Yes, oxytocin and other hormones released during hugs/sex have a similar effect to drugs. Actually, most drugs don’t add anything into your body but will simply increase/activate or affect hormones naturally present, which will give you an altered state of mind
This doesn’t seem surprising or compelling to me. People say similar things about morphine and sugar, but of course drugs take advantage of existing systems that evolved (imperfectly) to help you: why would you evolve a neurochemical system set up for the sole purpose of fucking up your life if you took the wrong chemical? The surprising thing would be if drugs used a system that didn’t have a normal, survival-aiding purpose.
This doesn’t seem surprising or compelling to me. People say similar things about morphine and sugar, but of course drugs take advantage of existing systems that evolved (imperfectly) to help you: why would you evolve a neurochemical system set up for the sole purpose of fucking up your life if you took the wrong chemical? The surprising thing would be if drugs used a system that didn’t have a normal, survival-aiding purpose.