January 21, 2005

• More on Why We Love,
  plus a few days of catching up –

  I
  have been up to my old tricks, avoiding the computer because of the
  work facing me here.  Several evenings back, I spent hours working
  on the neglected indexing at KaiOaty,
  writing HTML until my neck and shoulders were on fire and my eyes
  refused to focus.  I didn’t even get to the halfway point in the
  backlog.  Today, I decided to face it again.

  Doug had
  things he wanted to do on the computer, so I spent a few days in Couch
  Potato Heaven, with my back next to the woodstove, playing on the
  PS2.  Earlier this week, the outdoor temps were down around minus
  thirty for a few days.  Yesterday they eased up into double digits
  above zero.  Indoor temps which we’d been hard-pressed to keep in
  the fifties are now in the mid-sixties, very livable.   raguslil
  asked me if there are people here who depend on wood heat.  Doug
  and I are two of them.  Electric heat is only supplementary for
  us.  When the weather warms up as it has this week, we turn off
  the electric heaters.  I don’t use oil heat because of allergies.

  By his question about injecting amphetamine, baldmike2004 revealed that he hasn’t read my memoirs.  That story is in there among the biker years.

  I’ve said this before:  you guys give great comments.  I love the openings you’ve provided with your responses to my latest blog.  I can’t resist responding to them, especially since some of you have implied that you want more info.

  lupa wrote:

  Love
  as an addiction.  *ponders*  Yeah, I can see that… 
  Definitely explains why it’s always soooo hard for me to end something,
  even when it’s gone horribly wrong.  I don’t drink, smoke, or do
  any other illegal drugs, but I’ve got alcoholic genes so I guess love
  and chocolate is where it’s at for me.  *snort*
  I can just see it now…  Romantics Anonymous. 

  I haven’t heard of any RA yet, but there is an SLAA, Sex and Love
  Addicts Anonmymous.  Just as Gamblers Anonmymous and Food Addicts
  Anonymous were started by addicts who recognized the similarities of
  one addiction to another, many addicts had picked up on the connection
  long before scientists had traced the chemical components. 

  Greyfox and I knew that fact when we decided to build AuWay.org — Addicts unlimited.  We are your omni-recovery group
  (for which I still have a lot of code-writing to do).  We say that
  the key to any addiction is as simple as ABC:  it is All Brain
  Chemistry.   There are some different neurotransmitters
  involved, for example, in alcoholism than in amphetamine or cocaine
  addiction, and addiction to nicotine involves more of them than any
  other, but there are some basic similarities among them all.

  Twelve-step programs work because they support abstinence and promote
  personal responsibility.  Taking responsibility for one’s actions
  removes many of the excuses we addicts find for indulging, and
  abstinence (if and when the addict maintains a healthy diet and
  lifestyle) gets the brain chemistry back into a healthy balance so that
  the cravings ease.

  It’s interesting that you mention
  chocolate.  Theobromine, the addictive chemical in chocolate, is a
  precursor to dopamine and norepinephrine, the chemical markers for
  romantic love.  No wonder it has become so traditional as to be a
  cliche for a suitor to bring his sweetheart a box of chocolates. 
  If you want to know more, try googling, “theobromine, dopamine, norepinephrine“.  I got 866 results.

  dingus5 said:

  I think I read a review of Why We Love in Scientific American. It explained a lot, but was disillusioning. The magic is really a chemical imbalance.

  Isn’t disillusionment grand?!?  I know it will cause some psychic
  pain to some “incurable” romantics (those who don’t want to be cured of
  their illusions and delusions), but as for me I can’t shed my own
  illusions fast enough.  I am reminded of this definition: 
  “magic” is science we don’t understand yet.

  I would, however,
  take mild exception to calling it an “imbalance.”  That has
  connotations that imply an unhealthy state.  Certainly for some of
  us whose chemistry goes way above and beyond normal and wipes out all
  prudence and reason (speaking for myself here, fershure!), limerance or
  “romantic love” can be a sickness. 

  But the three basic
  drives that Dr. Fisher’s team identified and studied are not only
  normal and healthy, they have been responsible for the continuance of
  the species.  Lust, romantic love, and attachment
  are necessary and identifiable mating drives in every mammalian species
  and many non-mammals.  Chapter 2, “Animal Magnetism: Love among
  the Animals,” gives many amusing and heartwarming examples. 
  Without them, we would not come together to mate or stay together to
  improve our offspring’s chances of survival.

  Often it is when that chemistry gets out of balance that trouble starts.  Dr. Fisher, in the radio interview
  I listened to, suggests ways for couples to keep their romance alive,
  and for everyone to ensure that they attach to appropriate
  partners.  I’m convinced that this is an area where more knowledge
  is better.

  narniakingz wrote:

  Wouldn’t emotion still be quantified as the reaction that causes the initial increase in dopamine and norepinephrine?

  It might be (just maybe), in many people’s lexicons.  That is why I specified, “romantic love is not an ‘emotion’ in the jargon of psychology,
  but rather is a ‘drive’ or ‘motivation’ along with two other related
  drives she calls ‘lust’ and ‘attachment’.”  One thing that
  characterizes an emotion to a
  psychologist is that each emotion has its own recognizable facial
  expression universally, across cultural and racial lines.  Anger
  is an emotion, as are sadness and disgust.

  Drives come first,
  then emotions are triggered when the drives either meet obstacles or
  meet with success.  Emotions generally result when some drive or
  motivation is satisfied, denied, or frustrated.  Lust, romantic
  love, and attachment are examples of such drives that can trigger
  emotions when they are satisfied or frustrated.

  Dr. Fisher’s
  research team found that the primary factors which trigger the mating
  drives in humans are visual stimuli.  For many other species,
  scent is the primary trigger, but having once been a tree-dwelling
  species that needed to be able to recognize potential mates or enemies
  at a distance, we developed an “eye-brain”.

