'My Life As A Love Addict'

DURING HER TWENTIES, Daisy Buchanan dated a string of bad boys and grew to think love was all about crazy sex and dramatic bust-ups. Here, she explains how SHE KICKED THE HABIT.

My husband calls me ‘puppy’ due to my excessive energy, enthusiasm and tendency to get distracted. I’m anxious, easily excitable, and giggle and weep at the drop of a hat. However, he finds stillness within me that I never knew existed. I can rest my head on his chest and be unconscious in minutes. After years of dating bad, crazy, exciting men who kept me on an emotional roller coaster, this one has shown me the simple joy of just being. We never run out of things to say to each other, and we rarely argue. And I’ve realised that this isn’t boring – it’s normal. I’m aware I sound smug, but I still can’t get over how many years I wasted being anxious and sad – and how many women I meet who have done the same.

Before I met the man who is now my husband, arguing was my preferred means of communication. I thought that fighting showed true passion. I spent more time analysing my boyfriends and obsessing over them with girlfriends than I actually spent with them. My love life was like a bad ’80s exercise video – if it wasn’t hurting, it wasn’t working. I actively looked for relationships that would hurt me emotionally, because I was so addicted to the sheer excitement of the highs and lows. Sound familiar? Recent research by The Oxford Centre For Neuroethics shows that for some people in romantic relationships, the brain’s reward centres are stimulated in the same way as if reacting to addictive drugs. They regularly experience euphoria, craving, dependence, withdrawal and relapse, and the researchers labelled them ‘love addicts’. Like drug dependency, love addiction can impair judgement and cause those affected to put themselves in dangerous situations that impact their physical and emotional health.