Ian Young spent £25,000 (US$45,815) overcoming his addiction to love. It took eight weeks of round-the-clock rehab and a further seven weeks of intensive therapy, but it was worth it: the addiction he claims almost destroyed his life is finally under control.
Some have accused the 32-year-old former disc jockey of mistaking neurosis for addiction or of giving in to outrageous self-indulgence, but he is adamant: in Young's eyes he is a recovering addict of an impulse every bit as dangerous as drug or alcohol dependency.
"It began when I was around 12 years old: it was essential for me to know I was surrounded at all times by people who loved me," he said. "That's normal for teenagers, but I didn't grow out of it.
"The need to be intimate with as many people as possible remained," he said. "I once went to a rave with my girlfriend and found myself in a room with six of my current mistresses. I'm not pretending that didn't feel fantastic, but it was completely out of control."
By the time Young was 29 he "realized I had to get help." He booked himself into the Promis Recovery Unit in Kent for treatment for drug addiction and stayed for 15 weeks.
"I eventually regained my sanity and that's when I realized the drugs had never been my primary addiction; that has always been love," he said. "I know it's an addiction rather than a neurosis because my need is completely overwhelming."
Young now considers himself to be a recovering love addict, permanently in danger of falling off the wagon.
"I realize I have an emotional disease; my brain is just wired differently to other people," he said. "I thank my lucky stars I discovered rehab in time; without it, I would never have survived."
Young is not alone in his praise: rehab has never been so used, by so many. The Priory Group is experiencing such a boost in numbers that it is planning to float itself on the stock exchange within three to five years, once it has doubled its 2,400-bed capacity and increased turnover, which has already grown from £108.9 million in 2001 to £120 million in 2002.
The Promis Unit books 3,000 addicts a week into its stringent six-week course. Rehab units in Britain's publicly-funded National Health Service, are just as busy, with £573 million spent on drug treatment and £95 million on alcohol treatment by the government each year.
But is rehab being abused? Are these figures proof of a sick society, desperate for salvation, or is the rush to rehab becoming an addiction in itself?
The answer divides psychiatrists into two camps: those who believe 21st-century society is spawning a new range of serious addictions focused around pleasurable activities, including mobile-phone texting, video games and eating fast food; and those who have no time for such dependencies.
Dr. Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, occupies the latter camp. "I groan to the bottom of my therapeutic shoes at this sort of discussion," he said. "It is misleading to ascribe the term `addiction' to emotions.
"As a therapist, I have the greatest problem with the glib labelling of behavior as `addictions,' where these have no obvious physiological component beyond a reaction to our own body chemistry," he said. "Our bodies contain any number of hormones that without self-control will `cause' us to rob, rape and kill. I don't think we really want to encourage the idea that our center of control, in many ways the essence of our very humanity, can be selectively disregarded."
Not all the experts are as unsympathetic as Hodson. Mark Griffiths, a professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, who has researched addictive behavior for 16 years, believes any activity can produce chemicals in the brain that give the same high as cocaine.
"We are living in the most addictive society the world has yet seen," he said. "Society has changed dramatically in the last few years; we're living longer than ever before, we have more spare time, more disposable income and there are more socially excessive behaviors in which we can indulge.
"The biggest impact is technology, which is deliberately designed to mesmerize the user and manipulate their behavior. It's exactly what happens with addiction: you become desensitized and end up needing more."
According to the government, at least one in 25 British people is dependent on alcohol, twice as many as are dependent on drugs, while almost one in four of us boasts an addiction to shopping, a rise of more than 6 percent in just five years.
More than 370,000 Britons are addicted to gambling, while 6 percent of 17,251 respondents in a recent online survey met the criteria for compulsive Internet use, with over 30 percent using the net to escape negative feelings.
Hodson is critical of the therapy industry for its open-door policy.
"It's the definition of addiction that is on the increase, not the numbers of those genuinely addicted to anything," he said.
"It is very distressing to be a compulsive gambler, but addiction is not the right word to describe what is, in fact, a conditioned or compulsive behavior."
Hodson also points to the tendency of psychiatrists to classify patterns of behavior or compulsion.
"The word addiction contains a meaning which takes away the sufferer's freedom of action," he added.
"It is a destructive word if misapplied. If you are told that you're someone who chooses to do things that are destructive, you have more hope of recovery than if you're told you have no choice."
Robert Lefever, director of the Promis Recovery Centre, which only treats those suffering alcohol, drug and food dependencies, agrees: "There is an addicted population and a stupid population.
"There are people who just need to pull themselves together and those who are so dependent on their drug that they're just trying to stay alive."
Dr. Austin Tate, medical director at the Priory Hospital in Marchwood, Hampshire, is bullish in his defense of the Priory's open-door policy.
"The word addiction has been so misused that it has lost its value," he agrees. "Like `stress' and `depression,' they've all become shorthand for `I'm unhappy.' It's become a social description and the medical profession needs to move away from it.
"But focusing on precise classifications is a waste of time: why make things difficult for ourselves by arguing about it?" he asked.
"When you get to the point of treatment, it doesn't make any difference whether something is a dependency or an addiction," he said.
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