In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Gabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addictions is an unconventional nonfiction book on how to treat addiction, how addicts can better assimilate into society, and how society can dispel many of the myths that surround addiction. Maté works as an addiction specialist at the Portland Hotel in Vancouver, Canada.

Much of the book, published in 2010, focuses on Maté’s evidence that childhood stressors increase the likelihood that one will become an adult addict (whether to an addictive substance, or any addictive behavior). In his view, society treats addicts as outcasts because society views them as making poor choices, when instead addicts are often dealing with the consequences of catastrophic childhood stress, and expressing it in addictive substances or behaviors.

Maté doesn’t intended for the book to be the definitive word on how society should handle addiction and addicts. Rather, it is a combination of scientific data, anecdotes about Maté’s patients, interviews with addicts and other medical professionals, and his own experience with addiction. Maté has never been a drug user, but is a compulsive shopper and workaholic. He does not see his behaviors as markedly different than those of the addicts he treats, only less destructive.

Rather than resorting to pejoratives for addicts, Maté views them as the “hungry ghosts” of the title. The hungry ghost realm is one of the six realms comprising the Buddhist wheel of life. Those existing in the hungry ghost realm are always seeking relief in substances, objects, and behaviors that they hope will fulfill them. Doomed to remain hungry, addicts constantly seek because they do not know what they actually need.

Societal disapproval, and the failure and propaganda of the so-called War on Drugs, have created a view in which addicts are seen as subhuman. This view denies them the compassion and support that would allow them to gain the awareness, discipline, and confidence that might allow them to leave the realm of hungry ghosts.

Maté does not claim that society can save every addict. He admits that he may never even free himself of his own compulsions. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is meant as a plea for open-minded inquiry into the causes of addiction, in the hopes of finding better alternatives than the persecution and shaming of the addicted.