The Love Drug


Webster's defines love as the following:
Love: a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person 
That's it...it's that simple.
Except it's not...

Love is a drug. In fact, it's the most addictive drug of all. I mean, really, who doesn't crave "a feeling of strong or constant affection"? 
Of course there are all types of love. We've heard about them in church and we've experienced them throughout our lives. I have found, however, that it really doesn't matter what kind of love it is, it is craved. It is so addictive that we will do whatever we have to to try and save that love. God knows the minute that runs out, we will be jonesing for more. We seek it out throughout our entire lives. From birth, when we are gazing into our mothers' eyes, we are investigating her inner language. We are looking for love. Even children in the most appalling living situations love their parent/abuser. Some love is better than no love, even if the only love we see is the attention we receive during the abuse. All through school, we are looking for love. Problem with this is we are looking for the love we knew, be it good or bad; hence women who find themselves in one abusive relationship after another. It's not their fault. It's just what they know. In high school, the coolest accessory you can have is a good looking boy on your arm. It's what we all aspired to. Admit it...no prom date? That sucks worse than anything. Love in high school is a drug that really begins to rear it's ugly head. It's that turning point when the FEELING of love is desired, hungry, necessary. If we found that kind of love in high school, the one where the addiction is actually fed and under control, then we are fucked...
Some of us go to college, some of us begin to form that first real relationship, some of us have kids. This is when we really come to know the different kinds of love. For me, I was in a weird relationship, it was loveless, but the guy gave me my baby, right as I was graduating from college. Wow, what a different kind of love that is, that love we have for our children. In them, we crave that same love back from them. And then, when they grow up, we have to let them go. We're supposed to just do that, like it's that easy; "Buy, good luck with your life." It's not that easy. We have to, number one, change the way in which we love our adult children, and two, we have to go through the painful withdrawal from that addiction, that love that just walked out of your door for the very last time.
At this point in our lives, half of all of us who got married are now divorced. Oh, the fucking joy of this bullshit. I loved him, I married him, I loved him enough to be faithful and for the most part, sustain my addiction for almost twenty years. Of course, as with all things addictive, he and I needed more and more, attempting to make up for love lost in our childhoods. That never works. Using love, and the ancillary feelings it brings, to cover up of fill up, if you will, whatever emptiness you've already brought to the table is why half of us get divorced. Once that rush wears off and we need more to try and capture that feeling again, bottle it up for future use, we have to start facing the demons we carry inside us. I'm terrible thankful my husband and I were so in love for so long that I really didn't have to deal with them for a very long time. Him with his demons, as well. A nice little respite....ahhh, love. I can assure you with empirical certainty that when neither of us could fill that need, that desire, that drug to ease the pain, we both sought that feeling elsewhere. He with an apprentice half his age, me with opiates. Those latter vices are simply a sypmtom of lost love in our relationship. When we were living on the wings of love, shit, life was perfect. Then it wasn't. And coming back from that addiction was the hardest thing I've ever done, and I can tell you, I have had to kick allot of shit in my life. Kicking David, that love we had, well, it took me about five years to recover. 
And here I am on the other side of that, craving love. I don't have it right now and it's killing me. The things I have done to try and procure it, keep it, make me sick. I have commited so many sins against to humanity, against my fellow women. All for love. I did it in high school, to my best friend, I did it to my husband's wife, I did to a co-worker, and that was recent. If I believe that that love will fix me, save me, fill me up so I don't have to think about my demons, then I will destroy whomever gets in my way. I did it all for love. I am so addicted to it, I have higher standards than most. No, not for myself, for them. All of them. My daughter, my grandchildren, my lovers. I want this kind of love that I have only seen or experienced a couple of times. It's magical. It's so out there, that not too many people can keep up. This is a huge problem for me. Not only am I addicted to love, I'm addicted to practically unattainable love. (Hmm, wonder why that is. Perhaps Jung would say that deep down I must feel I don't deserve it, or I would lower my standards. Doesn't mean, however, that I'm not addicted to it). I don't have it and let me tell you, I am currently quite a bitch!!!
Here is what I ponder. In this one magical love I experienced, it was so amazing that I found myself understanding, during my journey through the very depths of hell of his death, that this pain was worth it. I would rather miss him every day than never have known him. My point being that love is worth it. The pain of withdrawal from that love lost is worth having the life I had with him. I often quote Bruce Springsteen; "You can't shut off the risk and the pain without losing the love that remains." But I'm beginning to change my thoughts on this. First of all, I'll probably never find that kind of magical love again (allow me to compare: regular love is to Vicodin what magical love is to smoking opium in a den in Viet Nam), so why invest my soul into attempting to get the fix I need from the love drug, when I most likely wont. 
I wanna kick my love habit. As I said, I have kicked some serious addictions, so I know how to do it. My friends say you need a replacement, a distraction, but I tried that, recently. I was still craving the love I wanted from somebody else. The replacement didn't work. It's like trying to replace Oxycontin with aspirin, or Tramadol at the very least. The way I kicked the others was alone, no help from friends, family or professionals. I simply walked away, as I do. I know that I am truly a last line kind of girl. Once I reach that place, I'm done, and that means I'm totally done. I have known my husband since January of 1992. He raised my daughter with me. Walked away, haven't talked to him in five years. It's over. It's done. I am there. I am at that place where I have had enough. I'm tired of the pain and reconstruction required to come back from a broken heart. It's like going back to the pharmacy and perusing the pain killer aisle and never really being able to reach the shelf. Just out of reach. All my life things have been out of reach. Just barely. I can see then, almost touch them, but almost never actually grasp them, so when I do, I hold on for dear life. The people I love don't see the reasons I do the things I do. In fact, it ISN'T that I expect too much, it's that I want it too much. Thing is, the people I let into my life, my inner sanctum, my broken heart, don't understand that I want this incredible love because love is the one thing I always lacked growing up. When I got a little taste of at nine years old, I never wanted to let that feeling go, but it does go, and people rip you away from love and you go through the withdrawal, as always and your heart is broken and has to heal and the cycle repeats and most the time, the love you are getting from whomever is not the love you need to sustain your addiction and then you're miserable. It's a horrible game. I've seen it first hand having been addicted to opiates for ten years. I had tried to kick the pills a few times. Cycle repeating. I got so sick of the cycle, that's why I quit the pills. I'm sick of this cycle, too. I'm out here looking for something I cannot find. I'm real sorry if I need more love than most. There are a plethora of reasons for that and they are mostly known. I'm done. I'm so tired of trying to feed an addiction I have been dealing with my entire life. In my experience, the only way to overcome my addictions has been to walk away completely. I have no choice but to do so, again. I cannot allow myself to want love, crave love. Maybe, once I kick my habit and I have a little more control over my addiction, I can let a little love in, but for now, no. I need to recover from this lifelong addiction.
It really sucks being addicted to the necessities of life, like food, or money, or love. And love unfortunately involves people, which makes it harder to walk away, but it's okay, you see, it's all been done before... 
-Deannalynn Arzola

("I love you much, oh but it's not enough. You love blow and I love puff"...-Amy Winehouse)

...fade to black