In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Close Encounters with Addiction
Author: Gabor Mate, M.D.
His website: click here
Subject: addiction, non fiction
My rating: 5*



About the book:
This book will challenge and change your views on addiction. Gabor Mate is working with Vancouver's Downtown Eastside population for many years; he knows addiction also from his personal experience. In this book he is recounting his experiences with addicted patients from the Portland Hotel; it is rough and gentle at the same time, and very genuine. Compared to other books I have read written by physicians, Gabor has a deep humbleness about his role and actions. He looks not only at the lives of his patients but at his own shortcomings. I devoured this book page by page- it is more than a book on addiction, it is on what makes us human.

From the book:
'...at the core of all addictions lies a spiritual void.'

'We can never understand addiction if we look for its sources exclusively in the actions of chemicals, no matter how powerful they are. Addiction is a human problem that resides in people, not in the drug or in the drug's capacity to produce physical effects.'
'The obesity epidemic demonstrates a psychological and spiritual emptiness at the core of consumer society. We feel powerless and isolated, so we become passive. Food is the universal soother, and many are driven to eat themselves into psychological oblivion.'
'...in 1995, illegal drugs caused 805 Canadian deaths, alcohol 6,507 and tobacco 34,728. So who's for a War on Tobacco?'

'If we are to help addicts, we must strive to change not them but their environments. These are the only things we can change. Transformation of the addict must come from within and the best we can do is to encourage it.'