Science Corner - The Love Drug (Text)

It occurred to me today that when people refer to love as being a drug, they’re probably not altogether wrong. Obviously I don’t mean love in the context of “Man, I LOVE Rammstein!” or “I love muffins”; but in the context of being in love with someone, I suspect that love acts exactly like a drug does.



I was watching a show a while back about the link between dogs and humans, and at one point they were explaining why you get such a good feeling when you stroke your dog. Apparently, stroking your dog (as in actually stroking a pet canine – that’s not a euphemism. Although, thinking about it – this probably applies to THAT as well…) releases chemicals (endorphins?) in your brain, which cause you to feel happy. More interestingly, it also has the exact same effect on the dog. That’s why dogs seem to love being stroked – it makes them produce chemicals that make them happy. It also explains why only grumpy dogs snarl at you if you try to stroke them.

Naturally, I figured this is probably what happens with humans. When we feel connected to them, we feel happy when we’re around them – and the obvious explanation for this is that, when we acknowledge that someone is important to us, being around them releases these same chemicals into our brains, making us happy. This is what love is made of.

But then this got me thinking – does that mean that if I’m in love with someone I’m actually just addicted to the chemical feeling I get from being with them, and the identity of the person in question is irrelevant, just so long as they get me high? The obvious answer to this is, of course, “yes”.



This again made me wonder – does that mean that every loving relationship we are involved in is essentially the same as the relationship between a Heroin addict and a dealer? And I found this amusing enough to want to argue my case. So, here we go…

Obviously, those who believe in “true love” are not going to see things in this way, and nor are those who see love as being a very spiritual or religious experience. But, being a grumpy, relatively young, not particularly religious person, I think this analogy makes perfect sense, and shall use case studies to back up my theory that BEING IN LOVE IS LIKE USING HEROIN!


Which explains why Russell Brand only decided to settle down after he quit using actual Heroin...

You know how sex feels great, but when you compare it to love, it actually feels like crap (I know, it seems weird even typing it – I’m 21 for God’s sake!)? Like how when you’re in a loving relationship you can’t believe there are guys out there who only use women for sex, and don’t bother to stay with them and really get to know and love them? That’s because sex is producing a different chemical that, whilst very powerful when you are actually taking it, has almost no lasting effects, and the high ends very quickly. In my analogy, therefore, sex is Crack. Now, those who are into mixing things up a bit will tell you that Crack and Heroin are perfect partners (I’m pretty well just working from what Russell Brand says in “My Bookie Wook” here, so if your own personal experience varies – compare that to your views on love and sex, and see if your drug and love preferences match. If they don’t – tell me! I’ll look into it…), because Heroin has such an amazing high, but is depressive in nature, and pretty well knocks you out, but smoking Crack after you’ve done heroin is the perfect way to keep that high, and stay buzzing. This applies to love too, when you think about it.

Sure, Crack is great, but the high doesn’t last long. And Heroin is amazing – the best high ever – but boy, you just can’t do ANYTHING whilst you’re on heroin, unless you have some crack to pick you up. Now read that back substituting “Crack” for “sex” and “heroin” for “love”. And yes, I do realize I just told you to trade crack for sex in that last sentence.


Just an average Friday night for some...

Now, some guys prefer crack, and I’m cool with that. But I’ve always been more of a heroin man, myself. Possibly because the first time I did Crack was with a girl I later took Heroin with, and I realised that the high got so much better when I combined the Crack with Heroin that I never wanted to do Crack without Heroin again. But thinking about it – if you’ve only ever done crack, and never tried Heroin; you wouldn’t know what you were missing, so wouldn’t care that you weren’t experiencing what Heroin was like, right? I mean, I remember the night when I first did Crack, and it was amazing! One of those things you’ll never forget. And I can easily imagine myself cruising for Crack, looking to get my hit however possible, and feeling like king of the world – if I had never tried Heroin.



Unfortunately, I did try Heroin. And I got hooked.



This is great whilst you’ve got a supplier who can give you all the heroin you need, but turns into a nightmare when your supplier stops selling you Heroin, and leaves town. The exact same is true with love. If the person you love tells you that they’re not in love with you any more, and that they don’t want to see you any more, you feel like crap. You have actual withdrawal symptoms! Think about it – How many of you have had your hearts broken and found yourself just curled up in a ball in bed, or spent hours in the shower, not being able to think about anything else, or operate properly. Maybe you couldn’t get out of bed all day, or maybe you cried? Hell, you may have been physically sick. These are withdrawal symptoms, all right – but not withdrawal from the person you loved (or thought you loved, as you’re now saying), but rather from the chemical effect that you associate with that person. The thing is – most people can’t differentiate between the two. Your dealer leaves town and suddenly you feel really ill and depressed? Maybe you do miss the dealer – but you know as well as I do those effects are more to do with the fact you’ve lost your heroin supply!

