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    Close Encounters with Addiction
    Close Encounters with Addiction
    Close Encounters with Addiction
    Ebook54 pages1 hour

    Close Encounters with Addiction

    By Gabor Maté

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Close Encounters With Addiction is an ebook adaptation of a lecture Dr. Gabor Maté gave in Los Angeles about his experience as a physician treating patients with addiction, trauma, and mental illness.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCentral Recovery Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2011
    ISBN9781936290697
    Close Encounters with Addiction
    Author

    Gabor Maté

    Gabor Maté is a retired physician who, after 20 years of family practice and palliative-care experience, worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of four books published in twenty-five languages, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness. For his ground-breaking medical work and writing, he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. He is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Criminology, Simon Fraser University. To learn more, join his e-news list at www.drgabormate.com.

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    Reviews for Close Encounters with Addiction

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      It would be a far more compassionate world if everyone read this book. Everyone can benefit from it.
    • 4/5
      There is both good and bad to report about this book. First, the best of the good: I highly recommend this book along with Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, to get a thorough reexamination of America's War on Drugs. If you're still believing Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign along with massive armies of law enforcement outfitted with military weaponry is working out just dandy, then ignore that last comment...and good luck with all that. In fact, stop reading this review. Now, for a bit of the not so good. While both this book and Alexander's book approach the drug war issue comprehensively with intelligence, Alexander's civil rights book is the epitome of lucidity and succinctness, this author shifts gears several times and occasionally fails to make himself clear, making this a rather disjointed but still valuable assessment. Concentrating in the drug addicted community of a Canadian big city, the book starts as a sort of memoir of working there with the addicts, drawing the reader in. After a brief pause to explain the author's own background and addiction -- though not with drugs -- he shifts to being a bit of a college professor on a definition of addiction and the intricacies of the human brain, relating it to addiction. Another shift takes place -- with things starting to get squishy -- as issues of personality traits, social trends, political policy, etc. get discussed. Eventually, the book shifts gears abruptly into an addict's self-help manual, finally ending rather quickly with what might be described as a cross between a religious revival meeting and a serene workshop at a far eastern school of spiritual enlightenment. The author is clearly intelligent, empathetic, self-aware, and hard-working, so I forgive his transgressions. He's a nice guy, maybe even a great guy, and I give him credit. I just wish he hadn't made me go through so much effort.
    • 4/5
      Intimate and engaging book exploring Mate's personal search, exploration, and medical cases in the field of addiction. If you've never read one of these, then this would rate at least a 4; however, I've read several with this one revealing nothing new. It was also interesting to note his 12 step research showed results but because he had some personal quips doesn't give it the weight his research did. My biggest complaint is he is running a methadone clinic and at some point you'd think he'd realize he is part of the problem and not the solution. His journey beyond the book does this so it would be good to see an updated edition.
    • 5/5
      Written in clear, lucid prose any reasonably intelligent adult could understand, without a lot of confusing jargon, Dr. Mate explains the forces behind addiction and why so many addicts fail time and time again to get clean, in spite of all the incentives for doing so. This book gave me a lot to think about regarding the brain, and I also found his cautionary points about adoption studies and twin studies very interesting and relevant. Mate conclusively demonstrates that addicts are not "bad," that they have very little control of the actions surrounding their addiction, and that kind and loving parents can produce an addict just as easily as indifferent or abusive parents. (On the last point Mate uses his own experiences as a child Holocaust survivor as an example: his parents loved him very much and cared for him as best they could, but the stress and deprivation of his infancy left an ineradicable mark on this brain development.) Finally, Mate sets forth a sensible "harm reduction" social policy that could potentially make life easier for everyone, not just addicts and their families, by reducing the problems drug abuse causes in the community.Everyone in Congress should read this book, as well as everyone who has to interact with addicts on a regular basis. Dr. Mate is a wise, forward-thinking man.
    • 3/5
      I waited a long time to read this book after requesting it at the library as it was so popular. Important ideas here, but I found it rather geocentric and the author's need to identify with addicts by going on about his compulsive music-buying habits both intrusive and odd. There's a difference between having OCD and being an addict. I would have edited it quite differently. Still, very glad I read it.
    • 4/5
