In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

ISBN13: 9781556438806
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brаחԁ Nеw frοm Publisher. Nο Remainder Mаrk.

Product Description
Based οח Gabor Maté’s two decades οf experience аѕ a health check doctor аחԁ һіѕ ɡrουחԁbrеаkіחɡ work wіtһ tһе severely addicted οח Vancouver’s skid row, Iח tһе Realm οf Hungry Ghosts radically reenvisions tһіѕ much misunderstood field bу taking a holistic аррrοасһ. Dr. Maté presents addiction חοt аѕ a discrete phenomenon confined tο аח unfortunate οr weak-willed few, bυt аѕ a continuum tһаt runs throughout (аחԁ perhaps underpins) ουr society; חοt a health check “condition” distinct frοm tһе lives іt affects, rаtһеr tһе result οf a complex interplay аmοחɡ private history, emotional, аחԁ neurological development, brain chemistry, аחԁ tһе drugs (аחԁ behaviors) οf addiction. Simplifying a wide array οf brain аחԁ addic… More >>

Iח tһе Realm οf Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters wіtһ Addiction

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5 Responses to “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction”

Van Isle Rev on April 10th, 2010 at 7:58 PM

Those who are looking for a brief look at addiction ought to look somewhere else; whatever else can be said about Gabor Mate’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, it represents a lengthy, multi-faceted look at the reality of addiction.

Mate is a Canadian physician who practices medicine in one of Canada’s poorest and most socially challenged neighbourhoods: Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Drawing upon his years of experience working with addicts, as well as his expertise in the fields of stress management and concentration deficit disorder, Mate has produced a book that capably examines addiction from a wide variety of vantage points.

That having been said, it is only honest to acknowledge that I, for one, was not similarly enamoured of the book’s every section. Mate is at his strongest as a narrator; I was truly gripped by the lengthy sections of the book in which Mate is content simply to share the experiences–the oftentimes harrowing experiences–of the clients with whom he works. I was similarly impressed with his refreshingly accessible account of the implications of new discoveries in the field of brain knowledge, as scientists try to clarify the processes that make and perpetuate addiction.. In addition, the book’s final section–on “the ecology of healing”– controlled some genuinely fresh insights and some genuinely practical suggestions. These sections most certainly justify the book’s buy.

I found other sections of the book less satisfactory. Although I share Mate’s antipathy toward the “war on drugs”, I found his own policy prescriptions less than fully convincing. (Then again, I’m glad to have had an opportunity to grapple with his recommendations). Although his willingness to speak frankly of his own addictive tendencies (he’s a classical music junkie) are a sign of Mate’s humility, by book’s end that aspect of Hungry Ghosts had begun to wear a modest thin; try as I might, I struggled to house Mate’s addiction to classical CDs in the same category as his accounts of the life-threatening substance addictions with which his patients struggle. Finally, even as keen to affirm Mate’s recognition that there is a spiritual dimension both to addiction and to the process of healing from addiction, I found Mate’s discussions of spirituality a wee bit thin, and the affirmation of hope with which the book concluded somewhat less than convincing.

Those criticisms notwithstanding, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, is a valuable book: one that will repay the time and energy of anyone looking for a deeper insight into the haunted world of addiction.
Rating: 4 / 5
Zoeeagleeye on April 10th, 2010 at 9:08 PM

In all innocence I picked up Gabor Mate’s book and in no time I was stunned to find that I was reading about myself. No, I am neither a drug addict nor alcoholic, but I have several other addictions I have been ashamed of my whole life. By the time I finished reading this insightful, compassionate, meticulous book, I knew finally who I was, how I got that way and what I could do about it.

I honestly have no thought how anyone could read this book and give less than 5 stars. First of all, the 3-star reviewer perfectly missed several valuable points concerning Mate’s actions at home and on the job. Money was given to his staff, not as a bribe, but as an incentive for him to stop being late and to give himself a modest spiritual humbling. As for Mate’s own addictions, I feel so much safer to be in the hands of a man who is frank and transparent with me and says, “Let’s try this,” rather than one who is distantly perfect and eventually indecipherable, who is given to uttering commands and pronouncements. I know who I would trust more.

Mate may suffer from ADD (which I also do) but let me assure you that his prose is every bit as fluid, clear and inspired as the prose you are presently reading. More, his writing is a joy to read. The book itself is very well presented, nearly like a mystery tale with as pleased an end as one can expect with several murders have been committed in the beginning! The book starts with the tales, the life histories and personality details of his patients. It goes on to then give the health check and psychological and biased facts about addictive behavior, and the last chapters are devoted to help, healing and hope. It could not be more perfectly structured!

Although the structure is sectioned like three strong men stacked upon each other’s shoulders, each of these men are holding to their side many gorgeous women, arms gracefully out and offering wisdom.

Such as Mate’s definition of the difference between passion and addiction: “The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates.” He elaborates more in that chapter.

Another: “When we flee our vulnerability, we lose our full capacity for feeling emotion.” Reflect of any tyrant who stoically watches as his people suffer, or a terrorist who kills innocents without a blink of remorse. These people are in deep denial and HAVE to believe they are invincible in order to do such things. They believe vulnerability equals “weak,” rather than “open.” So they protect themselves by killing others.

Mate’ offers many more sideways and heads-on truths. I believe he gets his insights from not blaming. Not blaming opens him up to seeing things others, in their defensive and prejudiced postures, fail to see. He recognizes that, “at the core of all addictions there lies a spiritual void.”

