When people hear the term “love addiction,” the immediate reaction is often confusion or even denial. After all, isn’t love supposed to feel all-consuming?

Isn’t that rush part of the magic? The problem is, when that rush is rooted in trauma, chaos, or the desperate need for validation, it’s not love — it’s addiction.

And it’s far more common than we admit.

As a trauma-informed life coach and someone who has survived the darkest kinds of betrayal, I’ve come to learn this the hard way. Love addiction is the attachment to fantasy over reality, the addiction to potential over presence, and the chase for emotional highs over mutual, regulated connection. It mimics the cycles of substance addiction — withdrawal, relapse, euphoric highs, unbearable lows.

The Root of the Pattern

Love addiction doesn’t start in adulthood. It begins in childhood. When affection was inconsistent, conditional, or absent, our nervous systems learned that “love” was earned through hyper-vigilance, people-pleasing, or becoming the emotional caretaker.

We became addicted to chasing love that mirrored the pain we grew up with because our nervous systems mistook it for home.

This isn’t weakness. It’s programming.

The chemical cocktail our brain produces when we’re caught in an addictive love cycle is similar to those produced in substance abuse. Dopamine spikes from intermittent reinforcement.

Oxytocin floods during false intimacy. Cortisol rises during the inevitable abandonment or conflict.

And yet, we go back. Again and again.

Not because we’re stupid. But because we’re wired.

Love Addiction vs Real Love

Real love is not a high. It’s not anxiety. It’s not obsessively checking your phone, sacrificing your boundaries, or falling into despair when someone pulls away.

Real love feels like security. Like calm. Like peace.

So many of us mistake our own people-pleasing tendencies as love. We think:

If I love harder, they’ll stay.

If I shrink myself, they’ll choose me.

If I forgive everything, that must mean I’m strong.


That’s not love. That’s self-abandonment.

And every time we betray our truth to earn someone else’s attention, we reinforce a lie: that we must suffer to be worthy.

Accountability as Empowerment

There’s a moment in the healing process that requires brutal honesty. Not blame. Not shame. But radical accountability.

Ask yourself:

What part of me is addicted to chaos?

What feelings do I crave because they distract me from feeling my core wounds?

What relationships do I chase that keep me from confronting myself?


These are not easy questions. But they’re necessary if you want to break the cycle.

How to Start Healing

1. Acknowledge the Pattern – Call it what it is. Not love. Addiction.


2. Get Support – Coaching, therapy, and group spaces like Anchored Connections can help regulate and rewire your nervous system.


3. Reparent Your Inner Child – Speak to yourself with compassion. Become the source of the stability you’ve always longed for.


4. Set Boundaries – The ones who leave when you do this are showing you who was feeding your addiction, not your heart.



You’re not needy. You’re rewiring. And today, you start.




Ready to face your mirror? book a private session at http://www.healingmyfeelings.com.

• Healing & Recovery