      This is a hard book to read. Not in its prose or style, but in content. The first hundred pages are largely a recounting of partial case histories of the addicts that Dr. Mate works with. After that, it eases up a bit with discussion of the biochemistry of addiction. Being a hard book, I have not yet gotten any further than that, but even with what I've read, I would strongly encourage this for anyone interested in Drug Policy. I don't get the sense that Dr. Mate is letting the people he describes off the hook for bad personal decisions, but he underscores the point time and again that addiction is about far more than a specific drug or pattern of behavior, and acting as if all these people just chose to be this way neither solves the problems of addiction and addicts nor gives those people their due as suffering human beings. They can't and won't make better decisions if all we do is the equivalent of lecturing them about making better decisions. We have to treat them with compassion--and far too much of the discussion of Drugs today is about how can we punish them so they learn the error of their ways. There's a line to walk between destructive enablement and constructive compassion, and Dr. Mate's book does a good job of explaining why finding that line is so important.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      Overall, I found this book insightful and thought-provoking. Mate profiles the human side of addiction and the toll it takes on all who struggle with it. I have often lamented society's casualties of the "war on drugs," locked up in prisons instead of getting the treatment that could help them. Hopefully, this book will encourage more compassionate view of the addicts in our lives and our communities.
    • 4/5
      I saw this book on the Early Reviewers list and thought it would help me understand family members who are addicts. The book is very well written and doesn't come off as too preachy, which I like as many other books seem to blame the addict.I understand that addiction is as much a mental drive as a physical need and I feel that this book addressed both issues. In reading the Dr. Mate's book, I have been able to talk with my family members who are addicts a little easier and have even given one of them the book to read in the hopes that it will help her on her way to recovery.
    • 4/5
      In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is the most comprehensive book I have ever read about addiction. It contains moving, sensitive profiles of addicted citizens of Vancouver, BC, a profound examination of the author's own addictive tendencies, and a science- and experience-based discussion of the approaches best suited for healing the addict. At times the book is wordy and repetitive, but I found a lot of information here that I could use in my own life.
    • 5/5
      With both professional and personal insight, Dr. Gabor Mate' unravels the complicated mysteries of why and how addiction occurs in vast numbers of our population. But, most importantly, how to treat the devastating effects it has on both individuals and society at large. His experience and research lay to rest many of the fallacies and prejudices that the general public assumes about addictions of all types and helps us understand how addiction transcends class. And all of this is done with unflinching truth and persistent compassion and humanity from the author himself.
    • 4/5
      This book is profoundly moving and saddening. Gabor Mate takes you on a journey inside the darkest pits of addiction. He captivates with his clear intellect and ability to empathize with the abused and the abuser.I recommend this book to anyone.
    • 4/5
      This is an insightful book about addicts and addiction by a medical doctor, Gabor Mate, who has years of experience in one of Vancouver's worst drug areas, Downtown Eastside. The first half of the book mixes anecdotal accounts of his experiences with the addicts he attempts to keep alive and his beliefs about the nature and causes of addiction itself.I found his theories about addiction the most compelling reading. He believes that addictions arise through a combination of forces: the natural temperament of the addict, his life experiences, especially in early childhood, and the larger societal forces that keep addicts in a hopeless state. He believes that addiction in any form has very little to do with the drug an addict uses, but rather with the emptiness he is attempting to fill and the lack of community he feels. He suggests that most treatments for addiction fail because they either don't address these issues or cannot improve them.The last half of the book is an indictment of our absurd, ineffective, and inhumane "War on Drugs." Mate asserts that this "war" is not against drugs, but against the most damaged, weak and vulnerable members of our society, those that need our compassion the most. He repeats the sad statistics that most people already know - that the war on drugs is almost completely ineffective and does more harm than good. He advocates a more compassionate approach to the problem of addiction - a combination of community programs, decriminalization of some drugs, and a realistic, approach that does not criminalize all drug users and incorporates an understanding that complete abstinence is not possible for everyone.This was an extensive and lengthy book, but was well written and interesting. I learned a lot, and I admire Dr. Mate and his humane efforts to help people.
    • 5/5
      An exceptional view. Somehow radical. Deeply human. Ein wahrer Menschenfreund.
    • 5/5
      I love the work of Dr. Gabor Mate. This books has gems for those who are willing to be open and curious..
    • 3/5
      Quite dense, couldn't really get into it
    • 3/5
      "My soul, sick and covered with sores, lunged outward instead, in a mad desire to scratch itself against some physical relief." St-Augustine

