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What is Addiction?
Dr. Gabor Maté

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All the substances of abuse, whether they're opiates or cocaine or anything else, they're actually pain killers.

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Some of them specifically are painkillers, but physical pain and emotional pain,

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the suffering is experienced in the same part of the brain.

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So when people suffer emotional rejection, the same part of the brain will light up as if you stuck them with a knife.

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Eckhart Tolle says very nicely that addictions begin with pain and end with pain.

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So that all the addiction are attempts are attempts to soothe the pain.

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When I work with addictions, the first question is always not why the addiction but why the pain.

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And what you find is emotional loss or a trauma.

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In the case of the severe addicts as in the downtown Eastside here,

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there were every single one of them traumatized.

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There's no woman walking the streets here who have not been sexually abused, not even by accident.

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But you know, whether it's a sex addiction or internet or a relationship or shopping or work addiction,

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these are all attempts to get away from distress.

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Keith Richards the Rolling Stones guitarist said that - who used to have a severe heroin habit as you know,

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he said that: "All the contortions we go through (are) just not to be ourselves for a few hours."

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Why would somebody not want to be themselves?

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Because they're in too much distress, in too much pain.

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So I don't care what they tell you about genetics or choices or any of that nonsense, it's always about pain.

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The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, it's got a wonderful line in it.

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Whatever you do, don't try and escape from your pain, but be with it.

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Because the attempt to escape from pain is what creates more pain,

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and that's the reality of addiction.

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But the question is how can people be with their pain?

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Only if they sense of compassion from somebody.

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As another teacher says, only when compassion is present will people allow themselves to see the truth.

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So addicted people need a compassionate present which will permit them to experience their pain

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without having to run away from it.

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And all the attempts to run away, it's like another teacher says,

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the surest way to go to hell is to try to run away from hell.

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So you gotta be with that pain, you just have to be with it, but you have to have some support.

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And we live in a society that, one way or the other is always about instant relief, quick satisfaction, distraction.

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In other words, we live in a culture that is based on, both economically and psychologically,

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on not supporting people to be with themselves.

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So it's always the quick getaway.

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So it's very difficult to deal with addictions in this society.

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It is a matter of, at some point finding a way of being with your pain

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so that you can actually get to know what it's really all about.