Gabor Maté - In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts - Close Encounters with Addiction

1. J.S. Alper and M.R. Natowicz, “On Establishing the Genetic Basis of Mental Disease,” Trends in Neuroscience 16(10) (October 1993): 387–89.

2. K. Kendler, “A Gene for…”: The Nature of Gene Action in Psychiatric Disorders,” American Journal of Psychiatry 162 (July 2005):1243–52.

3. Robert Plomin, Development, Genetics, and Psychology (Hilllsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986), 9.

4. C.R. Cloninger et al., “Inheritance of Alcohol Abuse,” Archives of General Psychiatry 38 (1981): 861–68.

5. S.R. Dube et al., “Growing Up with Parental Alcohol Abuse: Exposure to Childhood Abuse, Neglect and Household Dysfunction,” Child Abuse & Neglect 25 (2001): 1627–40.

6. J.S. Alper and M.R. Natowicz, “On Establishing the Genetic Basis of Mental Disease,” Trends in Neuroscience 16(10) (October 1993): 387–89.

7. K.S. Kendler et al., “A Multidimensional Twin Study of Mental Health in Women,” American Journal of Psychiatry 157 (April 2000): 506–13.

8. M.A. Enoch and D. Goldman, “The Genetics of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse,” Current Psychiatry Reports 3 (2002): 144–51.

9. L.A. Pohorecky, “Interaction of Ethanol and Stress: Research with Experimental Animals—An Update,” Alcohol & Alcoholism 25(2/3) (1990): 263–76.

10. G. Slap et al., “Adoption as a Risk Factor for Attempted Suicide During Adolescence,” Pediatrics 108(2) (August 2001): E30.

11. D.W. Goodwin, “Alcoholism and Heredity: A Review and Hypothesis,” Archives of General Psychiatry 38 (1979): 57–61.

APPENDIX II A CLOSE LINK: ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER AND ADDICTIONS

1. K.M. Carroll and B.J. Rousnaville, “History and Significance of Childhood Attention Deficit Disorder in Treatment-Seeking Cocaine Abusers,” Comprehensive Psychiatry 34(2) (March-April 1993): 75–82.

2. D. Wood et al., “The Prevalence of Attention Deficit Disorder, Residual Type, in a Population of Male Alcoholic Patients,” American Journal of Psychiatry 140 (1983): 15–98.

3. J. Biederman et al., “Does Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Impact the Developmental Course of Drug and Alcohol Abuse and Dependence?” Biological Psychiatry 44(4) (15 August 1998): 269–73.

4. Dr. Richard Rawson, Associate Director of the Integrated Substance Abuse Program, University of California at Los Angeles, Teleconference, 26 April 2006. Available from U.S. Consulate, Vancouver, BC.

5. B.R. Van den Bergh and A. Marcoen, “High Antenatal Maternal Anxiety Is Related to ADHD Symptoms, Externalizing Problems, and Anxiety in 8-and 9-year-olds,” Child Dev 75(4) (July-August 2004): 1085–97.

6. M.H. Teicher, “Wounds That Time Won’t Heal: The Neurobiology of Child Abuse,” Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science 2(4) (fall 2000).

7. M.J. Meaney et al., “Environmental Regulation of the Development of Mesolimbic Dopamine Systems: A Neurobiological Mechanism for Vulnerability to Drug Abuse?” Psychoneuroendocrinology 27 (2002): 127–38.

8. Nora D. Volkow et al., “Depressed Dopamine Activity in Caudate and Preliminary Evidence of Limbic Involvement in Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.” Archives of General Psychiatry . 64 (2007): 932–940.

9. T.E. Wilens et al., “Does Stimulant Therapy of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Beget Later Substance Abuse? A Meta-Analytic Review of the Literature,” Pediatrics 111(1) (January 2003): 179–85.

10. T. Sim et al., “Cognitive Deficits Among Methamphetamine Users with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Symptomatology,” Journal of Addictive Diseases 21(1) (2002): 75–89.

11. Meaney et al., “Environmental Regulation.”

APPENDIX III THE PREVENTION OF ADDICTION

1. An indispensable resource to all parents and also to all professionals working with families and children is the seminal work on healthy child development by my friend, colleague and mentor Dr. Gordon Neufeld. No other authority has articulated so clearly the devastating impact of the growing tendency of children to connect to each other rather than to nurturing adults, nor the prevention and management of this phenomenon. See Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My first thanks go to the men and women who have trustingly laid their lives open to me as their physician and as a writer and who agreed to tell their stories for this book. As I mentioned in the preface, their oft-stated motivation was to help others understand addiction and the experience of the addict. Working with them in the Downtown Eastside continues to be my privilege. I also thank non-patients such as Stephen Reid—and others whom I cannot name—who have shared with me and the reader their struggles with addiction.

I gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance provided by the Canada Council for the research and preparation of Hungry Ghosts.

The knowledge, perspectives and generous time shared by the following outstanding researchers and clinicians have greatly enhanced my understanding of addiction and the addiction process: Drs. Jaak Panksepp, Aviel Goodman, Bruce Perry, Jeffrey Schwartz and Bruce Alexander.

I owe gratitude to four editors. Diane Martin, Publisher at Knopf Canada, has a deep and compassionate interest in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. She has encouraged Hungry Ghosts along from its conception and, as with all my books, her judicious editing has greatly improved the finished work. My son Daniel has served as front-line editor, reviewing and reworking each chapter as the manuscript was being written. His lyricist’s gift for language and for recreating dialogue has enlivened many passages: among other felicities, the reader has Daniel to thank for Dr. Fell’s “hard day at the OFC.” His personal acquaintance with the author and with the Portland Hotel clientele has helped keep the work honest—as has his acute awareness of his father’s tendency to sometimes lapse into overdramatization and medical-scientific prolixity. I thank Daniel, too, for his frank and insightful passages about his own experience. My wife, Rae Maté, has contributed much to the writing: her detailed, empathic yet unsentimental critique has helped shape the manuscript from beginning to end. At her Rockwood, Ontario, farmstead copyeditor Kathryn Dean laboured prodigiously against a looming deadline, cleaning up the manuscript with sympathy and a deft touch, incorporating and improving my last-minute changes with forbearance.

I am grateful to Ed McCurdy for the title suggestion, and to the friend identified in the text as “Anne” for sharing her nuanced understanding of the Twelve-Step process and for her astute comments on Part I of the manuscript.

Many other people have read and critiqued all or parts of this work during its preparation. Their insights and forthright critiques have all been most helpful—difficult as I may have found them to gracefully accept at first sight. I owe special thanks to: Margaret Gunning, Mairi Campbell, Dan Small, Kerstin Stuerzbecher and Liz Evans.

In my author’s note I have already expressed my appreciation for the contribution made by the artistry of photographer extraordinaire Rod Preston. All readers of this book will, I’m sure, share my gratitude for his work.

Finally, words are inadequate to thank Rae once more for her indispensable belief in my work, her steadying influence and, above all, her loving support.

PERMISSIONS

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for the permission to reprint previously published material: