One of my favorite texts

on Addiction(s) and Substance Abuse Disorders

Photo by Raimond Klavins on Unsplash

“Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.”
― Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

Dr. Gabor Mate wrote this book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. In his account, both as a physician, trauma expert and trauma survivor, he explores the conditions of addictions and where they stem from.

He approaches it humbly, especially as someone who doesn’t identify as an addict or alcoholic. However, he also frames it from the position as

1-Someone who has his own maladaptive behaviors, to escape, to feel better, in compulsive ways.

2-He explores the stigmas of “those” or ‘the type of people’ who become addicts, alcoholics, and he even reveals his own stereotyping of addicts, but he checks himself in his judgment. He says that many ‘look out’.

3-He explains that many people adopt substance abuse or compulsive that lead way to addictions because it worked for them for some time. Many were trying to manage mental health crises, that may have been undiagnosed or properly treated, through therapies, medications, and other methods of healing.

They work for us until they don’t.

This isn’t to absolve people of the harm they create to themselves or to others. However, it is to understood the root causes, to then be able to treat them, to uncover the reasons why these people used, and how/why they felt they were unable to sit with their feelings, manage their life, etc.

Why is this important?

Because Danielle, the writer is a recovering alcoholic - nah. That’s not the only reason.

But because so, so many struggle with these issues.

And they often don’t address the reasons that brought them to that point. Even in 12 step programs there can be dismissive ways of not addressing mental health needs. Many treat the 12 step programs as their therapy and mental health service. (I’ve heard this said many, many times in meetings and I’m not even one year sober).

Now, some people come to addictions and substance abuse disorders in different ways. Some always used and abused hard from the time they were very young.

Some of us come to it after many years - and if we fail to address the reasons why we tried to escape, self-medicate, repress emotions, etc - we essentially become - at least we in AA refer to as - ‘dry drunks’.

We can stop drinking (or using, or gambling, or our addiction to porn or to gambling, or whatever), with help of community and 12 step programs, but behaviors continue, untreated trauma and mental illnesses, also continue. This is why it is often said ‘the drinking was but a symptom’. The behavior was but a symptom.

It begs the question - a symptom of what?

Many things. It’s up to the individual to find out. I take the above as an invitation to find out.

That’s why the other steps exist - moral inventory of oneself, exploring character faults, taking a critical look at our own ego, and also tracing the deficits, to not only the behavior, but to the root cause, often that of fear and insecurity.

There is still so much judgment wrapped up in addictive behaviors and a hierarchizing of which are worse. (Alcohol better than ‘illegal’ drugs, shopping is better than gambling, sex is better than porn?) Maybe we all don’t share the same hierarchy. But we create them, the judgments in our mind.

Which is why I think it important to highlight the following:

“When I am sharply judgmental of any other person, it's because I sense or see reflected in them some aspect of myself that I don't want to acknowledge.”
― Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

He involves himself when he said that he too wanted to look away, wanted to judge, all the while engaging in his own repressive and ‘compulsive’ and addictive behaviors. Still, his mind defaulted, wanting to judge others for their ‘worse’ addictions.

The other fascinating thing about Mate’s book is that he explores the fine line/delicate balance between addictions and passions.

He writes that:

“The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates.”

And also that “Passion creates, addiction consumes.”

Many people who go into recovery, can be incredibly productive in their passion and creation, because they have fueled their intensity elsewhere.

There is hope, there is healing.

I try to do my part to work to de-stigmatize both mental illnesses, suicides, as well as addictions and recovery, because there is still much work to do in all of those fields.

As Dr. Mate says - “At the core of every addiction is an emptiness based in abject fear.”

We are all fearful beings. The human condition is challenging; we can have compassion, or we can judge, and see how similar we are, rather than how different we are, because they _____ are worse because of this _____.

Photo by George Zheng on Unsplash