Excerpt #1

1. Language can hardly express a lover's confident, rapturous state of mind

2. In love, everything about the beloved seems thrilling and fascinating.

3. Yet all these characteristics: the narrowing of our world, the obsession, the experience of obstacles as an aphrodisiac, the inability to resist, are also symptoms of a kind of slavery to the substance or person that causes them.

4. were we in the grip of a magnificent obsession fueled by the many obstacle in its path? were we soul mates, or were we being pulled forward by compulsions and desires that take over from reason in situations where love is concerned?

5. I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps, it is because of envy - I, too,crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles on inspection. I hate to be love's executioner. - Stanford Psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom

6. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. - Maggie Scarf

7. Addiction is defined by behavior, not by fantasy. With sexual behavior, as with alcoholism, addiction cant be measured by the amount someone drinks or their number of sexual partners. Is everyone who get drunk an alcoholic? Certainly not.

8. Addicts with many different substances are able to control the effects of one by using another.

9. Overeating can diminish the pain of remorse.

10. The rush of energy, the euphoria in the presence of a loved one, possessiveness and the heightened state of lovers when they are together is not exclusive to our species.