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Jul 22, 2024 · Yes, you really can be addicted to a person, or at least to the rush of neurochemicals you get whenever you are around them. But it's important to distinguish between real love and addiction.
People also ask
Can you be addicted to a person?
Is it possible to be addicted to another human?
Can you be addicted to a behavior?
Feb 11, 2022 · It isn’t possible to be addicted to a person. In fact, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5) doesn’t recognize any non-substance...
Jun 1, 2020 · Although there are many different ways you can be addicted to another person, the common features include low-self-esteem, seeking external validation, and harmful consequences in one’s life. Let’s take a look at what the research says about the origins of this unique form of addiction.
- Idealization. The mind can’t make you over-invest in someone unless you idealize them. What is idealization? It’s putting someone on a pedestal, overvaluing them, and focusing only on and exaggerating their positive qualities.
- Craving and withdrawal. Being addicted to a person can show the same symptoms that we see in other addictions. Particularly, craving and withdrawal. You crave to be in contact with the person.
- Obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. When you get addicted to someone, they dominate your thoughts. You stop thinking about the other things in your life.
- Neglecting other life areas. This is a natural consequence of one thing dominating your thoughts. Like a plant that isn’t frequently watered, the things you ignore fall by the wayside and slowly die.
It is possible to get addicted to a psychoactive substance that produces a pleasurable effect, but by no means do the majority of people who consume such substances get addicted.
- Substance use is not, by itself, a disorder. According to DSM-5, widely used as a roadmap to diagnosis, it becomes a disorder when use eludes contr...
- Substance use disorder is marked by a pattern of pathological behaviors related to use of the substance. As listed in the DSM, they include: • Bein...
- A cardinal sign of addiction is not being unable to control consumption of alcohol/drug—even when wanting to. In addition, addiction is typically m...
- Addiction can reveal itself in physical signs, as well as psychological and behavioral ones, although they are not diagnostically specific for the...
- Addiction involves a great many contradictions, including behavioral choices in spite of oneself. One of the most puzzling aspects of addiction is...
- Addiction involves both the mind and the body—and every other facet of existence, because they all interact. There is no real distinction between p...
- Substance use becomes an addiction when a person can no longer control the use, when they want to cut back but can’t manage to, and when use begins...
- While the best-known signs of addiction may be physical changes in a person—weight loss to the point of emaciation, the red face of problem drinker...
- You look forward to getting high. You devote increasing amounts of time planning to get drugs or worrying about where your next dose is coming from...
Traditionally, the term “addiction” has been applied to people whose drug or alcohol use has become a serious problem. But today, many mental health specialists agree that behaviors can be addictive, too.
Dec 27, 2022 · In short, yes. It’s completely possible to be addicted to another human. Addiction is a compulsion to do something that makes you feel a certain way—usually, something that floods your brain with happy chemicals, such as dopamine or oxytocin.
