In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

by Gabor Maté

There is plenty of evidence for such a unitary view. Substance addictions are often linked to one another, and chronic substance users are highly likely to have more than one drug habit: for example, the majority of cocaine addicts also have, or have had, active alcohol addiction. In turn, about 70 per cent of alcoholics are heavy smokers, compared with only 10 per cent of the general population.3 I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an injection drug user at the Portland Clinic who wasn’t also addicted to nicotine. Often nicotine was their “entry drug,” the first mood-altering chemical they’d become hooked on as adolescents. In research surveys more than half of opiate addicts have been found to be alcoholics, as have the vast majority of cocaine and amphetamine addicts, and many cannabis addicts as well. Both animal and human researches have demonstrated that common brain systems, brain chemicals, and pharmacological mechanisms underlie alcohol and other substance addictions.