Ethlie Ann Vare

Alcoholism just isn't as funny as it used to be. Remember the 1981 version of Arthur, where Dudley Moore played a lovable carefree alcoholic whose drunken antics were amusing and whose obsessive quest for love was endearing? Update that to 2011, where Russell Brand's Arthur is an unhappy, self-destructive alcoholic...

It's that time of year again, when the headlines are full of What I Learned from my Mother and World's Greatest Mom and I Remember Mama and all the other permutations of that sentiment. What are you supposed to do if your mother was a royal bitch?

Since I co-wrote...

Write a book about sex and love addiction -- particularly your own sex and love addiction, as I have -- and people are going to look at you funny. I knew that when I started the project. I didn't know how much it was going to bother me. I am...

This week, I celebrate 24 years free from drugs and alcohol. Go ahead and applaud. We drug addicts are perfectly willing to be congratulated for running out of a burning building. It's our charm, a combination of inflated ego and low self-esteem sometimes referred to as "a piece of crap...

As an expert on unhealthy relationships (and isn't that what we all aspire to be when we grow up?), I was recently asked to comment on what might have motivated the assorted Mrs. Gingriches to have an affair with a married man in the first place. After all, while Wife...

If pornography is the visual equivalent of junk food, then internet porn is the digital equivalent of crack cocaine. And it's not just men who are getting addicted.

Like cocaine, sexual images directly massage our brain's limbic system, releasing a "reward cascade" of brain transmitters like dopamine, oxytocin,...

Technically, "in the dark all cats are grey" was Benjamin Franklin's 1745 endorsement of older women to a horny young man. They can hold a decent conversation, he noted, won't get pregnant on you, have learned a couple of tricks in the bedroom over time... and it's better...

The publicity department of HCI Books read my manuscript for "Love Addict: Sex, Romance and Other Dangerous Drugs" -- 288 pages on the history, science and treatment of sex and (mostly) love addiction -- and this is what they came away with: "Ethlie had her first sexual experience...

My pet name for love addiction is Affection Deficit Disorder. I crave affection. I long for affection. There's never enough affection to fill the aching emptiness inside. I feel the same way about appetizers; Sit me down at an all-you-can-eat buffet and you won't see me for a week. The...

Perhaps you've found yourself in this position, curled up on the couch in a fetal position, hugging your knees and staring at the phone. Waiting for him to call. Your head aches. You have no appetite, but it doesn't matter because you can't taste anything anyway, except sugar and salt....

Editor's note: Ethlie Ann Vare writes about the contentious question of sex addiction from an anecdotal perspective; that is, while not a mental health professional, she strongly believes that the term "addiction" best describes her own struggles with love and sex. This piece represents her personal opinion regarding sex addiction.

The conversation over coffee stopped dead when the cell phone on the table pinged with an incoming text message. My friend dived for the phone with a smile of apology. She couldn't not grab the phone. "It's like a drug," she shrugged.

Close, but not quite. Text messages -- especially...

Sex addiction and love addiction: Are they the same thing or entirely different? Depends on who you ask.

Those who recognize both as legitimate process addictions , similar to compulsive gambling or shopping, (and we can have a discussion about the nature of addiction another time) tend...