Hungry Ghosts
The Buddhist mandala symbolically depicts everything in the universe. One of the six modes of existence is illustrated as a specific kind of hell. That part illustrates aching emptiness and perpetual need: the realm of hungry ghosts.
Dr. Gabor Maté borrowed this imagery in his bestseller, The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. As he explains in the introduction to the book’s 2020 update, “[Addiction is] a human being’s desperate attempt to solve a problem: the problem of emotional pain, of overwhelming stress, of lost connection, of lost control, of deep discomfort with the self.”
He explains these ghosts further, writing:
All drugs — and all behaviors of addiction, substance-dependent or not, whether to gambling, sex, the Internet, or cocaine — either soothe pain directly or distract from it. Hence my mantra: The first question is not “Why the addiction?” but “Why the pain?
Human Development, Gone Askew
The evolution of Dr. Maté’s work mirrors the emergence of new ways of understanding addiction’s origins and treatment.
In the intervening years since Hungry Ghosts, Dr. Maté questioned the idea of addiction as a brain disease. His later work focuses on trauma, from childhood trauma experienced by individuals to broader social traumas, specifically those experienced by indigenous people in Canada. His latest book, co-authored with his son Daniel Maté, is aptly titled The Myth of Normal and looks at the toxic influences of society on individual health.
Trauma and stress are the ghosts that pass through all of this work, as well as the work of Dr. Robert Pretlow, publisher of AddictionNews. Through this lens, we understand addiction as a human response to stress. Addiction’s many manifestations (substance use, behaviors) are found on a continuum of learning, response, and maladaptation.
What Counts As an Addiction?
It is worth noting a minor controversy that came with the initial publication of Hungry Ghosts. The bulk of the book looked at the many hardships and deaths of addicted drug users in a Vancouver neighborhood. But, it also included a discussion of Dr. Maté’s addictions to work and shopping. Some readers found the comparison distasteful — how could he compare these compulsions with behaviors that clearly kill?
His response in the 2020 book is insightful because it tracks with what is increasingly self-evident:
My particular addiction […] led me to waste time and money, lie to my wife, ignore my children, and sabotage my responsibility to my patients. And what did I get from that? The same dopamine-driven hit of excitement, thrill, and motivation the gambler, the sex addict, or the cocaine-dependent self-soother also craves.
Here again, we see the common threads between addiction and addictive behavior. “All addictions cause harm; any habit that does not cause harm is by definition not an addiction,” he writes.
Hungry ghosts are associated with addiction, obsession, and compulsion. They are not outside us but a part of the human condition. We must look at them with compassion because these ghosts move through all of us to varying degrees. The Buddhists have known this for a long time, and now, the science is catching up.
Written by Katie McCaskey. First published October 24, 2024.
Sources:
“What is a Mandala?” Study Buddhism, undated.
“Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism,” Learn Religions, January 8, 2018.
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Gabor Maté, 2008-2020.
Evaluating the Brain Disease Model of Addiction, Gabor Maté, Routledge, 2022.
“Treating Addiction, Trauma and Emotional Loss Together: A Clinical and Historical Perspective,” International Body Psychotherapy Journal (Vol. 21, Issue 1) Spring-Summer, 2022.
Image Copyright: Photo Dharma from Sadao, Thailand, licensed under CC BY 2.0.