The book is called “About Natalie, A Daughter’s Addiction, a mothers love, finding their way back to each other.” Christine Naman is the author of Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11, Faces of Hope: Ten Years Later, Faces of Hope at Eighteen, Caterpillar Kisses, Christmas Lights, The Novena, and The Believers. She then took her abilities as an author to write a book about her struggles in dealing with a daughter who abused drugs. Her daughter, Natalie, participated in writing poems that are included in the book.

Love is very unique in terms of defining it. Is it a feeling defined as an emotional state or reaction. Maybe an emotion as a state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood. The problem with those are that they come and go and change and aren’t factually based. But love can’t work the same otherwise I could love you today, maybe tomorrow and then lose it later. We know that the part of the brain where our emotional control center is located which is in the limbic system. Which is a piece of the old part of our brain. We tend to identify love most often with euphoria, but that isn’t the only emotion we feel that is tied to love.

We do know that other feelings are created based on love Ecstasy, compassion, surprise, anxiety, anger, jealousy, despair: we can fly all over the place as we swing from high to low all within this love. Love almost has bi-polar qualities as a cyclic mood disorder. What about love being defined as a drive? There have been studies within brain scans that have shown where they believe this motivational drive comes from. Love is a need, and a drive. Like all drives, love is orchestrated in the reward system, in the old brain where the limbic system is, but also further back in the brain stem. This is involuntary reflexes like breathing and heart rate. The part of the brain that has no cognitive function which may be why it’s nearly impossible to control this primitive passion. Maybe this insight can actually help us understand why love gets removed from the equation when we are abusing drugs. It also can cause us to see the real correlation with a dependency on the need for love.

If that part of the brain sounds familiar, its because it should. The Primitive and old part of our brain is where drugs and alcohol and all behavioral addictions have their effect. If drugs hijack that part of the brain, that drug almost seems to become love and since our brain has limits, love for others may get tossed aside. Please check out her website at: https://aboutnatalieaddictioncomfort.com/