  The portions of
  our brains associated with processing visual data are bigger than those
  for any other sense.  Dr. Fisher’s subjects were shown pictures as
  they lay in the MRI scanners.  It is upon their measurable
  electrochemical responses to the pictures that the research conclusions
  are based. 

  The team also studied the subjects’ emotional responses to such things as satisfaction
  in long-term relationships (which generally brings the changes in brain
  chemistry that mark the transition from lust to romance and then to
  attachment) or to the frustration
  of being dumped.  She also has useful suggestions on how to
  restore a healthy and comfortable brain chemistry after being dumped.

  This comment from canek20xx really made me stop and think:

  That
  sounds curiously intriguing. Definitely adding that book to my reading
  list. I wonder if there are drugs or natural chemicals that one could
  ingest to supress this so-called drive. If so – could humans harness
  the energy normally dedicated to the pursuit of sex and channel it into
  other endeavors? I do wonder.

  There are certainly
  numerous chemical ways to alter the drives.  If you watch any TV
  you’ve probably seen commercials for various pharmaceuticals that have
  or are claimed not to have “sexual side-effects.”  Dr. Fisher has
  found that SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitiors) such as
  Prozac, which are specifically noted not to have sexual side-effects, do have inhibitory effects on romantic love. 

  This makes total sense since the drive is related to elevated levels of
  dopamine and norepinephrine, and reduced levels of serotonin. 
  Anything that inhibits the natural reuptake of serotonin is going to
  increase blood levels of it.

  In that  radio interview,
  she cites the case of one woman who felt she had fallen out of love
  with her husband and was considering divorce until she stopped taking
  Prozac.  Then the romance came back, and they decided to have a
  child.  To Dr. Fisher, the moral of that story is that SSRIs can
  interfere with your mating and reproductive health.

  That’s her opinion, based on her personal perspective.  It seems apparent that canek20xx has a different viewpoint.  From my
  perspective, there are ways to alter brain chemistry that are
  preferable to taking drugs.  Greyfox and I have taken nutritional
  supplements including vitamins, minerals and amino acids
  (neurotransmitter precursors) to alter our brain chemistry and get us
  over the cravings in early abstinence from our addictions.

  I’m
  off them now, but am considering taking at least phenylalanine again
  since I read this book and made the connection between being in love
  and being in remission from many symptoms of my neuromuscular
  disorder(s).  Phenylalanine is a precursor of
  norepinephrine.  I forget what the amino acid precursors are for
  dopamine, but you can be sure that I’ll be looking them up.  I am
  NOT going to revive my chocolate addiction — that is for sure! 
  If I did that, I might very well surrender to the sugar addiction
  again, and then before long I’d be morbidly obese again.  I have a
  couple of dozen pairs of GV jeans to motivate me to keep my current
  size.

  Norepinephrine is an “energy” chemical in the brain.  Dopamine is a “pleasure” chemical.  I think canek20xx
  might be on the wrong track in wanting to suppress the chemistry. 
  Take away those neurotransmitters and you take away the pleasure and
  energy.  Then the body-mind will seek other ways of supplying its
  perceived needs for pleasure and energy.  Cocaine and amphetamine
  are two well-known chemical substitutes for love in generating pleasure
  and energy.  I would not recommend either of them.

  There
  is, I know, a better way.  In the well-ordered being the spirit
  controls the mind and the mind controls the body.  That is the
  principle behind the effectiveness of 12-step programs:  they work
  (when we work them) to put the spirit into control.  But if our
  minds are strong enough we can control our bodies from intellect and
  reason.

  If we simply understand the chemistry of energy and
  pleasure, give our bodies the nutritional requirements to produce the
  brain chemistry, and provide our minds with something besides a mate on
  which to focus our passionate commitment, we can have it.  Mating
  is not the only way to trigger the release of those
  chemicals.   It is only the simplest, easiest and most
  accessible means.  It’s the one hard-wired in us for the
  preservation of the species.

  In times when overpopulation,
  pollution and aggression threaten extinction of the species it should
  not be difficult for aware individuals to divert their mating drives to
  other uses.  I can see how just being aware of the chemistry
  involved could help someone avoid an inadvisable match and a subsequent
  commitment to a person or a family that eventually becomes a source of
  discontent or contempt — as many of the marriages that result from the
  natural drives do evolve.

  If you know that the overwheming
  feelings you experience are not coming from that good-looking guy or
  girl, but from your body’s response to the mating drive, then you might
  be able to keep your wits about you well enough to make more
  intelligent choices.  However, in doing so, you are going against
  not only the evolutionary imperatives built into the species, but the
  mythology developed by our cultures.  I suppose only the
  strong-minded individuals will succeed, and perhaps unfortunately, they
  will be unlikely to breed and pass on their strong-minded DNA.

  UPDATE, Saturday, January 22, 2005, about 4 PM:

  It vexes me when things I write are taken out of context.  A new
  subscriber apparently saw the “Why We Love” reference and didn’t know
  it was a book title.  Nor did he apparently notice that I draw a
  clear
  distinction between “romantic love” (which I call limerance) and the
  real thing, the kind of love that Erich Fromm called “an act of
  will.”  Perhaps he did not read all of this entry.  I’d be
  willing to bet all the money he dropped into my little purple hat that
  he didn’t read the foregoing one to which this one refers. 

  Terry says he loves, “because he can.”   Maybe he means he
  has the neurochemical capacity to fall in “love” and is grateful for
  that.  Maybe he means he has the spiritual capacity to willingly
  give unconditional love.  Maybe he’s just being cute.  Who
  knows?

  • 8:46 pm
  • 7 Comments