Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love

This book was recommended by my therapist. After going thru the whole book and writing all the exercises, I have unlocked and unloaded a ton of childhood pain and trauma. You will shed floods of tears and feel terrible feelings you have buried, but this process is like the purging of toxins so you can begin to heal. One customer commented that the author didn't offer any recovery tools. I'd like to offer my experience: The most important recovery tool is to develop a relationship with a Higher Power that is not a person or object. For if you do not have a Higher Power, you will turn to a person or object for that love, which will result in addiction. From time to time, during recovery, painful feelings will surface, triggered by whatever or whomever you're dealing with day to day. When I was in a relationship, it was hard because I couldn't get away easily to process the triggered feelings. The book offers suggestions which are good, but not that easy to do for me. Now that I'm not in that relationship, I've followed my therapist's suggestion to identify the triggering event, the root cause (usually from your childhood), and replace the painful feeling with thoughts, words, and deeds that make me feel better. This 3-step process takes tremendous discipline because many times I just want to stick to my lifelong habit of self-pity, depression, and pessimism. I also begin my day with one hour of Prayer Walk. I meditate every day to empty my mind, and infuse my being with God's love. Since I've been doing recovery, I have stopped crying over loneliness, stopped longing for that "soulmate", and stopped the frantic search. After all, you are your true soulmate, because if you can't love you, no one can. Everyone accesses their Higher Power differently, but the most important thing is to receive all the love you need from your Higher Power. Without doing so, you will forever rely on a created being or thing for love, and be constantly frustrated because of his/its limitations. Before reading Pia Mellody's book, I was attracted to men who were challenging, difficult, complex, and provocative, which I found fascinating, but they in fact were unstable, emotionally melodramatic, and abusive. Now when I meet men who are intense, I feel less attraction, perhaps because I have processed my childhood trauma wounds and lowered my degree of intensity, becoming more at peace with myself. Today I see these people as wounded, just unaware of it. I know I can choose peace, not conflict; joy, not suffering; gentleness, not intensity. The book says "Love addicts are attracted to men who walk away from them." That was very true of me. But to change that, I had to open my wounds, clean them out, identify the pain, and patiently wait for the wounds to heal. I hope the pain you're feeling will be enough of a wakeup call to begin this journey.

Holy Moley,I just didn't know until I read this book. This book clearly illustrated to me just what I've been doing in relationships that get me into trouble. It doesn't stop there either.While reading, I could begin to see the shroud of darkness lift from my eyes, and clarity begin to set in. I am a love addict, and have been picking avoidant addicts for years and never knew it. Now I can see the reasons for the pain I was forced to endure. I am now happily on the road to recovery.If you have any questions at all about your troubled relationships of the present or past, buy this book!

I found this book well written and comprehensive, but what was the most moving to me was the way in which it touched the most painful and sad and hidden part of my relationships. Not only does it talk about me and why I do this, but it clearly talks about my partner(s) and what they seek in this valiant but destructive and Quixotic dance we do. I did not need my highlighter, as my tears did the highlighting on each and every page. Strangely, the more I read into the book the more soothed I felt in that I understood, finally, that I am not alone, that I needn't be alone and that there is a way out from this. If you suffer in relationships in the dramatic push-pull way, if the relationships you have are frought with complicated manipulations, if you want a way out...please read this book. Best of luck. Tim

I read this book about four or five years ago, and it helped me understand, in a way that nothing had before, why my relationships were not working. I have read several books on building healthy relationships, and many are good, but this is the one that saved my life. Pia's model explains that while I was searching for love, I was really much more afraid to receive it than I had ever thought. Before I read it, I hadn't been able to sustain any relationship for long, and had never been close to marriage. Now I am happily married, and I still turn to this book for tune-ups in my marriage. Thank you Pia, very much!