In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

by Gabor Maté

This is the domain of addiction, where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects, or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need, and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present.

No society can understand itself without looking at its shadow side.

Our clients are not the “deserving poor”; they are just poor—undeserving in their own eyes and in those of society.