The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté

If a socially conservative dissenter were to protest, “Didn’t they choose to stay hooked?” I would offer this quote by Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse: “[Recent] studies have shown that repeated drug use leads to long-lasting changes in the brain that undermine voluntary control.”[3] Translation: when it comes to addiction, “free will” is in many ways a neurobiological non sequitur. In fact, I would take it much further: most addicted people had little choice even before their habits took hold. Their brains arrived on the scene already impaired by life experience, especially susceptible to the effects of their drug “of choice” (another dubious expression). Actually, that’s true whether the target is a substance or a behavior. In short, the choice model ignores the question of what would drive a person toward addiction in the first place.