In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté

[J. D. Stembal]

While I trust and value Dr. Maté's experiences through working with intravenous drug users for eight years, I cannot accept his conclusions because they aren't based on principles. Here is a list of the possible remedies he proposes in the book.

 

1) The most successful means of overcoming addictions is to open up to spirituality (something larger than yourself), whether that be god or altruism. Maté prefers a combination of leftist altruism and Buddhist principles over organized religion.

 

2) Minorities, especially "Natives", are abnormally affected by the malaise of drug addiction because of the viciousness and greed of white oppression. Minorities deserve reparations for this oppression.

 

3) Christian conservatives and libertarians lack empathy and want drug addicts to die. If we take a fraction of the money spent on the War on Drugs, more money can be spent on state-funded rehabilitation systems, reducing total crime and tax costs. Maté doesn't go out of his way to illustrate how effective his state-funded hotel is at reducing drug addiction. Through reading the book, I got the impression that it was an abysmal failure.

 

I appreciated much of the rest of the book that didn't beg state-funded answers for questions, such as his description of how most people view addicts, how addicts view themselves, and how addiction develops in the brain.

 

However, much to my dismay, Maté lets many parents off the hook for addiction by invoking "the best they could" mantra. This may have something to do with the fact that he is a parent himself. At many different times during the text, he conflates the desire for wealth with sickness, suffering, the source of evil, and an addiction in itself, while completely forgetting that money can just as easily fund good and desirable endeavors, like the rehabilitation of addicts.

 

What reaction did you have to this book? I'd like to explore Maté's conclusions a little more closely, and sprinkle some voluntarism into them.

[Clark Gorny]

I read some of the book, I think he did a good job of identifying the cause of addiction.

 

Other than that its your typical blame everyone but the perpetrators of abuse and perpetuate the hopeless victim mentality.

 

"The only way to treat addiction is to find god, forgive and forget etc" blah blah Barf..

[Three]

It kind of reminds of of Sam Harris' book The End of Faith. It starts off with a very strong critique of religion in the first half of the book and then the solution in the second half is to call for a world government.