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Addicted to heartbreak: Is itlove or are you just in a co-dependent relationship?ADDICTIONS & ANSWERS

Friday, August 6th 2010, 4:00 AM

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"When I told my boyfriend I loved him, he said no, I was merely co-addicted to him, andhe felt suffocated by it."

BILL: Back in my single days, Dave, I used to hear it all the time. Some guy would meet anew girl, maybe the bedroom was great, but he couldnt wait for the weekend to be over."She made me feel suffocated," he would tell me. I once mentioned this to Helen GurleyBrownI was writing for Cosmo at the time. "I hope you notice, she said, "they say thisafter theyve taken the girl to bed, not be fore. Dave, I thought those days were over. Butheres Janice, in despair because her boyfriend takes any sign of affection or attentionfrom her as "co-dependent addiction." Doc, is that just a fancy, medico-sounding termwayward Romeos use to cover their fickle nature?

DR. DAVE: Bill, you seem to be taking an old-fashioned, male-chauvinistic stance on thisquestion. Healthy love is given freely. Co-dependency enters when hidden issues ofcontrol and abandonment become a driving force.

BILL: OK, I agree that men can fear getting the brush just as keenly as women. But whenmy ex unexpectedly served me for divorce, I didn t think of suicide, I got mad. DR. DAVE:Normal to the co-dependent becomes a belief that, if you care deeply about someone,the primary sign of love is you are their life preserver 24/7.

BILL: My friend, addiction therapist Lynn Telford Sahl, tells me her experience is theaverage woman thinks about sex about once a day, "unless theyre in the early stages ofromantic love, which lasts for six to eight months." And Lynn, the author of "IntentionalJOY: How to Turn Stress , Fear & Addiction into Freedom," went on. "What women areaddicted to is the longing for their man to fit the romantic illusion they see in the movies.Jennifer had been married to Mark, divorced and remarried twice, but still together. Aftertwenty years of hoping hed change, he still hadnt, yet she clung to the 'someday' fantasy.The relationship worked for him yet she could neither let go, nor get what she reallywanted."

DR. DAVE: My sense is Jennifers co-addiction is expressed in her feeling that to leaveMark would be to destroy his life. What she didnt see is that her own self-esteem was

invested in this caretaker role -- behavior she may have learned as a child in an alcoholichome. BILL: Which brings me - ta-DA! -- to Lindsay Lohan. Did you see those videointerviews [link] where her father said it was his m iss ion to rescue her from drugaddiction-- though the effort is likely to kill him before the drugs kill her?

DR. DAVE: Whether you call it smothering with love, addicted to the addict or some othercatchy phrase; the professionally accepted criteria for co-dependency is "Continuedinvestment of your self-esteem in the ability to influence/control feelings and behavior,both in oneself and i n others, in the face of serious [life crises ]. "

BILL: La Lohan recorded that song "Daughter to Father" that really shows how the addictand co-addict become involved in a relationship where their personal boundaries are somerged that on any given day its hard to tell who is who. Ironically, it was recorded afterher father had been arrested for brawling and ordered to rehab hims elf .

DR. DAVE: Im in favor of letting a reader take a non-professional stroll through a goodwebsite; one that comes at codependent love attachment the same way Janice orHelenGurley Brown might have-

BILL: Using comm on sense language and the usual 40 self-diagnostic questions, "Areyou a ---" etc.? DR. DAVE: PLUS social support meetings on the 12 Step Model. In thiscase, a group founded in 2004 has jus t such a website at Love Addicts Anonymous.

BILL: And if that rings a bell or two, what about a professional help? DR. DAVE: I usuallysend patients to a couple of centers that have a very solid clinical approach-both are inArizona. One is found at Sierra Tucson Treatment Center[link]. The other is at TheMeadows Center.

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