And think about “The rebound”. We’ve all been there – you’re in a long-term relationship which breaks down, and straight after get into another relationship. This is exactly the same as you would expect from a heroin addict who just lost their supplier. You go out, and find a new supplier as quickly as you can – so you don’t lose the feeling that heroin gives you. For the lucky few, this new supplier will bring in an even stronger product, and you won’t even miss your old supplier. But for most of us, we have to cope with weaker strength Heroin when we switch suppliers, and at times find ourselves wondering whether there’s any Heroin in there at all, or has it been cut so much that there really isn’t any Heroin in this syringe, just baking soda?

The Crack, too, tends to decline. I mean, you still smoke Crack with your new supplier. Hell, you might even smoke more. But it’s not the same. You’re too used to smoking Crack with Heroin, and now Crack on its own just won’t do. What’s more – it’s not even as good as the Crack you remember your old dealer giving you. You wish you could just go back – if you hadn’t smoked your old dealer’s crack, you’d probably be loving this new supplier’s Crack! But it doesn’t work like that. So you’re stuck, with a poor Heroin substitute, and low strength Crack, until eventually, that supplier leaves town as well. Or maybe you leave town this time, hoping there’ll be some good quality Heroin elsewhere. But in the new town you move to, you don’t know any good suppliers, so have to ask around, starting with the weaker drugs first.




Dating is like Cannabis – compared to Heroin, it’s very easy to get your hands on, and although ideally will lead on to Crack, or even Heroin, you know there’s no certainty that a weed dealer will also be a Heroin supplier. The more Cannabis you do, there more you get used to spotting what a potential dealer looks like as well, and the better you get at this, the more chance you know you have of getting Crack, or even Heroin, off a dealer when you meet them. But for now, you figure you’ll buy weed off them for a while, then hope they ask you if you want some Crack soon enough. And who knows, you may get that Heroin after all.

Some guys can just get Crack without asking for Cannabis first, but for the most part, we like getting comfortable buying weed off our dealers before we ask if they have any Crack, just in case they’re a Narc, and because it’s a bit rude to jump straight to Crack… After all, most of us started on weed, and know that it’s a respectable drug to ask for when you first meet a dealer – it doesn’t sound as forceful and dirty as asking them if they’ve got any Crack they can give you. Though, obviously, what you ask the dealer for will vary on circumstance. If someone has a reputation as a crack dealer, you’re obviously going to be more inclined to ask for Crack without bothering with the weed, or at least ask for Crack on the same night as you buy the weed off them. But what’s interesting is the difference in the highs. Some people find Crack superior, because the high it delivers is so much stronger; whilst others prefer the weed, because it’s closer in effect to the Heroin, and you feel that smoking weed helps you get by between hits of Heroin far more easily that smoking Crack does.



But what happens when a weed dealer leaves? Some people aren’t really concerned; after all, weed dealers are a dime a dozen, and there are plenty more fish in the sea. But some of us find that line of thinking hard – especially when your old weed dealer starts selling crack, or even heroin, to some Douchebag you know is just going to wind up doing a rip and run on them, or going to the Narcs. This makes us angry – because if they’d dealt exclusively with us, we assure ourselves that we would never be tempted to rip them off, and especially wouldn’t seek out other Crack dealers whilst leeching their Heroin supply like a worthless prick. But we forget one thing – if she gave that douchefag crack so soon after giving him weed, maybe you didn’t want to wait and see if her Heroin is any good, because the kind of dealer who associates with that kind of guy isn’t the type of dealer you can buy Heroin from for the rest of your life. And even if her Heroin was good, are you really going to buy Heroin off a dealer with so little self respect they’re practically giving Crack away in the hopes someone will hook them up with a Heroin supply? I don’t think so! So I’ll stick with my weed for now, despite the fact that I haven’t had Heroin in quite some time now, and despite the fact that, although having had Crack more recently (though not THAT recently) I still crave it somewhat; because I know when the right dealer comes along, I’ll get all the Crack and Heroin I could want, and I’ll love it!


Until she leaves town as well…






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