For Dr. Gabor Mate, understanding the connection between mind and body health is key to treating drug addiction and other illnesses.

“Before you work with anybody, you have to know who they are and why they do what they do,” said Mate, who has worked as staff physician at Vancouver’s Portland Hotel, which includes the city’s supervised injection site, for 10 years.

Mate, a columnist and author of four books was in Nanaimo this week to speak on addiction.

In his latest book – In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction – Mate weaves stories of real patients with the latest research on addiction and the brain.

He said all his patients are hard-core substance users who experienced some form of sexual or physical abuse in their childhood and that abuse affected the person’s normal development and ability to cope.

“Very often, they’re self-medicating,” said Mate. “Very often what I’m treating is not only the effects of addiction, but also the effects of the social stigma of addiction.”

Mate proposes a compassionate, harm reduction approach to helping drug addicts.

“In our society, drug addiction is criminalized,” he said.

Giving patients alternative drugs such as methadone and supporting programs that allow patients to use substances under supervised conditions are important to reducing the harm of the drug to individual addicts as well as reducing costs to society, said Mate.

“To prevent it, we have to prevent child abuse,” he said.

“Abused people don’t have emotional skills, social skills.”

Mate said brain scans of abused people show they consistently lack a normal number of receptors for different brain chemicals.

He said other addictions – such as to work, food or sex – are similar in nature to drug addiction and all can be treated in the same way.

Mate’s visit was sponsored jointly by John Howard Society, the Vancouver Island Regional Library and Columbian Centre Society.

France Tellier, programs director at Nanaimo’s John Howard Society, said since harm reduction is a key philosophy of the organization, having Mate speak about his experiences in the Downtown Eastside is valuable to those working in addiction in Nanaimo.

“He has some interesting, and I think timely, views on addiction,” she said.

“He doesn’t take a medical view of addiction. It’s important to have diverse views and to be open to different perspectives.”

reporter@nanaimobulletin.com

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