How is love an addiction?

In couples therapy today, we discussed love addiction, since I fit the pattern as described in some books. In particular, we were discussing why they lump love addicts together with sex addicts in the 12 step groups.

We are all agreed that addiction is about easing the pain, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a substance or a behavior, that’s still what it’s about. The pain, almost always, comes from not being loved or not being able to love or be loved. In the absence of love, the other forms of highs provide some relief.

In addition, we agree with our therapist that having sexual encounter after sexual encounter creates a high that makes you feel good for a few hours or so. But it doesn’t get at the real issue—the need for healthy love relationships.

Further, sex can not be divorced from love in a healthy way. People who say they can “just” have (meaningless) sex are hiding from themselves their real desire for deep connection with other humans. They are willing to settle for sex because they’ve been too hurt in the past with love relationships—typically with physical or psychological abuse from people who are supposed to love them.

So the deal for sex addicts is to get them to stop the addictive behavior, deal with the underlying pain, and then learn to make real connections with others, at which point they have accomplished a lot.

But if the goal for other addicts is to learn how to form healthy love relationships, then what is the goal for love addicts? After all, what all addicts want is to learn how to experience love in a healthy way. How, then, can you tell a love addict to turn down love in order to love? How does this work? What is the difference between healthy love and addictive love?