In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

by Gabor Maté

Given the long-term effects of prenatal stress and the dominant influence of the environment on brain development following birth, is it surprising that infants of alcoholic biological fathers would also have a greater propensity to drink? We know from the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study that alcoholism is associated with many other traumatic circumstances—for example, either parent being alcoholic increases the chance of the mother being battered by a factor of thirteen.5 When we consider what it’s like for a woman to live with an alcoholic male partner—the insecurity she experiences through the pregnancy and beyond, and the abuse she may be subjected to—we can see that the stresses on such a woman, both before and after birth, would have been greater than the stresses on most other pregnant women. Furthermore, if a child spent the first months of his or her life—and possibly the first three years—under such circumstances, it would mean that by the time he was adopted, his attachment-reward, incentive-motivation and self-regulation systems would have been significantly impaired, along with his stress-response mechanisms. Such a study can tell us nothing about genetic effects. Similar objections, and a wide range of others, could be made—and have been made—to the other adoption studies.6