      This is an excellent book. Dr. Maté understands this completely and has much to add to it.
    • 5/5
      Let's just say this book made me cry a bit. I used to nanny for a drug court judge and former public defender, and I thought of the general observations she used to make about the losing battle in the "war on drugs"a lot as I read In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. Gabor Mate is like the Dr. Drew of Canada, and he seems to really care for and understand his patients' struggles with addiction in a way that the people leading the fight in the drug wars fail to see, I think. I think in this day and age, most people know or have known someone who has openly struggled with addiction, but Maté makes you realize that pretty much everyone carries some kind of addiction - it's a part of human nature. More than just a book about why people develop addictions, Maté offers alternative solutions to help fight addiction, along with the stories (and even a few photos) of some of his real-life patients.
    • 3/5
      Free LibraryThing early reviewer copy. Maté, a Canadian physician, treats addicts; which is to say that he gives them health care and tries to help them manage the damage drugs are doing to them, since many of them can’t make themselves stay off and he’s quite sympathetic to the reasons why, the pain inside that is most easily (or only) suppressed by drug use. Addiction is a response to damage, and he draws (sometimes unconvincing) analogies between his patients and his own habit of buying classical music in obsessive, excessive, and financially unsustainable quantities. Though he does believe that individuals can stop using drugs, he doesn’t think that’s a plausible solution for many, given their lack of other opportunities to not feel so bad; to end drug abuse, we’d have to stop hurting children in all the ways we find to hurt them. The stories are powerful and his advice, in the end, is compassion—which means that there’s not necessarily much that’s active in his proscriptions.
    • 4/5
      I thought reading this book would give me some new insight into one of society’s major problems because many, if not all of us have lived with an addicted person, known an addicted person, or been addicted to something ourselves (even if we haven’t been aware of it). Therefore, I selected it in the LT Early Reviewers choices, not really expecting to get it and not really sure I wanted it. The reason I wasn’t sure I wanted it is because I thought there was a possibility of it being another “self-help” book. I don’t care for “self-help books because there are literally thousands of them out there (and I’ve tried to read a few) and I think if they were that successful, they wouldn‘t keep being spewed out and bought as they are. This book wasn’t a typical “self help” type of book and I found it to be a pretty good read. Dr. Maté, the author, works with all types of addicts in Vancouver, Canada’s Downtown Eastside, and with their permission has included his encounters with them to validate many of his theories on addiction. I liked the way he wrote it in layman’s terms for the most part (if there was too much on neurotransmitters and neurological circuits, etc. I may have skimmed a bit) and even offered reasonable solutions to the problem of addiction.I think anyone living with an addicted person or anyone wanting to know more about addiction would find this a thought provoking book to help gain some understanding of what a powerful and human thing addiction can be. Dr. Maté even includes his own struggles with addiction to show how it can affect anyone, at the top of the ladder or at the bottom.

