Jim Hall, MS
Love Addiction Specialist
Love Addiction Help
It’s normal for people who experience the loss of a relationship through divorce or a break up to experience a grieving process—feel hurt, pain, abandonment reactions, sorrow, and heartache. There might be a sense of failure, hopelessness, loss, despair, fear, or desperation. They will move through a grieving cycle (with varying lengths of time). Eventually, as they move through these emotions, they will come to feel better and heal.
For the love addict, and some with an anxious attachment style, the grief goes beyond the normal stages of the grieving process where they get stuck in one or more of the levels of grief, which turns into extremely painful withdrawal.
It is not a withdrawal from a drug or alcohol—but an emotional withdrawal.
They ache, throb, and desperately want relief. They experience a deep yearning and obsession to have any connection with their lost partner. Because they identified mostly through their partner’s eyes, they feel a loss of self-identity because the symbiotic attachment (the addiction) is now gone.
Withdrawing from love is life without the medication relied upon—coming down from the unrealistic fantasy to reality, no longer available to numb and deny the self.
Obsessing Over an Ex
A primary symptom of love withdrawal is obsessing over an ex or having ongoing (seemingly unending) intrusive thoughts and/or images of an ex-partner.
Obsessive love thoughts could occur in many forms—such as having recurring fantasies about recapturing the love interest and romantic relationship—the magical person they lost, the good times, sex, passion, chemistry, intensity—while ignoring or filtering the truth that it was more chaos than bliss.
Obsession fans a love addict’s feelings of rejection into an emotional inferno. It is the pinnacle of all the experiences of withdrawing from love and other addictions.
The preoccupied thoughts often seem to take control and one feels extremely powerless to stop them. Even if love addicts want to stop (or slow down) obsessive thoughts, they are often unable to.
Obsessive thinking is often the purest form of distortion or irrational thoughts in withdrawal involving the compulsive need to think about certain people, situations, and/or behavior over and over again.
The obsessed person tends to focus on a single element in its extreme and process everything associated with the particular element as all black or all white.
How Long Will Love Withdrawal Last?
How long love addiction withdrawal lasts is one of the most frequently asked questions from my online recovery clients. Understandably, since it is such an excruciating experience for most.
The truth of the matter is, how long love and relationship addiction withdrawal will vary from person to person.
In my online practice, I work with many people going through this awful experience. I’ve seen love addicts experience a rapid decrease in their symptoms of withdrawal.
Generally, when we face the pain and grief of withdrawing from an addicted relationship, we tend to go into survival mode turning to old coping strategies or adapted behavioral responses from childhood. It is logical to say, if we allow this to happen, growth and healing cannot occur, and we continue to abandon ourselves and any chance of genuine love and intimacy in our future.
Fully embracing a solutions-oriented healing process can significantly improve and speed up the healing process.
Another factor that will no doubt contribute to how long withdrawal will last is the amount of contact and communication you have with an ex-partner, your drug.
Every time you have contact it is like a recovering alcoholic still experiencing symptoms of his or her withdrawal, stopping by to a local bar, sitting down, and taking one or two shots or more—which temporarily provides relief. Contact is like a heroin addict taking a relieving hit of the pipe. A no contact rule is critical to your healing process.
One thing for sure—what determines how long withdrawal from a breakup lasts depends on what recovery path a person takes. In other words, are they seeking recovery advice and guidance from a professional who understands this problem, who understands how to effectively help with the healing process? Are they going to support groups like Love Addicts Anonymous?
The experience of withdrawing from an addictive relationship is a tremendous opportunity for growth. Transformation and growth often occur from painful life circumstances.