“You ever love something so much you gotta have it, so you use it every day until you start to form a habit. Then before you knew what happened you were suddenly an addict that just wasted half their life and every dream they had was shattered.” Joe Nester, ‘Story of an addict’

My family and I have always jokingly called my psychologist “Gill the Pill”. It was only tonight that it dawned on me how scarily accurate this is. She did become a pill. A drug I was addicted to. She released all the feel good chemicals in my brain. Weekly sessions turned into twice weekly sessions. Still it wasn’t enough. I’d crash after every session. Then I got into the habit of emailing her multiple times a day. She stopped reading my emails but I still sent them. I became so caught up in the relationship it isolated me from the people who truly love me. It completely took over my life. Now I am in withdrawal, and I am desperate for a new drug. If I knew somebody who sold heroin I would get some. Apparently there is a man who lives near Mum’s place who is a drug dealer. He also has a gun. But I am so desperate for something to lift the pain that I’m considering knocking on his door and asking if he has any drugs.

Love and relationship addiction is a very real thing. It is not just like a drug addiction, it IS a drug addiction. The only difference is we cannot see the drugs… the oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin and all the other chemicals that the relationship triggers in us.