Romantic Love as a Drug

Researchers equate the early stages of romantic love to those of drug addiction. In a 2016 meta-analysis supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China, Zou and colleagues set out to find how the parallels between the effects of drugs and early-stage romantic love can inspire a new treatment for addiction. 

For an addiction such as love or drugs to develop, addicts must experiment two levels of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to adapt its structure and functioning in response to an experience. For instance, to a drug or a romantic partner. 

Addicts initial contact with the stimulant is deliberate and voluntary. Say, a new heroin injection, or a dopamine-infused first kiss with a romantic partner. This deliberate contact is called regulated relapse. Each time the user relapses, their neural functioning changes, even when they are going through periods of abstinence. Addiction solidifies. The pleasurable chemicals released during drug consumption and romantic attachment turn regulating relapses from a want to a need. 

On the second stage of neuroplasticity, consumption becomes compulsive, and the brain composition of addict’s changes permanently in order to accommodate the new chemicals into its day-to-day operations. Just like drug addicts, people undergoing the early stages of romantic love experience salience, craving, euphoria and intoxication, and tolerance. 

According to Fisher, romantic love mimics addictive behaviour in drug users because addicts, “focus on their beloved (salience); they yearn for the beloved (craving); they feel a “rush” of exhilaration when seeing or thinking about their beloved (euphoria/intoxication). As their relationship builds the lover seeks to interact with the beloved more (tolerance).” If the couple breaks up, each partner will go through symptoms similar to those of drug withdrawal, such as lethargy, anxiety, and insomnia. 

Romantic love similarly encompasses two phases: In the initial phase, lovers exhibit excitation and stress, because a part of the brain called the hypothalamus will release the stress hormone cortisol in conjunction with the attachment hormone oxytocin and the reward hormone dopamine, inducing physical reactions like heart palpitations, sweating and trembling. After lovers form a monogamous, intimate attachment –biologically referred to as a pair bond– the relationship turn calm, safe, and balanced. 

That is where romantic love differs from drug addiction: The early stages of both romantic love and substance consumption show signs of behavioural addiction. However, as drug use and romantic attachments stabilize, drug addiction magnifies while the addictive characteristics of love disappear to leave a feeling of calm and contentment. 

Romantic Love as a Balm for Drug Addiction 

Romantic love as a reward can act as a form of therapy for drug addiction. When quitting a form of addictive substance or behaviour, researchers recommend replacing cravings with rewarding behaviours, such as sport activities, new hobbies, or social bonding. 

To gauge if new romantic attachments could act a balm for drug addiction, Xu and colleagues performed an fMRI imaging overnight scan over eighteen Chinese nicotine-deprived smokers, who had just fallen madly in love. The men and women of the experiment observed side-to-side pictures of their addiction like a cigarette or their beloved, versus a control picture of a pencil or a stranger. The results showed higher levels of brain activation when participants looked at pictures of their beloved than when they looked at pictures of the cigarettes. 

Fisher and colleagues agree, saying that “romantic love could be considered a powerful and primordial natural addiction because it can, under some circumstances, modify brain activations associated with a more contemporary addiction, nicotine.” The similarities between the early stages of romantic love and drug addiction can give rise to new treatments against substance abuse. 

Potential Treatments for Drug Addiction 

External oxytocin administration can improve social cognition in people with addiction, inhibiting drug cravings and reducing the probability of relapse. In an experiment performed in rats, Zou and colleagues observed that exogenous administration of oxytocin in cocaine-tolerant rats reduced the effects of the drug and increased activity in the amygdala, the brain area responsible for emotion and reward responses. Zou and colleagues further explain that oxytocin can “attenuate the development of tolerance for drugs of abuse, as well as mitigate withdrawal symptoms and minimize reinstatement of drug use.” 

Source: Europe PMC (Fineberg & Ross, 2017) 

The hypothalamus secretes oxytocin which, in turn, regulates various aspects of social functioning. 

The amygdala affects motivation. Researchers often describe love as a motivation state. The amygdala modulates behaviour based on negative stimuli such as drugs and positive stimuli such as a partner. As the brain’s reward center, the amygdala interacts with stress hormones like cortisol and pleasurable hormones like dopamine to modulate love and addiction. 

The amygdala influences emotion, memory, attention, and perception. The release of oxytocin in the amygdala outweighs the impact of negative stimuli like drugs. Long term love and substance abuse have oppositive effects: While drugs cause irritability or emotional outbursts, once the initial stress of romantic love subsides, long term romance fosters better mental health, decreases stress, relieves pain and induces contentment. In the words of Sufi poet Rumi, “lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.” 

Sources 

Baxter, M.G., & Murray, E. A. (2002). The amygdala and reward. Nature 3, 563-573. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn875 

Fineberg, S. K., & Ross, D.A. (2017). Oxytocin and the social brain. [Photograph]. Europe PMC. https://europepmc.org/article/pmc/5374331 

Fisher et al. (2016). Intense, Passionate, Romantic Love: A Natural Addiction? How the Fields That Investigate Romance and Substance Abuse Can Inform Each Other. Frontiers in Psychology 7(687). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4861725/#B118 

Zou, Z., Song, H., Zhang, Y., & Zhang, X. (2016). Romantic Love vs. Drug Addiction May Inspire a New Treatment for Addiction. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01436