The confusion of love and drugs has a long history in music. Whether it is referred to as being “hooked on a feeling,” or a singer referring to a former lover as “the last high,” or a singer talking about being a “toy soldier” falling down after dealing with the emptiness of rejection and a breakup, it is a common and enduringly popular musical metaphor. Popular musicians, who probably know a bit too much about “love” as well as drugs, have been very long to recognize the intoxicating aspects of love. And ordinary human beings who are far less well-known are generally quick to recognize the same connection too.

Why do we get high on love? What’s the purpose of it? Clearly we cannot come to any definite conclusions in such a deeply important matter. Indeed, there are likely to be many purposes for us being high on love. Given the scope of this entry we cannot go into any great depth, but it is useful at least to provide some indications of the depth that exists so that others may examine the matter deeper on their own, if they so choose. At any rate, let us begin.

One of the purposes for getting high on love seems to be to encourage intimacy. Some of us are rather lonely people by nature (or nurture, or both). The sense of enjoyment and intoxication we get around other people encourages us to repeat those circumstances. It appears that joy is somehow necessary and beneficial to us, and that it is important despite the fact that joy can be perverted and short-circuited by all kinds of destructive behaviors (including addictions and promiscuity). Nonetheless, despite the fact that love and joy can be so easily corrupted into lust and addiction, they remain important and valuable, which means their benefit must be worth the horrible consequences of their abuse. There are serious implications to this, and I don’t really wish to address all of them at this time.

Nonetheless, we ought to recognize that the high caused by people and actions is related to joy. Life is meant to be enjoyed. Sadly, many of us do not enjoy life all that much, and that leads to a lot of problems, but we all ought to be sensitive to those things that bring us joy. We need to be sensitive for at least two reasons that are in tension with each other. For one, we need to find which activities bring us joy so that we can participate in them and so bring ourselves greater joy in our lives, and we also need to be careful to make sure that our enjoyment of activities does not become abuse, a way to induce the feeling of euphoria as a way of self-medication, in perverting joy by using it to manipulate ourselves into feeling joyful when we are not, instead of tackling the root issues of our unhappiness, especially by forgiveness, so that we do not have to carry such a heavy burden any longer.

Part of the problem we have in relationships is that we seem to rely often on relationships to help us feel better about ourselves and our own problems. We try to borrow the intoxicating joy of love to fix ourselves, or at least to feel that we are better. When we inevitably have difficulties, we too often think that a better relationship will make us feel good all the time, not recognizing that we cannot find happiness in our experiences with others until we find happiness within ourselves. This is hard and time-consuming work.

What makes genuine and sustainable euphoria difficult is that it depends on genuine and mutual love and respect, so that neither side is having their own reserves of good cheer and happiness being drawn down by parasitic individuals. Such genuine joy is always at risk, because what makes us happy is not coerced love or feigned respect out of fear but genuine love and respect freely given from a loving and generous heart. And when we cannot trust people enough to let them love us freely, but instead seek to coerce them into co-dependent relationships where they fulfill our needs and are there to paper over our insecurities, we lose the ability to find true intimacy and true joy and true happiness. And so the highs we find in such circumstances are rather temporary, and not consistent. To be genuinely and truly happy, we must be good. That’s not easy to be.