Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | Why We Are All Addicts | Dr Gabor Maté #475

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Today’s guest brings warmth and wisdom to every conversation we have. He’s a renowned expert on addiction, trauma, stress and childhood development – and someone with a unique understanding of how our spiritual, emotional and physical lives are connected. Today’s clip is from episode 294 of the podcast with fellow physician, author, speaker and friend - the incredible Dr Gabor Maté. Gabor’s latest book The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture is quite simply a masterpiece, which has the potential to help people the world over. In this clip, he shares his thoughts on the real reason that most of us have addictions, and how the pressures of modern-day living are impacting us more than we realise. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/294 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

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10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 294 of the podcast with fellow physician, author, speaker, and friend, the incredible Dr. Gabor Mate. Now Gabor's latest book, The Myth of Normal, is quite simply a masterpiece which has the potential to help people the world over. In this short clip, he shares his thoughts on the real reason that most of us have addictions and how the pressures of modern day living are impacting us more than we realize. Would you go as far as to say that pretty much all of us in Western society are addicted to something?

Well, your words about what it means to be a human being really speak to me because addiction is the most human thing there is and when you understand it when you don't understand it it looks like an aberration and abnormality and some kind of a moral deviation but when you understand it it's a very human thing so let's just define addiction as manifested in any behavior that a person finds temporary pleasure or relief in and therefore craves and continues with it despite negative consequences so the definition that involves pleasure relief craving in the short term harm in the long term inability to give it up despite the harm now by that definition of course we're not just talking about drugs.

We're talking about all manner of behaviors from sex to pornography to gambling to eating to shopping to the internet to gaming to work. It's probably the physician, you know, and to any number of other activities. And my contention is that all addictions, they're not primary problems. They're not inherited diseases. They're not aberrations. They're not moral failures. They're attempts to gain pain relief, emotional pain relief for something or another. And so the first question in addiction for me is not why the addiction, but why the pain? And so we have to look at why the addiction but why the pain and so if you have to look at the why the pain we have to look at people's lives their life experience their traumas

their their adversity their suffering and so that's why I say that now when you talk to other people what did you get from your addiction they'll say peace of mind they'll say connection with other people they see sense of control they say stress relief they say sense of purpose, they say stress relief, they say sense of purpose. Those are all supremely human qualities. In fact, they're qualities that we all want. In fact, have every right to expect. So that's why I said there's nothing more human

than eviction. Now, problem of course is it creates more pain, but the impulse is simply the addict just wants to feel like a normal human being that's all yeah it's such a profoundly different way of looking at addiction compared to i think the norm in society certainly the way many people view you view addicts. There's a certain view isn't there that the addict is on the street corner,

is homeless, is destitute. Yet we often don't want to put that mirror up and look at our own lives and go, oh wow, by your definition, by that definition, there's probably very few of us who can honestly hold our hands up and say, at some point in our life, we weren't addicted to something. I think in this society, hardly anybody. Hence, in part, hence the title of my book, The Myth of Normal.

Like, we think that so many things are normal, then there's the abnormal people who are different from us. I'm saying that that's a myth, that from the most abject and most dependent and most ill drug-addicted people that I worked with in Vancouver, Canada, to the most elevated segments of society, addictions are just rife. and we're completely blind when we choose one segment of the population to ostracize and to punish and to feel superior to. And what we're really doing is denying our own humanity when we do that. And that's the thing with addictions. There's a certain hierarchical

kind of preference we give to them. Certain things are acceptable addictions. Certain things are not. You know, pornography is not an acceptable addiction. Heroin is not an acceptable addiction, but it's okay to be addicted to Instagram. It's okay to be addicted to consumption and shopping. Or power.

Or power. Yeah. One of the big messages I feel the new book really makes a strong case for is that we're living in a society that has as its core some values that are not conducive to good physical, mental, and emotional health. And it takes a lot of pressure off the individual. It doesn't mean that the individual could do nothing about it, but I think it helps people realize why they're struggling so much. Well, I know that a real core value for you is authenticity, you know, and being oneself,

being truly oneself. And I know that you've been through some struggle in your own life to become yourself or to realize who you were and to let go what wasn't. And certainly that's been my pattern and struggle and commitment as well. This is a society that fundamentally demands of people that they be other than who they are. Because the demand, the expectation is that we fit in into structures and workplaces

and educational institutions and families and social settings, where if we ourselves, we risk being rejected. So that there's almost a universal demand for self-suppression, which is we both, you and I know, creates both mental and physical health problems. So that the core values of the society, which are fundamentally materialistic, individualistic, aggressive and competitive, they go against what it really means to be a human being.

