A thought-provoking and powerful study that reframes everything you've been taught about addiction and recovery, from the New York Times, bestselling author of The Myth of Normal (Bruce Perry, author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog). A world-renowned trauma expert combines real-life stories with cutting-edge research to offer a holistic approach to understanding addiction, its origins, its place in society, and the importance of self-compassion in recovery. Based on Gabor Mate's two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with people with addiction on Vancouver's skid row, this #1 international bestseller radically re-envisions a much misunderstood condition by taking a compassionate approach to substance abuse and addiction recovery. In the same vein as Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts traces the root causes of addiction to childhood trauma and examines the pervasiveness of addiction in society. Dr. Mate presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout, and perhaps underpins, our society. It is not a medical condition distinct from the lives it affects but rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional and.