’s take a couple of examples to see how this may help us during a stormy patch in recovery. For example, we may suddenly develop an overwhelming craving or urge to go out and use. It’s the holidays, always a tough time for us, and we’re alone and feeling blue. We can’t sleep. We toss and turn and find ourselves laying awake thinking about getting blitzed, feeling antsy and agitated, that gnawing at our brain that makes our limbs twitch and our never-ending thoughts going back to how much easier it would be if we just took that drink, used again, and felt some peace. How do we get past that?

We would be wise to remember that cravings and urges are usually time-limited. For many, they only last from 20 minutes to a half hour. All it really takes to weather this storm is to get through that 20 to 30 minute timeframe. Some suggestions that have worked for others include talking to our sponsor, going to a meeting, rearranging the closets, doing a vigorous workout, prayer, meditating, even counting and doing crossword puzzles. There is no one single solution that works for everyone.

How about a storm that occurs when we find ourselves feeling unprepared to meet a certain challenge? Maybe we’re failing to achieve our numbers at work or have been called out by our boss for failure to produce according to requirements or our marriage or relationship with our children is falling apart. How do we weather this stormy patch? It may be that we need to acknowledge our part in what’s going on and ask for help. That’s probably the toughest part, but once we ask for help, we may be amazed at how willing others are to give us the benefit of the doubt and work with us to overcome the difficulty.

The key point to remember in weathering storms in recovery is that we have to take some sort of action. We can’t just sit back and wallow in despair or give up because we’re afraid that we don’t have what it takes. We actually do, but it may take us some time to really believe that.

The more we’re able to navigate the storms, the more self-assured we’ll feel. We will begin to have confidence in our abilities to not only recognize the challenge but have a toolkit of strategies for how to effectively deal with it as well.

The practice of bulimia can cause long-term health problems in almost every system in the body including the cardiovascular, digestive, excretory, skeletal, reproductive, and nervous system.

Heart and Circulation

Using laxatives to purge the body of food causes electrolyte imbalances which damage the heart. Electrolyte imbalances can lead to a heart attack. Heart failure is one of the leading fatal effects from bulimia. Bulimia can also induce high blood pressure, severe headaches, seizures, and fatigue.

Stomach

Bulimia damages the nerves that signal to your brain that your stomach is full. This damage is oftentimes irreversible. Individuals with bulimia may also suffer from bloating and ulcers.

Kidneys

Malnutrition keeps the kidneys from functioning normally, cleaning toxins and dangerous substances out of the body. As harmful poisons build in the body, they can cause problems such as kidney infection or kidney failure.

Bones

If an individual does not get enough nutrients, their bone mineral density will not fully develop. This also happens when an individual does not get enough Vitamin D, phosphorus, or calcium in their system. As a result, some with bulimia develop Osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is an irreversible bone disease. Tooth decay and loss can also happen as a result of bulimia due to the frequent vomiting causing stomach acids to eat away at the teeth.

Ovaries

A woman who suffers from bulimia for several years may damage her reproductive system. As her body focuses on survival, because of nutrient depletion, her menstruation ceases. Sometimes her menstrual cycle never resumes which results in her being unable to ever have children.

Brain

Bulimia doesn’t just injure the body physically, it can cause emotional problems that persist throughout someone’s lifetime. The effects of bulimia can damage the brain’s ability to concentrate and make decisions. Those with bulimia sometimes suffer from psychological problems that can last for years and even endanger their lives. Some individuals fall into such great depression that they may become suicidal. Others engage in behavior that physically hurts them such as drug or alcohol abuse, while others inflict cuts upon their own body. The majority of sufferers of bulimia are women. When girls are young and wish to have a picture-perfect body, they may think that eating and purging their food is a harmless way to lose weight.

Most of these young women have no idea of the irreversible damage they are inflicting upon themselves. They would not imagine that vomiting up their food could keep them from someday having a baby; that they could suffer a fatal heart from cleaning the food out of their body; or that their teeth could fall out from vomiting too much.

Further education on the long-term effects of eating disorders may help these girls prevent a lifetime of damaging problems.

According to Science Daily, this was the longest study done to date on body dysmorphic disorder. Researchers were surprised to find that the recovery rate was alarmingly high for the disorder and there was a low rate of recurrence throughout the study. After adjustments in statistics from a prior study, it was found the recovery rate for those who suffered over the eight year period was 76 percent and the rate of recurrence was only 14 percent. A few of those patients did recover within a two year period but only close to half recovered past the five year mark.

