Social Sciences In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

I found this to be a very interesting book about working with drug addicts in Vancouver's downtown East side. The author, Dr. Gabor Mate, works in the same building as Insite, North America's only supervised injection site. Dr. Mate explores many facets of addiction, including biological and environmental factors that contribute to addiction. He compares his own ADD (or was it ADHD?) and his addiction to buying classical music CDs (in his case it was an addiction. He would go on binges, and hide his purchases from his wife, spend excessive amounts of money, sometimes neglected his children... He continued his behaviour despite the negative consequences to himself and his loved ones).

In the book the Dr. relates the tales of some of his patients, success stories, and tragedies. Dr. Mate criticizes the war on drugs and supports a harm reduction approach.

The book contains lots of interesting stories, insights and statistics. A must read for anyone interested in drug addiction, especially those who know addicts or wish to work with or understand them.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Good review.
	Excellent review