    Book preview

    Close Encounters with Addiction - Gabor Maté

    Close Encounters with Addiction

    Gabor Maté, MD

    9781936290697_0003_001

    CENTRAL RECOVERY PRESS

    Central Recovery Press (CRP) is committed to publishing exceptional materials addressing addiction treatment, recovery, and behavioral health care topics, including original and quality books, audio/visual communications, and web-based new media. Through a diverse selection of titles, we seek to contribute a broad range of unique resources for professionals, recovering individuals and their families, and the general public.

    For more information, visit www.centralrecoverypress.com.

    Central Recovery Press, Las Vegas, NV 89129

    © 2011 by Gabor Maté All rights reserved. Published 2011.

    No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

    Publisher: Central Recovery Press

    3321 N. Buffalo Drive

    Las Vegas, NV 89129

    17 16 15 14 13 12 11   1 2 3 4 5

    ISBN-13: 978-1-936290-68-0 (e-book)

    ISBN-10: 1-936290-68-5

    Central Recovery Press offers a diverse selection of titles focused on addiction, recovery, and behavioral health. Our books represent the experiences and opinions of their authors only. Every effort has been made to ensure that events, institutions, and statistics presented in our books as facts are accurate and up-to-date. The opinions expressed are those of the authors only.

    Writers In Treatment helps men and women in the writing industry suffering from alcoholism, drug addiction, and other self-destructive behaviors get treatment for their disease. We produce free educational and cultural events that celebrate recovery and reduce the stigma of addiction. Our vision is to provide the treatment and support individuals need to take their first step toward recovery. We believe it’s important for people in recovery (and those on the cusp) to have entertaining and culturally stimulating events that inspire enthusiasm for living clean and sober. Writers In Treatment is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization grounded in recovery and the arts. W.I.T.’s primary purpose is to save lives by providing scholarships for treatment, as the best first-step solution for addiction.

    Author Note: This book is derived from a presentation on sponsored by Writers in Treatment given at the Skirball Center in Las Angeles, CA. While periodically statements are made directly to the audience, this e-book adaptation of the presentation is designed for the general public. Though it has been edited for style and content and modified for this format, I trust you will hear my voice.

    Gabor Maté, MD

    June 2011

    9781936290697_0004_001

    Opening Introductions

    Dr. Maté is introduced by the following associates of Writers in Treatment (WIT).

    Leonard Buschel (Chairman of the Board for WIT): Last month during the Second Annual Festival of Laughs here at the Skirball we honored Academy Award-winning actor Lou Gossett, Jr. with the Experience, Strength, and Hope Award. This award is given to creative individuals whose honest and frank autobiographies describe their journey from addiction to recovery. Next year the recipient of the Experience, Strength and Hope Award will be none other than Buzz Aldrin, at which time he will explain how he got that first name. Yes, he did teach Michael Jackson how to moonwalk. That was him. By the way, how many people here first became aware of Gabor Maté on Democracy Now? How many people became aware of Dr. Gabor Maté for the first time because of this event tonight? During the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, I was watching an interview with someone who looked like John Lennon but sounded like a cross between Hippocrates and Quan Yin. I thought, Who is this guy? and before the interview was over, I was ordering his books from Amazon. But anyway, so it’s with no small pleasure that I have the profound honor of bringing Dr. Gabor Maté to Los Angeles tonight.

    This event would not be possible without the support of Mike Bloom and the Pasadena Recovery Center, so thank you, Mike Bloom. In closing, as exciting as an event this is tonight, on a personal note, it is also a very sad day for me. It was a year ago that a good friend of mine name Jewelle Sturm died of an accidental drug overdose. A week before she died, we talked about the possibility of her going into rehab. Maybe if she had spent some time at Pasadena Recovery Center more than her spirit would be here tonight, so with that I want to introduce the Director of Pasadena Recovery Center, Michael Bloom.

    Jennifer Jimenez: Hi, I’m Jennifer Jimenez. It is an honor to be here tonight. Thank you to Mike Bloom and Pasadena Recovery Center and to Leonard Buschel of Writers in Treatment for

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