And when you look at how we evolved as human beings, like if you want to study a zebra, where would you study him? If you want to understand his true nature, would you study him in the London Zoo? Would you study him out in the savannah where wherever he or she lives? Well, you'd have to study him in the London Zoo? Would you study him out in the savannah or wherever he or she lives? Well, you'd have to study him in the

natural environment. In our natural environment, I'm talking about eons and millions and hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and even about 90% of our own existence as a species. We lived out in nature, in small band hunter-gatherer groups.

Connected, engaged, belonging, connected to nature, connected to our gut feelings. We had to be otherwise we wouldn't survive. That's what it means to be a human being. Now we can adapt to other environments, but that doesn't mean that we can thrive in them as well. And so that in a sense what I'm saying about our species, we're like zoo creatures right now. We're living in a sense, what I'm saying is about our species, really, we're like

zoo creatures right now. We're living in an unnatural environment. I'm not suggesting we go back to being hunter-gatherers, but I am suggesting we realize what we've lost and how the particular social system in which we live right now demands that we stay lost. That's my whole point. Once our eyes get open to this yeah because as you mentioned for much of my life i've been blind to this you know i i felt that success was important being competitive was important being a winner was important and as i've shared a lot of these behavioral adaptations to my own childhoods, I find an inner sense of peace and contentment and calm that I never had before. And actually what's really interesting is as you do that, a lot of the addictive tendencies I had, they fall away. Not because you're trying to,

you're not trying to stop the addiction. This is kind of what I feel a lot of the time with, let's say something like alcohol. And as medical doctors, we say, this is the limit. You should drink under 14 units of alcohol a week or whatever it is, which frankly, I find a lot of public health guidance quite unhelpful. I understand the need for it, but A, it's dry. B, there's no understanding within that of what role does the alcohol play in that person's life. And I feel the classic case of something like alcohol is New Year. You know, people decide on January the 1st that this year is going to be different.

I'm right. I'm not going to fall into the trap I fell in before. I'm going to cut down my intake. And you know, they do for the first week and the second week, and they're not drinking at all. But by the third week, you know, when the stress of work is still there, when the toxic relationship that they're in is still there, when the boss that doesn't value them is still there, it starts to creep in because the alcohol is playing a role, right? Serving a need. And coming back to this cultural point, you mentioned, where would you study a zebra? Yeah. Right. i think there's a key point here you know who are we as humans many of us feel

that we are competitive right conversation is something i think a lot about yeah right as someone who used to be competitive who is no longer competitive really i can put my hand on my heart and say, I'm not competitive anymore. That was a trait I developed. That's right. But some people say competition is natural. And I guess my view is it comes down to the relationship

you have with that competition. So can you speak a little bit to competition? Well, yeah, well, first of all, I know something about your personal history, which is that being immigrants from the subcontinent here to to the uk and your parents with all their goodwill they put this pressure on you to excel that if you were i think i heard you say once that if you only got 99 of the tests your mother would say what's wrong but how come you can get under you have to be the best. You have to be the best.

Yeah. Now, they did that out of their anxiety that you just succeed in this world in which you came with some disadvantage being immigrants and maybe people of color as well. But as a result, you become competitive. That's not your nature. That's just your second nature. you become competitive that's not your nature that's just your second nature but even in the phrase second nature there's an implication that there's a first nature and the first nature is you just are human being you want to belong no competition it depends what the intention is if it's a competition in the sense that you want to manifest your best and in a sense you're competing with yourself.

Yeah. Not to be better than anybody else, not to beat or to dominate or to subjugate or exclude somebody else, but just because you just want to be your best. Well, that's great. that's great the idea that we're individually competitive creatures really comes along with the rise of capitalism which is a system based on competition where it is dog eat dog and where the bigger fish do swallow the smaller ones and as we can see this happening right now with the tremendous rise of inequality in the last decades. You know, eight people in the world now control as much wealth as the bottom 50% of humanity.

