Maté does not claim that society can save every addict. This view denies them the compassion and support that would allow them to gain the awareness, discipline, and confidence that might allow them to leave the realm of hungry ghosts. Societal disapproval, and the failure and propaganda of the so-called War on Drugs, have created a view in which addicts are seen as subhuman. Doomed to remain hungry, addicts constantly seek because they do not know what they actually need. Those existing in the hungry ghost realm are always seeking relief in substances, objects, and behaviors that they hope will fulfill them. The hungry ghost realm is one of the six realms comprising the Buddhist wheel of life.
Rather than resorting to pejoratives for addicts, Maté views them as the “hungry ghosts” of the title. He does not see his behaviors as markedly different than those of the addicts he treats, only less destructive. Maté has never been a drug user, but is a compulsive shopper and workaholic. Rather, it is a combination of scientific data, anecdotes about Maté’s patients, interviews with addicts and other medical professionals, and his own experience with addiction. Maté doesn’t intended for the book to be the definitive word on how society should handle addiction and addicts.
In his view, society treats addicts as outcasts because society views them as making poor choices, when instead addicts are often dealing with the consequences of catastrophic childhood stress, and expressing it in addictive substances or behaviors. Much of the book, published in 2010, focuses on Maté’s evidence that childhood stressors increase the likelihood that one will become an adult addict (whether to an addictive substance, or any addictive behavior).
0 kommentar(er)
