New York: From bestselling author Dr. Gabor Mate, comes the definitive new book on addiction, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction (North Atlantic Books January 19, 2010). This comprehensive roadmap to understanding addiction comes from a celebrated and bold-minded addiction physician, and offers profound observations on interactions with patients, cutting edge neurological and psychological research on the brain chemistry of addiction, and sane drug policy recommendations that reflects new knowledge about the origins and treatment of addiction.
For over twelve years, Dr. Mate has been the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and harm reduction facility in Vancouver, Canada's Downtown Eastside. His patients are challenged by life-threatening drug addictions, mental illness, Hepatitis C or HIV and, in many cases, all four. But if his patients are at the far end of the spectrum, there are many others who are also struggling with addictions to prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco, work, food, sex, gambling and excessive inappropriate spending. Mate offers wise insights into what is amiss in our lives that we seek such self-destructive ways to comfort ourselves, and why is it so difficult to stop these habits, even as they threaten our health, jeopardize our relationships and corrode our lives.
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is divided into three equal parts, beginning with human stories such as:
-Dramatically close observations of the lives and interactions with addicted patients that respects their dignity as humans - deserving of basic housing, medical treatment, and love
-An inward, and honest look at his own history of compulsive behavior
-An analysis of the cultural production and acceptance of different types of addictions
The second section provides a bold synthesis of clinical experience, offering insight and cutting edge scientific findings in neurochemistry and psychology that go beyond simplistic and distorted nature vs. nurture debates, such as:
-Evidence that the biological predisposition to addiction is created by adversity in utero in the early years, not by the availability of drugs or by genetics
-The absence of attuned emotional nurturing during infancy makes endorphin receptors more susceptible to the soothing properties of opiates and the dopamine circuits predisposed to the effects of stimulants and other drugs
-Early stress impairs the functioning of the brain's capacity to regulate impulses and emotional self-control
-It is unrealistic to expect the addict to just say no
Finally, Mate applies his clinical experience by proposing compassionate and rational policy and treatment approaches to helping drug addicts that takes an understanding of brain physiology and interactive psychology of addiction to drug reform measures, and expands on:
-The failures of the current �war on drugs� that criminalizes disease and increases real crime
-Benefits of decriminalization of all substance dependence, including provisions under
safely controlled medical supervision to reduce disease transmission, violent crime, overdose, and prostitution
-A viable roadmap to overcoming behavioral addictions through the practice of
conscious awareness
Through his beautiful storytelling, accessible explanations of new science, and incredible compassion, Dr. Mate sheds light on this most puzzling of human frailties, and gives the many addicts among us a path to addressing the void addiction is meant to fill.
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Health/Addiction/Social Science
$17.95
Trade Paper
ISBN: 978_1_55643_880_6
480 pp, 6 x 9
January 19, 2010
For over twelve years, Dr. Mate has been the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and harm reduction facility in Vancouver, Canada's Downtown Eastside. His patients are challenged by life-threatening drug addictions, mental illness, Hepatitis C or HIV and, in many cases, all four. But if his patients are at the far end of the spectrum, there are many others who are also struggling with addictions to prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco, work, food, sex, gambling and excessive inappropriate spending. Mate offers wise insights into what is amiss in our lives that we seek such self-destructive ways to comfort ourselves, and why is it so difficult to stop these habits, even as they threaten our health, jeopardize our relationships and corrode our lives.
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is divided into three equal parts, beginning with human stories such as:
-Dramatically close observations of the lives and interactions with addicted patients that respects their dignity as humans - deserving of basic housing, medical treatment, and love
-An inward, and honest look at his own history of compulsive behavior
-An analysis of the cultural production and acceptance of different types of addictions
The second section provides a bold synthesis of clinical experience, offering insight and cutting edge scientific findings in neurochemistry and psychology that go beyond simplistic and distorted nature vs. nurture debates, such as:
-Evidence that the biological predisposition to addiction is created by adversity in utero in the early years, not by the availability of drugs or by genetics
-The absence of attuned emotional nurturing during infancy makes endorphin receptors more susceptible to the soothing properties of opiates and the dopamine circuits predisposed to the effects of stimulants and other drugs
-Early stress impairs the functioning of the brain's capacity to regulate impulses and emotional self-control
-It is unrealistic to expect the addict to just say no
Finally, Mate applies his clinical experience by proposing compassionate and rational policy and treatment approaches to helping drug addicts that takes an understanding of brain physiology and interactive psychology of addiction to drug reform measures, and expands on:
-The failures of the current �war on drugs� that criminalizes disease and increases real crime
-Benefits of decriminalization of all substance dependence, including provisions under
safely controlled medical supervision to reduce disease transmission, violent crime, overdose, and prostitution
-A viable roadmap to overcoming behavioral addictions through the practice of
conscious awareness
Through his beautiful storytelling, accessible explanations of new science, and incredible compassion, Dr. Mate sheds light on this most puzzling of human frailties, and gives the many addicts among us a path to addressing the void addiction is meant to fill.
###
Health/Addiction/Social Science
$17.95
Trade Paper
ISBN: 978_1_55643_880_6
480 pp, 6 x 9
January 19, 2010