Understanding Trauma and Addiction: Insights from Gabor Maté

Exploring the Connection Between Childhood Trauma and Adult Addictions through Gabor Maté's Teachings and New Documentary

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I tell anyone willing to listen about Gabor Maté, much like you would rave about a really good restaurant or any well-kept secret. Not that it's truly a secret. He simply arrived in Israel fashionably late. The Canadian psychologist of Hungarian origin, now 77 years old, is the focus of a documentary released this year titled "The Wisdom of Trauma."

The film conveys Maté's teachings on the connection between childhood trauma and the risk of developing dependencies and addictions in adulthood. It also discusses the epidemic of addictions that characterizes our times. Recently, a translation of his book "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts," which covers the same subject, was published in Israel by Asia Publishing. The book was scientifically edited by Yadid Hamodor, addiction expert Prof. Shaoli Lev Ran, and Sagit Mazmer.

"The brain is not built to bear high levels of vague threat for a long time. It's extorting"

Why should we talk about the past to improve the present? In April, I wrote about "The Body Keeps the Score," Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's excellent book on trauma and healing, which was also recently translated into Hebrew. Maté quotes van der Kolk at the very beginning of his book, stating, "We need to talk about what motivates people to take drugs." He expands: "People who feel good about themselves don't do things that endanger their bodies. People who have been through trauma feel nervous, restless, chest pressure. You hate your feelings. You take drugs to stabilize your body." This desperation to regulate the body and mind, to escape unbearable distress or restlessness, triggers a host of addictions, some related to drugs and some not.

Maté explains to new patients that he does not intend to ask them about their addiction's specifics. He adds, "It doesn't matter what the object of your addiction was; what did it offer you? What did you like about it? What did it give you in the short term that you longed for or loved so much?" The answers are invariably: "It helped me escape emotional pain; helped me deal with stress; gave me peace of mind, a sense of connection with others, a sense of control."

In a previous article, I wrote about non-adaptive coping methods. While they create problems for us, we should not see our failed coping styles as the core issue. Instead, we should view them as unproductive attempts to address a deeper problem, which is almost always some form of unbearable emotional pain. By focusing our efforts on healing the root wound, we can achieve long-term behavioral benefits and hope for the natural disappearance of defensive behaviors.

Maté expresses a similar worldview, writing that "addiction is not a choice and certainly not a disease. It originates in a person's desperate attempt to solve a problem: the problem of emotional pain, of overwhelming pressure, of lost connection, of loss of control, of deep discomfort with the self. In short, this is a desperate attempt to solve the problem of human pain. All drugs—and all addictive behaviors, whether to drugs or anything else—are designed to relieve pain directly or to distract from it. My mantra is therefore: the first question is not 'what is the source of addiction?' but 'what is the source of the pain?'"

Like any superstar, and Gabor Maté, with his charming accent, soulful eyes, and the vulnerability he wears like jewelry, is such a star, his messages begin to repeat after you've read one of his books, watched a documentary, or listened to a podcast. And to that, I say: so what? These are still very important messages. Personally, I connect deeply with his ideas about the high incidence of trauma among us.

In a recent article, I wrote that "from the moment we are born, two critical psychological needs are in conflict: the need to be authentic and the need to be connected to others." This means knowing our needs, being attentive to our rhythm, maintaining our boundaries, and expressing ourselves. On the other side is the need for attachment.

Maté's teachings emphasize that many times in childhood, we are forced to choose between connecting with ourselves and connecting with the adult who cares for us. This difficult choice is not imposed by a parent's sadistic urge or domineering nature. Often, parents are unaware that they are encouraging their children to sacrifice their authenticity to feel a stronger connection to the parent.

From this idea comes Maté's next point, which I resonate with: life, in general, and family life, in particular, is a psychological chain accident. We must address our wounds without significantly blaming those who caused them. Our parents may have hurt us, but life hurt them first. When we step back and observe this chain accident, we realize that the parents' behavior having extenuating circumstances does not diminish the reality of our hurt and our need to address it. It also does not allow us to completely absolve those who hurt us.

Another point of Maté's that I often quote in my practice is that traumas are not only the result of bad things that happened to us. Trauma can also develop from the absence of good things that should have happened but didn't.