On November 15, 2011, hundreds of north islanders filled the Port Hardy Civic Centre to hear Dr. Gabor Maté speak about healing addictions. Dr. Maté is a world-renowned doctor who has practiced medicine for decades, including in Vancouver's downtown eastside. He has also written many books and articles on topics from addictions to stress to attention deficit disorder (ADD). His talk was part of the local National Aboriginal Addictions Awareness Week activities.
The theme of Dr. Maté's talk was "Healing Addictions with Compassion". The main points made during this talk were:
- Addiction isn't a choice or a disease. It's peoples' way of trying to feel good, when bad experiences in childhood have made them feel bad.
- The best way to help prevent addiction (and lots of other bad things) is to make sure that babies and children have caregivers who are reliable and emotionally there for the child.
- Even small amounts of stress as a baby or child can make people more likely to get sick or become an addict.
- The best way to help heal addicts is to develop strong, trusting, unconditional relationships, and mirror back to that person what a good person they really are.
- In order to be the best possible 'mirror', you must take care of your own problems and childhood trauma.
In this series of posts, we will look at the following themes that were covered:
- What Causes Addictions?
- How can we help addicts?
- What are the effects of childhood abuse? How do we help those who have been abused?
So, if you weren't able to make it to Dr. Maté's talk, hopefully these posts will give you a better understanding of what is meant by the theme, "Healing Addictions with Compassion". The gist of the presentation, and much of Dr. Maté's work, is that when people are unwell, whether through addictions or stress or disease, we must look at the big picture when trying to help them. Instead of just treating symptoms, we must look at that person's own history and personality and lifestyle, and heal from within. We will look at these ideas more in the upcoming posts over the next few days.
- By Jessie Hemphill, Gwa'sala-'Nakwaxda'xw Communications Officer