Valentine's Day deserves two posts! This one is about the excellent article in the politically repulsive rag the Washington Post entitled An Affair Of the Head - They Say Love Is All About Brain Chemistry. Will You Be Dopamine? The author quotes an expert: "Love is a drug," says Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and author of "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love." "The ventral tegmental area is a clump of cells that make dopamine, a natural stimulant, and sends it out to many brain regions" when one is in love. "It's the same region affected when you feel the rush of cocaine."
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The (appropriately anonymous) fellow pictured was my drug of choice in 2005, replacing food. And I lost 30 pounds without trying in three months. Of course, after I decided I couldn't deal with all his addictions (including his addiction to my losing even more weight), I let the infatuation go. Deprived of that high, I returned to my primary addiction and during 2006 slowly gained back all 30 pounds.
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I've been going to various 12 step programs trying to overcome addictions to both food and love for almost 30 years. They've worked a little. I'm still alive and not yet homeless in the streets. I hold out hope that some combination of safe drug use (ibogaine??) and proper therapeutic techniques can help individuals break free of their substance or "process" addictions, whatever they may be.
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But societies themselves can be addictive - which is why we need a revolution. A great book on that topic is Ann Wilson Schaef's When Society Becomes an Addict, available, of course, on Amazon. Part of the description there reads: Rather than focusing on addictions to such substances as alcohol, drugs, or food or to processes such as gambling, sex, or work, this interesting and unusual treatise uses the concept of relationship addiction. According to this concept, an individual is seen as always being in a superior (or inferior) position to another, an addictive situation that creates self-centeredness, dishonesty, and greed. The symptons associated with relationship addiction are equated with those associated with the "White Male System" (described in Schaef's Women's Reality , LJ 6/15/81) and provide telling insights into why we have a dysfunctional society many of whose members are addicted to substances and processes.
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Oh, yes, how could I forget. Women’s Reality: An Emerging Female System is another great Schaef book. Schaef is not quite a feminist decentralist secessionist, but she presents some basic theories useful to that viewpoint.
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Well, readers, time will tell if my food addiction kills me before love or the revolution saves me. Or presents some new level of aggravation!
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Just as a reminder, let me quote the top of my web site CarolMoore.Net to summarize the questions that I keep encouraging us all to answer: Can we move from a world ruled by God and State to a world alive with Consciousness and Community? Can we experience the one consciousness underlying the many faiths? Can we create networks and confederations of autonomous, self-governing communities to replace violently unified, warring nation states?
.
The (appropriately anonymous) fellow pictured was my drug of choice in 2005, replacing food. And I lost 30 pounds without trying in three months. Of course, after I decided I couldn't deal with all his addictions (including his addiction to my losing even more weight), I let the infatuation go. Deprived of that high, I returned to my primary addiction and during 2006 slowly gained back all 30 pounds.
.
I've been going to various 12 step programs trying to overcome addictions to both food and love for almost 30 years. They've worked a little. I'm still alive and not yet homeless in the streets. I hold out hope that some combination of safe drug use (ibogaine??) and proper therapeutic techniques can help individuals break free of their substance or "process" addictions, whatever they may be.
.
But societies themselves can be addictive - which is why we need a revolution. A great book on that topic is Ann Wilson Schaef's When Society Becomes an Addict, available, of course, on Amazon. Part of the description there reads: Rather than focusing on addictions to such substances as alcohol, drugs, or food or to processes such as gambling, sex, or work, this interesting and unusual treatise uses the concept of relationship addiction. According to this concept, an individual is seen as always being in a superior (or inferior) position to another, an addictive situation that creates self-centeredness, dishonesty, and greed. The symptons associated with relationship addiction are equated with those associated with the "White Male System" (described in Schaef's Women's Reality , LJ 6/15/81) and provide telling insights into why we have a dysfunctional society many of whose members are addicted to substances and processes.
.
Oh, yes, how could I forget. Women’s Reality: An Emerging Female System is another great Schaef book. Schaef is not quite a feminist decentralist secessionist, but she presents some basic theories useful to that viewpoint.
.
Well, readers, time will tell if my food addiction kills me before love or the revolution saves me. Or presents some new level of aggravation!
.
Just as a reminder, let me quote the top of my web site CarolMoore.Net to summarize the questions that I keep encouraging us all to answer: Can we move from a world ruled by God and State to a world alive with Consciousness and Community? Can we experience the one consciousness underlying the many faiths? Can we create networks and confederations of autonomous, self-governing communities to replace violently unified, warring nation states?
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