The Harvard/Brown Anxiety Research Project, or HARP, had hundreds of participants in this study but only a small group of subjects were diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder. Martin Keller, a study co-author and professor and principal investigator of HARP research program, says the study has been going on for over two decades.

Keller says those with body dysmorphic disorder were singled out through this broad study instead of being specifically recruited due to their disorder. Generally, the participants had more understated cases of body dysmorphic disorder than those in other studies of the disorder. While comparing the HARP study with a prior longitudinal body dysmorphic disorder study, it brings up the possibility that the high rate of recovery in the HARP study may be due to those participants having a less severe case of the disorder .

A recent Time Healthland article describes how men have even resorted to faking a climax during sex with their partner because too much pornography use had made reaching an orgasm extremely difficult, if not out of the question.

The phenomenon, reported by more and more men, may be connected to the abrupt shift a man must make from what seems like highly-exciting sex during pornography and the relative normalcy of real-world sex. Researchers believe that at the brain level, as well as in the physical realm and even emotionally, these powerful side effects of pornography can have multi-faceted impacts.

They also describe the condition from a scientific perspective, saying that the combination of dopamine and oxytocin created during a sexual climax causes a deeper connection, emotionally, with that person. The bond can also be transferred to pornography, prompting the desire to return again and again to achieve the same sensation. Over time, suggest the researchers, the porn can be described as a man actually "dating" his pornography.

However, oxytocin is also being further investigated for its role in pornography addiction and sexual satisfaction. Researchers noted in a study with voles that the voles that were not involved in a long-term relationship had different oxytocin levels that those who were in a committed relationship – which may prompt the uncommitted voles (and men) to jump from porn site to porn site looking for new ways to work through feelings of lust.

Researchers said that it’s this urge to move from porn source to source, image to image – and the incredible availability of types and ways to view pornography – that may be causing the highest levels of damage to people in committed relationships.

But realistically, what can you expect from antidepressant medication? Will you suddenly feel happy? Will you still be able to cry or get upset? Will you still feel like yourself? It is normal to wonder about medications that seem to change your personality or your emotions. How do they work and what should they do, and perhaps most importantly of all, what side effects should you be on the lookout for?

Antidepressants: What Are They and What Do They Do?

Antidepressant medications fall into several categories or groups, some of them very commonly prescribed and some now only prescribed in rare or unusual incidences. The newest, most commonly prescribed, and touting the fewest side effects are the serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These medications prevent serotonin, a naturally occurring chemical found in the brain, from being "sucked up" into receptors and help keep serotonin circulating. This, it has been theorized, helps to lift and stabilize mood. These medications are known by their trade names: Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and several others. While these medications are known for being well tolerated, some side effects including decreased libido and headaches or stomach distress, are fairly common.

An older and less commonly prescribed class of antidepressant medications worked very well: these were known as tri-cyclics. They fell out of favor due to their uncomfortable side effects (including dry mouth, constipation, changes in blood pressure and changes in blood sugar levels), and the availability of the newer SSRIs. Finally the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) were among the earliest medical treatments for depression. These medications also were effective but also carried high risks due to dangerous reactions with a variety of foods and other substances.

What Can You Expect if You Have Been Advised to Take Antidepressants?

What should you expect when you start to take antidepressant medication? Initially, you might feel only the side effects. All the types mentioned above may cause some stomach upset, nausea, or even vomiting initially. Sometimes this goes away and no more side effects are likely to occur. Sometimes it is necessary to discontinue use of the medication. Be sure to discuss any side effects you experience with your doctor. Ok, aside from the side effects, what might you expect? In most cases, the medications need to build up in your body, reaching a therapeutic level after several days or weeks. SSRIs commonly take 4-6 weeks to become effective.

At that point, what can you expect? Antidepressant medications don’t make you happy. You won’t suddenly feel light and happy, but the complete sense of doom and gloom will lift. It should become easier to let things go, to shrug off little annoyances or disappointments. You might feel like you have a longer fuse, or that you can just "not sweat the small stuff" more easily.

Depressive symptoms often include trouble sleeping (both too much and too little sleep are symptoms of depression) and irritability. Once your medication is working, you should notice that your sleep improves or at least becomes somewhat more normal. Appetite changes are also common with depression and these too should improve. Irritability and anxiety (also commonly associated with depression) may ease, further helping you to feel better without exactly making you happy. Most people describe the medications as "lifting the dark cloud" or "taking the knot out of my stomach."

