Includes bibliographical references (pages 450-476) and index.

Foreword / Peter Levine -- Hungry ghosts: The realm of addiction -- Part I: Hellbound train -- The only home he's ever had -- The lethal hold of drugs -- The keys of paradise: Addiction as a flight from distress -- You wouldn't believe my life story -- Angela's grandfather -- Pregnancy journal -- Beethoven's birth room -- There's got to be some light -- Part II: Physician, heal thyself -- Takes one to know one -- Twelve-step journal: April 5, 2006 -- Part III: A different state of the brain -- What is addiction? -- From Vietnam to "Rat Park": Do drugs cause addiction? -- A different state of the brain -- Through a needle, a warm, soft hug -- Cocaine, dopamine, and candy bars: The incentive system in addiction -- Like a child not released -- Part IV: How the addicted brain develops -- Their brains never had a chance -- Trauma, stress, and the biology of addiction -- It's not in the genes -- Part V: The addiction process and the addictive personality -- "A void I'll do anything to avoid" -- Too much time on external things: The addiction-prone personality -- Poor substitutes for love: Behavioral addictions and their origins -- Part VI: Imagining humane reality: Beyond the war on drugs -- The social roots of addiction -- Know thine enemy -- "Ignorant fanaticism": The failed war on drugs -- Freedom of choice and the choice of freedom --- Toward an enlightened social policy on drugs -- Reducing harm -- Part VII: The ecology of healing -- The power of compassionate curiousity -- The internal climate -- The four steps, plus one -- Sobriety and the external milieu -- A word to families, friends, and caregivers -- There is nothing lost: Addiction and the spiritual quest -- Appendix I: Fallacies of adoption and twin studies -- Appendix II: A close link: Attention deficit disorder and addictions -- Appendix III: The prevention of addiction -- Appendix IV: The twelve steps.

Based on Gabor Maté's two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his work with the severely addicted on Vancouver's skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts reenvisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Maté 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; not a medical "condition" distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. This book argues against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and those impacted by it. The mix of personal stories -- including the author's discussion of his own "high-status" addictive tendencies -- and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is a compassionate look at drug addiction by best-selling author and physican Gabor Maté. This insightful book explores the scientific and psychological causes of addiction, as well as the impact on the addicts treated at the Downtown Eastside Vancouver clinic where Maté is a physician. He widens the lens to address the larger societal problem - speaking also to the risks of the more "high-status" addictions, such as wealth, power, and sex. He boldly challenges the War on Drugs, proposing a more holistic, constructive set of alternatives. A riveting, debate-provoking book about an illness that reaches all levels of society, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts provides a much-needed glimpse of hope from an innovator who is taking on addiction with startling clarity, vision, and wisdom. -- From back cover.