Now, the interesting thing about human nature is that when people do something selfish or aggressive or competitive, what do we say? Well, that's just human nature. But when people do something selfless and generous and kind, nobody says, oh, that's just human nature. But when people do something selfless and generous and kind, nobody says, oh, that's just human nature.

So, there's an assumption in this culture. And what we do is we take the core values of a particular materialistic culture and we project them onto human beings as if that was our true nature. It isn't. And to the extent that we try to conform to it,

we create suffering for ourselves and for others you know now competition has between liverpool and manchester city in this capitalist world even that gets pretty vicious not in the sense of the players being vicious but in the sense of how can we get the best players in the world and who can pay the most money for the best striker and where will Haagland go, will he go to Manchester City or Arsenal? Even on that level, what is meant to be play, we talk about playing football, but it's no longer play. It becomes a business of dominating others.

So whereas it could be just play, which is, and in play, there's no consequences to humans and who doesn't. It's just for the process. It's just for the enjoyment. It's just for the sheer pleasure of the activity. The human beings are meant to play. There's a circuit in our brain that's designated to play.

Play is essential for human development, for human child development, for human child development, for the brain development. But even the play, we've been into a competitive cutthroat endeavor. That's how far the nature has become. I feel when I met you last time face to face, I feel I had multiple holes in my soul.

And now, honestly, I sit here before you like a different person to when I first met you three or four years ago. We had a great conversation that people enjoyed for sure, but I feel I sit alongside you today complete and whole. And I've never felt this deep sense of contentment and happiness i'm so happy for you um when you talk about holes there's a teacher of mine that i quote often h almas and uh he says that we're born with these um innate essential qualities as the world doesn't recognize them

or discourages them we shut them off and we develop holes instead. Then we spend all our lives trying to fill these holes. Until we realize that as soon as self-love or self-acceptance or clarity or courage or love for others or sense of belonging or sense of unity, these get shut down, develop these holes instead. Then this whole society is so expert at selling us stuff to fill those holes temporarily, but only temporarily. So you have to get getting more and more and more.

And the whole society lives on trying to fill people's holes that can never be filled from the outside. This is the whole ethic of this culture. A lot of us, we know the right things to say you know you know we we've studied this we know what we should value yet we still can't help falling into traps these these traps i think society lays out for us i guess the culture the society around us impacts so much of how we experience the world

and what we chase and what we pursue and how we are. And of course, it can take a long time for culture to change. Yeah, I'm not saying that people have to wait for the society to change. If they did wait, it'd be a long, long wait, I would think. There's a lot that we can do, even in the context of this culture. Of course, what we can do is not

totally freely available equally to everybody. Let's face it, certain classes of people have much less, fewer options than others. That's just the reality of this culture, that we have to really look in the face.

But there's still a lot that people can do. But if I can go back to the confluence of your book and mine, you have these three concepts of the healing concepts of alignment, which is alcohol authenticity, becoming true to ourselves. That's available to all of us.

You talk about contentment, which I talk about in terms of acceptance, just actually recognizing how things are and being with them. Not necessarily that we don't want anything to be different, but that we don't stress ourselves about things. Thirdly, what you call control, which is what I call agency. Those are some core principles that interestingly enough, both you and I without any discussion or awareness of what each of us is writing.

Why did we come up with that? Because they're real. And we've seen them both in medical practice and the function of them. Now I add anger, another A called anger, which I think is very important for people to be able to say no. We have a system in our brain for healthy aggression. Just as we have one for play,

for love, for lust, for fear, for grief. We have a system in our brain for anger. Why? Because it has to protect us. I think people need to be angry not enraged not chronically resentful but they have to be able to say no you will not do this to me no you will not enter my space no you will not manipulate me no you will not use me so that's a small microcosmic statement of my healing principles, but I certainly think that healing is possible. And let's face it, if you didn't think

healing was possible, would you write your books? You know, I mean, if all you wanted to do is tell people how terrible things are, you wouldn't write a book. We both write books

because we actually believe in human beings, in the capacity of human beings for transformation, and that there's some guidance that can be provided to promote that transformation that's why we write and that's why i wrote this book and so yes healing is possible but we have to be aware i think as i think you said earlier we have to wake up to what's going on until then we're just working in the dark hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family and if you want more why not go back

and listen to the original full conversation with my guest if you enjoyed this episode i think you will really enjoy my bite-sized friday email it's called the Friday Five. And each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it free of charge at drchatterjee.com forward slash Friday Five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.