According to some research, only about 30% of people who start an antidepressant medication find relief from that medication. It is very likely that your doctor will need to try different dosages and/or different medications to find the one that works best for you. Try to be a patient, patient! Be sure to give your doctor a complete medical history, being careful to include any information about any close family members that have taken antidepressant medications. Sometimes this information can be a real time saver, as what works well for one family member is often an indicator of what will work well for others.

Also bear in mind that medications seem to be most effective for severe depression. When the depression is in the mild to moderate range, psychotherapy and lifestyle changes may be as effective or more so than medications – without the risk of side effects. Discuss your options with your doctor and be sure to ask about non-drug interventions.

Recent research has begun to question the serotonin connection. Some researchers have shown that depression and serotonin levels are not as closely linked as may have originally been thought. Further, some research has shown that low serotonin levels are not necessarily linked to depression, and that depression can exist in people with normal or high serotonin levels. While it isn’t time to throw the baby out with the bath water yet, as some relationship between serotonin and depression may well exist, what has become increasingly clear is that the once relied upon explanation of depression as simply low serotonin levels is insufficient to fully explain both what depression is and how the medications help.

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably experienced a wide range of emotions – sadness, fear, anger, and helplessness – as you’ve watched your loved one essentially self-destruct. You may feel like pulling your hair out at times out of sheer frustration – wondering why anyone would do something so foolish to their life; wondering why they won’t get the help they so desperately need.

If only that was how addictions really worked…

Understand the power of an addiction

The most important thing to remember is that their continuous use isn’t simply a choice on their part. Addictions are insidious and powerful. The vast majority of addicts have tried to quit many times – only to succumb to their cravings again and again. Let’s face it; if an addiction was easy to overcome, most addicts – including your loved one – would have stopped long ago. Unfortunately, the process of becoming clean and staying sober is more complex than that. That’s why a good drug rehab treatment program is a crucial part of the process – if you can just get them there.

Never lose hope

Before you lose hope, remember that thousands of people have walked in your shoes. Thousands of so-called "hopeless" drug addicts enter drug rehab treatment programs every sing day – and they leave treatment clean and stay sober. Far more often than not, the reason they finally got into drug rehab treatment was because a spouse, family member, or friend refused to give up on them. In fact, it’s a very rare addict who can get clean entirely on his or her own.

So, that is the first and most important thing: never lose hope.

So, now what…?

"Okay, great", you’re probably thinking… "I’m still hopeful, but now what? What do I do? What do I say to them? How on earth can I convey how much I care and how deeply concerned I am without putting them on the defense? I’ve been watching this person’s life literally fall apart and everything I’ve tried in the past to get them into drug rehab treatment has totally failed…"

Good questions and very valid concerns.

There are things you can do that are often very effective, as well as things you definitely want to avoid doing as well. But before we talk about those, it is really crucial that you keep this important fact in mind: You’re loved one is the only person responsible for his or her addiction – NOT you. Even if you’ve been an enabler at times, it’s not your fault. Maybe your loved one has even blamed you for their problem – that’s very common, since excuses and blame go hand in hand with addictions.

Don’t blame yourself

Before making any further attempt to get your loved one into drug rehab treatment, it’s vital that you remember this. Otherwise, the familiar pattern of excuses, denial, and blame will pull you right back in, causing your efforts to fail once again. On top of that, your irritation, resentment, and sense of futility may hinder your desire and willingness to help.

Staging an Effective Intervention

In many cases, getting a loved one into drug rehab treatment requires what is known as an "intervention". An intervention involves a group of the addicts friends and families, who come together to confront the addict. The goal of the intervention is to break through the addict’s denial, get him or her to finally acknowledge the serious addiction problem, and agree that he or she needs treatment.

One of the most important elements of an effective intervention is to make sure you have a clear plan in place. This includes selecting a drug rehab treatment center in advance and making sure it is a good fit for the addict. You also want to check with the treatment facility to ensure that there’s an opening available. This way you can admit your loved one immediately following the intervention.

Another important aspect of the intervention is making sure that, as much as possible, the people who attend are individuals whom the addict respects and trusts. An intervention can quickly backfire if there’s anyone there who has a lot of anger or other negative feelings towards the addict. It’s also crucial that every person who participates in the intervention is completely on board with the game plan. They can easily undermine the process and antagonize the addict, which is exactly what you don’t want to happen.

