In Gilbert’s work she presents love and sex addiction as powerful fixations that can be as compulsive and dangerous as substance addictions. She believes that, like substance addictions, love and sex addictions—known as process addictions in AA parlance—can create enormous damage when addictive behaviors go unchecked. She writes, “I’ve heard it said before that drug addicts steal people’s money, but love addicts steal people’s time, energy, and emotional attention—which is even worse, because those thefts hurt people at the level of their heart, at the deepest core of their being” (38). This comparison communicates the gravity of love and sex addiction as a set of compulsive behaviors that can wreak havoc on people’s lives. 

It should be noted that the classification of compulsive sexual and romantic behaviors as addictive is contentious among psychologists and psychiatrists. Neither sex addiction nor love addiction is listed as a clinical diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), and some argue that these labels risk pathologizing and stigmatizing normal human behaviors. Even so, many people feel that the addiction framework describes their experience and helps them to get a handle on their compulsions. For Gilbert, understanding her approach to sex and love as an addiction is the first step toward gaining control over her emotional life.

The author explains that love and sex addicts are addicted to pursuing relationships, using compulsive behaviors such as flirting and overgiving to enmesh themselves in romantic relationships. This is how they chase the “highs” of infatuation and sexual intimacy, allowing them to feel excitement, love and validation. While these experiences might seem universal, the author claims that love and sex addictions differ from typical experiences of love and sex. She claims that people with these addictions, like herself, make compulsive decisions in relationships, and their brains respond differently to the highs and lows of romance. She explains, “Other people might experience pleasurable sensations from romance, fantasy, or sex; I get wasted” (37). By using a colloquialism typically used to refer to the effects of alcohol or other intoxicating substances, Gilbert emphasizes the similarity between substance and process addictions.

The author endeavors to persuade the reader that love and sex addiction has a physiological basis in that addicts such as herself tend to have maladjusted nervous systems. She explains that this difference in her brain function has made her romantic behavior more habit-forming. She writes, “I don’t actually need alcohol and drugs to alter my consciousness, because the pharmacy built right into my brain churns out enormous amounts of dopamine as a reward for the experience of sexuality, physical closeness, and emotional arousal—and at a rate that is estimated to be ten times higher than that of a so-called normal person” (37). By comparing her brain to a pharmacy, the author portrays the natural high of intimacy and infatuation as being a drug-like experience, renewing her comparison between love addiction and drug addiction. By listing the feel-good hormones she experiences during her compulsive behaviors, the author adds physiological detail to her claims, helping the reader envision how dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and adrenaline powerfully reinforce these behaviors. The author describes the mind-altering high that she experiences when romance triggers these hormones, writing, that they give her “an almost godlike sense of euphoria, removing my ability to feel pain or calculate risk, warping my perception of reality, and taking away my desire for sleep, food, and fulfillment of other basic life-supporting needs” (37). Gilbert’s description hints at how these intense highs inevitably lead to crushing lows, setting her back to the beginning step of this addictive cycle.