Category: Uncategorized

Alcohol is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning there is strong evidence that it causes cancer. It is the most widely used psychoactive substance and by definition it is poisonous.

Abusing alcohol or alcohol addiction is pathological, compulsive, incredibly destructive to relationships and both psychologically and physiologically habit-forming. It destroys families, careers, workplaces and costs hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

A major hallmark of addiction is denial.

Our Culture

Humans are a social species that need connection. Rituals help create a feeling of connection, comfort and safety, and drug rituals are powerful. When we don’t feel safe in our social network, we find new rituals and new tribes.

The Brain

The frontal lobe is a location within the brain where most empathy and connection to other human beings occurs (and with animals). If you do a functional MRI of a mother while she is looking at a picture of her baby, her frontal lobe will light up.

The frontal lobe is also involved in emotional regulation and social behavior, as well as planning and problem solving.

If your frontal lobe is off, you literally start disconnecting from people. Alcohol is a substance that severely compromises the Frontal Lobe.

Family dynamics

An unspoken set of rules that families may often unconsciously create when there is alcoholism in the household looks like the below

Don’t talk about it

Don’t feel about it

Don’t deal with it

Excuses to rationalize, justify, minimize, blame shift the beha

It takes a long time to heal also, if compromised through substance use

Relapse rates for alcoholics at one year is 50%.

Children

Children of alcoholics are four times more likely to develop alcohol related problems and tend to initiate alcohol use earlier than children of non-alcoholics.

One of the highest risk factors for children being abused is alcohol/addiction in the home. Children are four more times likely to suffer neglect in such household environments.

Children feel responsible for their parents alcoholism. They fear the person who uses alcohol or drugs will get sick or die. They attach with the unhealthy alcoholic parent, and can become so defensive that if the non-drinking parent confronts the problematic drinking, they will need to through their child. Children can be very angry at the non-alcoholic adults.

Bibliography

• Crystal Collier, PhD, LPC-S, Murphy-Petersen Fellow in Behavioral Health, Hope and Healing Center & Institute – The Effects of Alcoholism and Addiction on Families and Children
• Scott F. Basigner, PhD, Hope and Healing Center & Institute Founding Executive Director and Crystal Collier – Neurorscience of Addiction/Alcoholic Psyche

There have been some ongoing few visits to this website – a most curious occurrence as I started this project as a place to notate my own personal collections and research findings on Attachment Theory. There is no doubt some bias and leaning on the article selections and headings. They are directed towards affirming my own meanderings in romance.

So saying that, I decided recently it would be fitting to start blogging casual or personal reflections on love, passion, romance and sex. Perhaps then my own filtered lens would be more apparent to myself and offer the opportunity for those who visit here to obtain an impression of this website’s nature. It is an opportunity for me to start freely reflecting and associating with the wisdom I have gained through my reading and perhaps share pieces that could offer a panacea for people looking to grow into healthier and more secure people, and thus continue to have more of such qualities in their intimate relationships, families and communities.

Most people turn to Attachment Theory, or a more ‘popular culture’ optical version of it, after encountering trouble in their relationships, through experiencing acute breakups/marital disintegration or loss. There can be a lot of confusion and disorientation when we pair up with someone.

AttachmentTheory.net is one of the more academically grounded and well-cited attachment-theory resources written for a general audience. Its use of bibliographies and in-text citations makes it more rigorous than most non-academic or popular psychology sites.

This website outgrew from my own encounters with loss, betrayal and grief. In time I hope that it can be a bastion of resilience, understanding, and peacekeeping for troubled relationships, and offer hope for those feelings lost. The internet is rife with misinformation, AI generated blog posts on love so I hope that my sincerity can cut through some of this noise and be a helpful reference for you.

Probably one of the more pressing issues for me is our own incompetence when it comes to handling grief and loss in our society. I am very passionate about conveying the detrimental effects of unresolved loss and neurotic behaviours that result from an incapacity (due to economical, emotional or situational) to process grief.

My understanding is that grief is one of the more straining emotional undertakings we face as humans, yet it is the most universal. Like birth and death, we are all going to experience loss in our lives. Our inability to communicate grief, understand grief, share grief is holding us back from living more fulfilling lives. There will likely be a lot of emphasis on this throughout my writings, as it is hard to love openly, freely and with vulnerability when we are tethered to the gravity of our pain and fear of losing something or someone.

The truth is, we can handle loss. We can process grief. And we can continue to have healthy secure relationships.

One of the persons who I am indebted to both for saving me countless times and for these ideas is the Psychologist, Grief Counselor, Lawyer and Author Susan J. Elliott. I will be writing more on Susan J. Elliott, who sadly passed away in 2021. Not many people would be aware that the concept of No Contact actually comes from Susan J. Elliott and her famous blog Getting Past Your Past/Getting Past Your Breakup. Most likely, Susan developed and refined it through her own experiences healing herself and doing intense grief work with her therapist following a devastating divorce.

