In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

by Gabor Maté

said, ‘and six months ago, I got my first job. If I had known how good it felt to work, I would have been done with drinking long ago. Five months ago I got my own place. Had I known how good that was, I would have gone sober long ago. Three months ago I got myself a girlfriend. Boy, if I’d known how great that was, I might never have drank in the first place.’ ” Merriment, chortles, the clapping of appreciative hands. “ ‘Now I’m sixty-four,’ the man said, ‘and I’ve just been told I have cancer. I have six months to live.’ ” Elaine pauses to look around the room as we take in this information. Silently, we wait for her conclusion. “I thought he’s going to announce, ‘I’m off on the biggest six-month drunk you can imagine. So the hell with you all and goodbye.’ That’s what I would have done with a death sentence hanging over me. But not this Native man. ‘I’m just so grateful,’ he said, ‘so thankful that I’m sober, that I’ve had two years of sobriety and that I can look forward to the rest of my life in sobriety.’ “That’s when I got that sobriety is more than just the absence of alcohol. It’s a way of being.