An intervention is not the place for hurtful comments, blaming the addict, or arguing. Rather, the overall tone should clearly convey genuine caring and concern. Your loved one is already going to be guarded and defensive. After all, they’ve probably experienced plenty of harsh judgment and blame, and will likely be expecting more of the same.

The timing of the intervention is also really important. Often, an intervention is the most effective if it takes place soon after a fairly significant upheaval in the addict’s life that’s a direct result of their drug use. For example, a relationship breakup or job loss. These types of events are often wake up calls to the addict that it’s time to make a change. They may be more receptive to the intervention and open to drug rehab treatment under these types of circumstances.

Interventions give you and those involved the chance to let the addict know that you’re not willing to turn a blind eye to his addiction. Your love, genuine concern, and desire to help need to be abundantly clear to the addict.

Of course, even if you do everything right, there’s no guarantee it will work. But following these guidelines for an effective intervention will significantly increase the likeliness of success. Hopefully, confronting your loved one in this manner will help break down the walls so he or she can finally get into a good drug rehab treatment program.

If your loved one refuses…

Despite your best efforts, your loved one may still refuse to go to drug rehab treatment. Although this can be heartbreaking, it’s vital that you make it abundantly clear that none of you will provide any type of help or support – e.g. money, transportation, a place to crash, etc. – until he or she agrees to get help. Sometimes this is the turning point that will change the addicts mind – if not during the intervention then soon after when he or she realizes how serious you all are. It can be extremely difficult following through with tough love, but until you do, the pattern will likely continue.

You’re loved one is worth the effort – no matter how futile it may seem. Do everything you can, but accept that you can’t control what the addict chooses to do in the end.

As described in a recent Huffington Post article, addictions that are based on processes of behavior such as compulsive shopping or online gambling, may have similar thought patterns and responses at their roots. In the case of sex addiction and love addiction, a person in either addiction may have long held problems with personal intimacy or deep-seeded self-esteem issues, but the symptoms can look quite different.

People with love addiction may move rapidly from one relationship to the next and may carry extreme levels of sadness, guilt, shame or fear when one relationship ends. They may believe each new relationship is "the one," or change their behaviors to more closely meld with those of their current relationship.

They may also lie or use manipulative actions to carry out multiple romantic relationships while living in a state of denial that a problem exists. A person with love addiction may also use sexual activity to begin a new relationship, whereas for a person with a sex addiction, the sex can be the actual relationship itself and involve multiple partners or paid services.

Sex addiction, more quickly becoming a widely-researched and recognized condition, involves obsessive and unwanted thoughts about sex. The person may be unable to stop acting out sexual behavior, even when the consequences are known. They may engage in sexual behavior in the workplace or in public places without being able to stop themselves. The behavior progresses as the addiction progresses, and the sense of pleasure toward sex is replaced by sex becoming a tool for escaping negative emotions or "numbing out."

While sex and love addiction evoke different symptoms, both may be rooted in a similar inability to maintain close personal relationships or an inability to work through negative emotions. Both involve activity at the brain level related to neurotransmitters. Both conditions also require professional help to reach a point of recovery and to understand addiction triggers.

The study focused on 2,123 workers in Britain. Over a six year period, those workers who spent more than 11 hours each day were nearly twice as likely to develop depression. Symptoms of depression continued regardless of other factors. Job strain, alcohol use, physical disease and workforce support levels didn’t waiver the effects.

An interesting factor of the study was the ranking of the worker. A majority of workers suffering from depression tended to be middle management or lower. Employees who were higher up on the food chain showed few to no signs of depression. Dr. Alan Geleberg, who is the psychiatry department chair at Pennsylvania State University, believes this could be the result of a more controlled work environment. Typically, higher levels of management in a company have control over their working hours. This would alleviate the long hours spent in the office, and therefore, eliminate the symptoms of depression.

Dr. Geleberg, who admits he is in one of these higher positions, said he gets to choose his agenda. If he works a longer day it is his own free will. But not everyone has that option. Longer work hours create stress at home by instigating relationship struggles and can even elevate cortisol levels, a stress hormone.

Other factors that could be playing roles in the depression could be job insecurity or even sleep deprivation. Research has proven that the lack of sleep can be a leading cause of depression related to work.