That’s all for now. Many more to come. Some future concepts I hope to explore will include:

• cultural variation
• stability of adult attachment styles and their flux ( the ability to change internal working models
• the limits of self-reported attachment style measures and the dangers of popular psychology pigeonholing
• deterministic vs developmental neuro plasticity

2025 November 27th

While some transgressions in relationships may be trivial, those involving betrayal have significant impacts on relationships and can be significant contributors to it’s demise.

When someone in a relationship is unfaithful, it typically leaves their spouse to believe they are no longer trustworthy. Difficult to forgive, and perhaps impossible to be forgotten, infidelity cuts at the foundations of a relationship. Feelings of betrayal, distress and deceit result.

Infidelity has been found to be associated with depression, anxiety, PTSD in some cases, decreased self esteem, attachment issues and more. It is harmful and destructive- to one’s reputation, to one’s self and towards the dignity and respect of one’s partner.

Given the harmful effect it has, we need more research on creating interventions that prevent it’s occurrence and harmful effects in society. It is significant because of how common infidelity is today.

The definitions of infidelity

Infidelity is not only related to a physical act. Studies have show that emotional distress an individual endures is not necessarily through a sexual act their spouse committed, but more so the emotional intent behind it. In fact, both sexes have reported having stronger feelings of jealousy after finding out their partner had emotional involvement with someone else compared to their partner’s sexual involvement outside of the
relationship (Schützwohl et al., 2004).

Emotional Infidelity

Defined as “the occurence of emotional involvement with a third party that violates the ground rules established by the couple (for example, and not exhaustive: sharing deepest thoughts with another, falling in love with another, being vulnerable with each other, being more commited to another, spending more time or money on another)(Leeker &
Carlozzi., 2014 p. 69)

Someone who has intimate feelings for someone else without having participated in sexual conduct may hurt their spouse more deeply.

Cyber/Online infidelity

Virtual infidelity does not require physical proximity or interaction, yet it can still be harmful to the victims mental and emotional health. It is much easier to engage in due to our broad social media platform usage. It can leave just as heavy an impact on a victim’s metal well-being.

Bibliography

• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10002055/#B1-ijerph-20-03904
• https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/9g54xp781

• Melody Beattie (published ‘Co-dependent no more‘, 1986) and Robin Norwood (published ‘Women Who Love Too Much‘, 1985) popularized the term co-dependency in their self-help books, borrowing a concept from Alcohol and addiction research and applying it to romantic relationships. This popularization led to an influx of publications, almost obscuring the original meaning of the term and it’s application to describe relationships with alcohol.

Attachment Theory Researchers

Love Researchers

Themes

• the subordination of the sexual system to attachment processes under relationship-threatening circumstances.
• the role of sex as a promoter of emotional bonds.
• attachment orientations help explain variations in the way in people construe their sexual interactions

Ideas

• Research has generally indicated that smooth functioning of the attachment system facilitates relaxed engagement in sexual activities and encourages the channelling of sexual desires into a committed intimate relationship, even as early as adolescence. In contrast, negative attachment experiences in childhood and the consolidation of insecure patterns of attachment are likely to impair the functioning of the sexual system in close relationships during this period and later on. In- deed, if a person feels chronically insecure about being loved, whether this is reflected in relational worries or in being uncomfortable with intimacy, it is unlikely that this person’s sexual system will function without interference. The nature of interference, however, is different between anxious and avoidant adolescents. 1
• We found that sexual deactivation had detrimental effects on relationship satisfaction. Unsurprisingly, partners’ attachment-related avoidance perpetuated the sexual deactivation effects over time.

Reference

1. Attachment and Sexual Mating. In Handbook of attachment.

Polyamory refers to multiple, committed, love-based relationships with the consent of all the partners.

Modern History of Polyamory in Western Culture

It is worth exploring the history of Polyamory and popularization of polyamory. In this it’s possible to see that the recent growth and popularity of non-monogamy is a reflection of late capitalist values, marking declines in intimacy, weakening of solid bonds and the commercialization of feelings. While confluent love is possible and can be successful, it takes exceptional emotional labor, regulation and concerted effort on the parts of agreed parties. Like all relational arrangements, there are “codes”, scripts, agreements and cultural factors that influence such dynamics. These are worth exploring and not being taken at face value.

Compersion

The word ‘Compersion’ and ‘Polyfidelity’ comes from the Kerista community, a utopian community started in New York following a mystic vision in 1956 by John Peltz “Bro Jud” Presmont. Throughout much of its history, Kerista was centered on the ideals of polyfidelity. The commune developed an entire vocabulary around alternative lifestyles. Kerista accumulated a codified social contract over its history with which all members were expected to agree and comply, at all times.

