
Gabor Maté on Addiction to Ideology and Social Media [video] - collapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2YdpvnwtGc
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winchling
Cold comfort to some, but I think there's at least one real advantage that the
addict or anyone with an acknowledged mental disorder or personal problem has:
addressing this is a path to enormous self-realisation and growth. By
comparison, most people are sleepwalking through life.

~~~
dorchadas
Agreed. I realized I was addicted to checking Facebook and Reddit even though
I rarely got anything out of them. I've since deactivated (I need Messenger to
chat with some friends, so I can't fully delete, sadly) my Facebook account
and pared back my Reddit subscriptions to only academic ones so I can at least
learn while on it. It's made me _want_ to check Facebook/Reddit a lot less.

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ttul
I live in Gabor Maté's hometown of Vancouver, where he has been a pioneer in
transforming how the medical profession and government deals with the
addiction epidemic affecting the city. Looking out my office window right now,
I can see the clinic which is pioneering opioid replacement therapy, in which
addicts who have failed all other avenues of addictions treatment are injected
regularly with hydromorphone and diacetylmorphine. Without Maté's courageous
work in this community, the research underpinning this therapy would
potentially not have occurred.

"Hydromorphone Compared With Diacetylmorphine for Long-term Opioid Dependence:
A Randomized Clinical Trial."
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27049826](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27049826)

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tartoran
I saw Gabor Mate on Russel Brand's,well, podcast, and was saying to myself,
what a compasiomate human being, why isn't this the norm? I think Mate's deep
compassion stems from his own suffering in his past.

I am wondering what is suffering for scientists? Suffering is not depression
or only sadness in my view, it's a condition that if we manage to overcome we
become agents of good.

~~~
enibundo
People end up compassionate and empathic after suffering indeed

~~~
Hoasi
> People end up compassionate and empathic after suffering indeed

I agree, but suffering is not (I hope) a prerequisite to becoming
compassionate and empathic. These qualities are inborn for most people.
Perhaps suffering makes people more inclined to put these into practice more
consciously or more naturally.

~~~
snikeris
There are meditation practices where the goal is increasing one’s compassion
or loving-kindness.

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thisismyusernam
I'm really enjoying Gabor Maté being more in the spotlight recently. I've been
following his work for about 6 years and wished he would get more attention.
Such a good human being.

~~~
baursak
His son Aaron Mate is pretty good as well.

~~~
jorgesborges
For those interested here's a fascinating discussion between Gabor and Aaron.
It's a candid talk between father and son in which they address real feelings
of concern, anger, resentment, and disappointment with each other. I remember
thinking about how most relationships of that nature go unexamined and
unaddressed for an entire lifetime. I still haven't picked up the phone
myself.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIcppb9mbSc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIcppb9mbSc)

~~~
collapse
That interview is with a different son (Daniel, not Aaron).

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kosa2
And here is Matt Taibbi saying the same thing about the news media -
[https://taibbi.substack.com/p/chapter-1-part-ii-the-ten-
rule...](https://taibbi.substack.com/p/chapter-1-part-ii-the-ten-rules-of)

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collapse
This interview contains some of the more interesting observations I've heard
on this much-discussed topic. e.g. his analogy between online tribes and
teenage gangs.

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willemwijnans
There is a great Mate talk at the society of psychedelics where he gets a
question from a father about how to fix y or z for his daughter. Mate's answer
is always: do your own healing work, fix yourself -- such a great man.

~~~
pier25
> do your own healing work, fix yourself

I've done that with my own personal issues, but I'm not sure it's the best
approach for everyone and all the issues.

I'm close to 40 and only now I've been able to give a technical name to a
personal problem that has been fuzzy for decades. I'm sure a trained
professional would have seen that and maybe my healing would have taken a
couple of years instead of close to 20 years.

~~~
jsloss
I think his point is to focus on fixing yourself, rather than trying to fix
others. He’s not suggesting that you avoid getting help from professionals to
do so.

~~~
pier25
Oh right. Sorry I missed that.

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abledon
Gabor Maté is a great public speaker but some of his thinking has some leaks
when further prodded [1]. If it could be synthesized and refined a bit more ,
(maybe his successor?) I think it would help the psychology field in moving to
a more holistic approach of the human being and less of an isolated problem /
mechanistic one.

[1] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-in-
society...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/addiction-in-
society/201112/the-seductive-dangerous-allure-gabor-mat)

~~~
neonate
That's an interesting article but it's a critique of Maté from a humanistic,
non-biomedical position that thinks he isn't radical enough in rejecting the
biomedical/disease model of addiction. Mainstream critics would reject Maté's
views for opposite reasons. In this sense the author and Maté are largely on
the same side.

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justifier
02:46 > if you actually look at the addictive brain it's the same brain
circuitry involved in all addictions

Any links to research where I can look at the addictive brain?

