“Embraced by the Needle” (published in the Globe and Mail) by Gabor Mate, states the effects on a person that do not have a loving and nurturing home in their younger years may turn to drugs later on. Mate is a staff physician at Portland Hotel; which is Downtown Eastside Vancouver where there is a population of drug addicts of 3000 to 5000. Most of Mate’s clients are mentally ill and are addicted to drugs like cocaine, alcohol, heroin, and tranquilizers. Mate states “Chemical and emotional vulnerability are the products of life experience, according to current brain research and development psychology” (305).
An experiment with infant rats and monkeys are compared to human beings by testing their brain for anxiety, neuro-chemical, dopamine, and endorphins; they all ended up to be quite similar. Endorphins are opiate recepto
...rs in our brain that control things like pain and mood. The less endorphin interactions in the younger years such as separation from their mother (infant monkey), less grooming from their mother (infant rat), or a stressful, angry or an unhealthy environment for a child would increase the need for external sources. In their older years may result in to turning to drugs.
There is no drug that is addictive, only 8% to 15% of people who try alcohol or marijuana get addicted. “Childhood memories of serial abandonment or severe physical and psychological abuse are common,” says Mate (306). The majority of the women and some men addicts Downtown East Vancouver are suffering from sexual assault from their childhood years. Mate gave a couple of examples from two of his clients from Portland. First, a 36 year-old cocaine user went from foster
home to foster home; he was punished by getting dish soap poured down his throat and tied to a chair in a dark room at the age of 5.
Next, a 32 year-old poet who suffers from mental illness; She feels alone and doesn’t know what it is like to be loved unconditionally and accepted for who she is. Addicts usually do not see the connection from their past childhood experiences to self-harming habits. “They blame themselves and that is the greatest wound of all” (307). In conclusion, Mate’s personal experience at Portland states addictions numb the hidden pain and also begin with unhappiness; it is an emotional anesthetic.
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