I’ve changed my mind. The gateway drug isn’t alcohol. How could I be so stupid? It is, of course, love.

Love will make you do some crazy shit. And once you lose it, you try to get it back. Enter alcohol.

But love is definitely our first drug. It produces feelings of euphoria. It makes us hallucinate- we see things through rose-colored glasses, do we not? Everything is touched with gold. Everything is surrounded by warmth and light and goodness. And we can’t get enough, we want more, more, more.

We burn with it. We spend money on it, trying to make sure the object of our affection sees how much we’ll sacrifice for it. We cut ties with people who don’t like our love interest. We stop seeing friends in order to see our “soul mate” more.

It’s not healthy. Nothing is in excess. But when you are enjoying riding the high, you don’t think about the repercussions. You don’t want to temper it.

We trade passionate love for other kinds of love when we can’t get the kind of love we want. We shower love on family, on friends, on pets, on making a home. Sometimes this is enough. And sometimes it’s not. And when it’s not, what then? Do you seclude yourself and play music? Furiously scribble some angst-y poetry? Maybe you turn to food and overindulge. Maybe your vice is alcohol. Perhaps something stronger. And here we are, now.

I say, the gateway drug is love.