Reflections and Recollections -- triggered by Gabor Maté's Book

I recall when, as a young PhD candidate, I might be asked how it is that someone with my talent and ambition could drink himself blotto every night. Often, I'd reply that I drink to give other intellectuals a chance. Later, when a crack addiction compounded things, it became harder to be so cocky. Honestly, I'm not sure there was a reason, and I've considered many possibilities -- as an addiction researcher, as a historian of how addictions have been understood through the ages, as a philosopher pondering the seeming loss of free will, as a drunken crackhead asking himself why. What was the reason? I've given that as much thought as humanly possible.

So it is rare, at this point in my life, that an author can get me to reflect seriously about addiction at the experiential level. Yet Maté floored me with this one: "The fundamental addiction is to the fleeting experience of not being addicted" (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, p. 107). Yes, as I think about it, that might be how it all began. The statement also speaks to why many keep going back.

As I read on (Maté p.157 last paragraph) a woman says: "When I first did heroin, it felt like a warm soft hug." Maté speaks of a psychological craving, rooted in emotional displacement. So there's a compensation. We fill the void. In the rooms of 12 Step recovery, I sometimes heard that there is a God shaped hole in my soul, and that only He can fill it. Time was, drugs did the job. But the drugs stopped working.

Something's missing, and maybe that's endemic to the human condition. We're all lonely because we've been thrown into a strange world. But the addict feels it like a burn. I recall a movie where a junkie explains how a junkie can't deal with the hassle of having to tie his shoes. Maybe that's something his mom should still be doing for him ... We infantilize ourselves even further when putting shit into our mouths like fucking 2 year olds -- and nothing matters except the crack pipe or bottle I'm gonna put in my mouth.

Nothing, except maybe my imaginary “friends” –- the guys, often cops, lurking neath the window sill, or behind some door, always lurking and they’re always gonna get me. They never do, though. Maybe because when it comes to fucking myself up, I don’t need much help.

We all seek to connect, and we all move to the transcendental. Here's an observation that Weber made: people in power, those who are privileged, are never content merely to note their good fortune; they also, in all cultures, must claim a "right" to it. Why? Why not simply say "I'm lucky and too bad for you". Because it's not enough. Humanity has a transcendental instinct.

I recall after my second suicide attempt -- I spent 10 days in a loony bin. Speaking to my friend and roommate, who had called paramedics after finding me in the living room all full of poison, I teased him about being a snitch. I told him and others that while their support was really nice, perhaps the world would be better off without me. No, they all would say: I’m a wonderful person with so much to offer. They all wanted me alive, and the people pleaser in me opted to cave. OK, I agreed to live. But I let them know that I am a dangerous man, to myself and to those around me.

My father spent very little time with me, and it seems I learned about how to be a man from Marvel comic books. Spider Man, Thor, Iron Man – they were my crew. Weight lifting and martial arts became important. Didn't care much about what my teachers wanted me to learn, so I was a lousy student. Yet I was playing chess at the age of three, and well up on world events by my early teens. Philosophy interested me, as did all the people on the main strip of my hometown. It was the early 1970s – still really the “sixties” – and every five yards or so there would be someone with a cause: pro war, anti war, Hare Krishna, eat veggies, abortion ... you name it. At the age of 11 I would walk up and down that strip, and talk to everyone who wanted to talk. I had to know why someone was into this, or against that. So I’d stop and ask. At fourteen, I’m at home reading books that few university students would touch unless they had to for a course, and that night I’m gonna steal my first car.

And now I'm out to make the world a better place. Me? Rebel, scrapper, drunk, crackhead... How fucking dangerous is that? Funny, since I've taken on this mission, I rarely feel the burn, the emptiness. So is this another way of doing what Gabor says we all do? Then maybe it's not about the world so much, but my own "hedonic tone" -- a fancy way of saying happiness (sometimes used by addiction scholars).

Yeah, I sure have learned a lot. So how dangerous am I? Time will tell, and I will accept the judgement of history.