• Total rationality at all times
• Search for truth through the elimination of contradictions
• No jealousy, no anger, no rivalry, no profanity, no flippancy, no masturbation
• Renounce “Negative Intrigue”
  Kerista.commune – The Historical Record

Artwork & conversations of Kerista Commune members

Jealousy is managed, supressed or channelled into compersion in polyamorous relationships: “The most striking aspect of polyamory’s ‘hard work ‘ concerns the management of jealousy. In academic and self-help literature on polyamory, jealousy has received ample attention. The literature assumes that jealousy is a heteronormative emotional socialization which is based on ideas of possession and betrayal. People experiencing these emotions are encouraged to instead learn to experience joy for the partner’s love of another (compersion). ” (Deri, 2015; Mint, P, 2010; Veaux et al., 2014).

Social movements around gender and sexuality (actions, discourse and cultural imaginaries) do not unfold independently from economic processes, market forces, state or class politics). With regard to the study of polyamory, economic questions are virtually unexplored territory (Klesse, 2014).

A majority of those practicing polyamory are composed of predominantly white subjects and occupy advanced socio economic position: “Research into polyamory has mostly drawn a rather homogeneous picture of polyamory networks or communities (Klesse 2007; Ritchie and Barker 2007; Wosik-Correa 2010).
Sheff and Hammers’ (2011) review of 36 research studies into polyamory and BDSM shows that most of them present research samples composed of predominantly white subjects holding above-average educational qualifications and occupying advanced socio economic position. Weber also points out that poly households have higher income levels than the general population.
(Klesse, 2014).

Why racial homogonity?

People in polyamorous relations have trouble defining their relationships: “As was the case for their definitions of love, the way people in consensual nonmonogamies define their relationships is somewhat blurred. For example, many respondents clearly stated that they found it hard to draw a clear line between love and friendship. (Roodsaz, 2022)

• “I think of love and friendship more as a continuum than a dichotomy”
• “I think I’ve always been… involved in relationships that I call friendships but that look very much like those that I call loves, right?… “

Deri, J. (2015). Love’s refraction: Jealousy and compersion in queer women’s polyamorous relationships. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press.

Mint, P. (2010). The power mechanisms of jealousy. In M. Barker & D. Langdridge (Eds.), Understanding non-monogamies
(pp. 201–206). New York: Routledge.

Veaux, F., Hardy, J., & Gill, T. (2014). More than two: A practical guide to ethical polyamory. Portland: Thorntree Press.)

Bibliography

Klesse, C. (2014). Poly Economics—Capitalism, Class, and Polyamory. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 27(2), 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-013-9157-4

Braida, N., Matta, E., & Paccagnella, L. (2023). Loving in Consensual Non-Monogamies: Challenging the Validity of Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale. Sexuality & Culture, 27(5), 1828–1847. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-023-10092-0

Roodsaz, R. (2022). The “hard work” of polyamory: ethnographic accounts of intimacy and difference in the Netherlands. Journal of Gender Studies, 31(7), 874–887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2022.2098094

The awareness of human separation, without reunion by love–is the source of shame. It is a at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety.

The deepest need of humans, then, is the need to overcome their separateness, to leave the prison of aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity, because the panic of complete isolation can be overcome only by such a radical withdrawal from the world outside that the feeling of separation disappears-because the world outside, from which one is separated, has disappeared.

Humans of all ages and cultures are confronted with the solution of one and the same question: the question of how to overcome separateness, how to achieve union, how to transcend one’s own individual life and find at-onement. The question is the same for primitive humans living in caves, for nomadics taking care of flock, for the peasant in Egypt, the Phoenician trader, the Roman soldier, the medieval monk, the Japanese samurai, the modern clerk, and factory hand. The question is the same, for it springs from the same ground: the human situation, the conditions of human existence. The answer varies. The question can be answered by animal worship, by human sacrifice or military conquest, by indulgence in luxury, by ascetic renunciation, by obsessional work, by artistic creation, by the love of God and by the love Man. While there are many answers- the record of which is human history- they are nevertheless not innumerable. On the contrary, as soon as one ignores smaller divergences which belong more to the periphery than to the center, one discovers that there is only a limited number of answers which have been given, and only could have been given by humans in the various cultures in which they have lived. The history of religion and philosophy is the history of these answers, of their diversity as well as of their limitation in number

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. Chapter 2, The Art of Loving. Page 14.

If you look at the ethnographic accounts of band-level hunter-gatherer in Africa or Melanesia—though I’m not sure I can say this for South America—what jumps out at you is the indulgence towards children. Child abuse would not have been tolerated. Other group members would have intervened, the perpetrators socially ostracized, possibly even expelled from the group if they harmed a child. It was not acceptable. We don’t have this same sensibility today for a number of reasons. I think we have an epidemic of emotional neglect of children today that has gone completely unrecognized.

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Raising Darwin’s Consciousness: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy on the Evolutionary Lessons of Motherhood. Scientific American. 2012.

Schore, A. N. (1994). Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Siegel, D. J. (2001). Toward an interpersonal neurobiology of the developing mind: attachment relationships, “mindsight” and neural integration. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(1-2):67-94.