But you want facts, don’t you? Okay. He says, “all addictions have a biological dimension.” Proof? He offers a wealth of recent studies that are not one bit dull, but are so incredible they can take your breath away. These studies involve people, mice and monkeys. When 6,000 people who everywhere taking prescribed narcotics for pain were studied there was found to be “no significant risk of addiction.” Gee, you mean it’s NOT the drugs that addict you? No, it’s not! Among rat babies who were given appropriate mother-nurturing, none of them showed the slightest interest in a narcotic drip even with they’d been injected! Those who did self-medicate, were beseiged when they were babies with “emotional isolation, powerlessness, and stress.” This will also “promote the neurobiology of addiction in human beings.”

Mate’ includes ALL addictions in his studies, such as smoking, alcoholism, shopaholic, sugar addict, workaholic, gambling, and more, end with “there has never before been a age group so stressed and so starved of nurturing adult relationships.” He takes it from the street and shows us addiction throughout the world. In small, we are ALL addicted to something — and you know he is right. He refuses to point a finger “out there,” but puts it everywhere it belongs, aiming it at our own inner self. This confirms my own observations that we’re destroying our outer world (Earth) because our inner world has, in a crucial way, been hurt.

The hope Mate’ offers is valuable. He knows that every one of us craves “like, creativity, spiritual quest, the drive for mastery and autonomy, the impulse to make a contribution.” That describes me and I know it describes you. These are the best and most profound attributes of what being human means. But many of us were foiled at the very beginning, some even in the womb. The brain, but, can lay down new tracks which allow us to proceed in a uncommon, in excellent health, more pleased direction.

I will go out on a strong limb of a mighty oak and say that this book is one of the first “most valuable” books of the 21st century. Every college kid, every politician, every health check person, every media person and every parent should read it. This book could save the world. Or, at the very least, your world. And that’s world enough.
Rating: 5 / 5
Julie H. Rose on April 10th, 2010 at 9:31 PM

It is hard for me to review this book. Dr. Mate says he has ADD, and it shows. Everywhere was the editor for this book? It is all over the map; overlong, with chapters that proceed each other without any continuity, some more than brilliant and others downright unreadable.

Yet, in parts it excels greatly, and for this I recommend it. I wish Dr. Mate would have dispensed with his discussion of his classical music CD buying “addiction”, his forays into the 12-step rooms, and a chapter on one addicted woman’s pregnancy “journal.”

Otherwise, this is an brilliant in-depth look at addiction and the our absurd “war on drugs.” When Mate writes about right drug addiction (and not about himself), with clarity and compassion, he is at his best. As one who has struggled with addiction, I know from my gut-level reaction to (parts of) this book that it speaks the truth. Read it, skip the chapters an editor should have cut, or delight in them as some people have. Regardless of its large flaws, this is an valuable book.
Rating: 4 / 5
G. BARTO on April 10th, 2010 at 10:16 PM

Gabor Maté works in a clinic for drug addicts and down-and-out people in Vancouver. We’ve heard a lot about the War on Drugs the last twenty or thirty years, but unlike the narcotics squad, Maté is on the real front lines: everywhere people turn from life and turn to drugs. And as he shares his tales – his patients’ tales – it looks like the real conundrum isn’t heroine or cocaine, so much as the things that drive people to use them. As you hear about some of Maté’s patients, it becomes pretty clear they never had much of a chance to start with. Their environments left them with limited options and the kind of stress levels that foreclose clear thinking about what few options there are. The addiction cycle makes it worse, providing for a sort of automatic thinking. According to the research Maté runs through, a person with a long term addiction literally winds up with altered brain physiology, with choice-making and creative centers shrinking so that following the line of thought set up by the addiction may be about all that’s left for those who are furthest gone.

Even as Maté’s tales are touching, it’s his explanations of the research into addiction that made this most fascinating to me. Some of the anecdotes have the feel of coming from overwrought novels. But when you see monkeys and rats using the same addiction mechanisms to deal with high stress and low status, you get a clearer sense of just what we’re up against. To place it in brief, it’s not just the demon weed that drives addiction; it’s also the need to escape one’s demons. If we truly want to help those with addictions, be it drugs, or gambling, or shopping or whatever, we need to get beyond moral judgments, and figure out just why some people wind up going down this path. Maté’s book is a excellent start in that direction.
Rating: 4 / 5
W. A. Carpenter on April 11th, 2010 at 1:04 AM

Dr. Mate’s book is fascinating and complete as he discusses the horrible conundrum of drug addiction. The book has sections about the life tales of addicts, the brain chemistry of addiction, the addictive process, the war on drugs, and the possibilities for overcoming addiction. Despite the very grim nature of the subject matter, the book is both hopeful and helpful.

There is a wide continuum of addiction from consumerism, to sugar, to tobacco, to alcohol, to narcotics. As I read the book, it become clear that many of us have at least some degree of unwanted behavior in response to the chemical promptings of our brains. Hardcore drug addicts are not so very uncommon from the rest of us. Given this context, Dr. Mate’s critique of the war on drugs is very compelling. I found his arguments for decriminalizing (but not legalizing) drugs to be very persuasive.

Near the end of the book he offers a four (or five) part approach to treating addiction that seems very helpful in part because it promises no magical overnight results, but instead calls for lots of mindful work repeated many times. “Hungry ghosts” is a allegorical persona from Buddhism for those with appetites that can’t be met; the thought that mindfulness, often cultivated by meditation, is the best way to treat these appetites helps result in the book full circle.
Rating: 5 / 5

Drug Abuse and Rehab