In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

“Emotional nurturance is an absolute requirement for healthy neurobiological brain development” - Ch. 17

I have many thoughts in connection with this book and plan to post a fuller review soon on my blog, Entering the Enchanted Castle.

The basic idea is that it's useless to address addiction as an isolated individual problem or moral issue, or even as a “disease.” We have to uncover and address the underlying causes, the reasons why people embark on such a self-destructive path. This involves understanding how our social environment affects our brains and enables us to become aware, emotionally mature, self-determining individuals who are not pushed around by unconscious mental programming – or, more often, how it does not help us to do this, due to adverse experiences early in life. The true cost of childhood trauma MUST be revealed, and new paradigms created that enable us to prevent and to heal it, without blaming, judging, and condemning the victims, making them into the opposition side in an unwinnable, deeply harmful war. A fascinating topic that gets to the heart of our human crisis today.

This is the second book by Gabor Maté I've read. The first was about stress and the immune system. He has a way of using himself as a very human example of his subject so that the people he tries to help are human too, before they are seen as “cases”
This is not a self-help book for anyone in the depths of addiction but a plea to all of us to realise we're probably all on a spectrum of addiction. A plea for compassion in our lives and in government policy.
Recommended.