In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

On Addictions

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I spent a decent amount of time reading “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” by Gabor Mate last week. It had been sitting on my shelf for over a year. Perhaps a side of me, the very side I am trying to shed, wanted nothing to do with the book. After all, it’s a study on addiction. What do I know about dependencies? Several stints of self-medication surely do not make me a candidate for such a book. Then an interview with the author made its way to my recommendations page on YouTube and I quite literally felt a switch click in my brain.

The book’s title comes from the Buddhist “wheel of life”, the Bhavacakra. The wheel revolves through six realms, each a representation of the potential life one could live. One of the six domains is named the realm of hungry ghosts and is inhabited by “creatures with (…) emancipated limbs, and large, bloated, empty bellies.” According to Mate, this is where the addicts dwell. No matter what or how much these inhabitants consume or devour, they never feel contented. “Addictions can never truly replace the life needs they temporarily displace,” writes Mate. They only serve to temporarily fulfill us, distract us, then leave us unsatisfied, often worse off than before. The brain of an addict never feels like it’s had enough. As if after a big meal they are still left starving.

Buddhist “Wheel of Life”

We tend to think of drug and alcohol abuse as obvious signs of addiction, yet behavioral addictions can be equally destructive. Pornography, eating disorders, video games, shopping, gambling, excessive social media use, technology over-usage, are all candidates for dependency. After all, addiction is “any repeated behavior, substance-related or not, in which a person feels compelled to persist, regardless of its negative impact on his life and the lives of others.”

What produces an addiction? As I listened to the interview with Gabor Mate, and later read through the book, Carl Jung’s shadow kept appearing in my mind’s eye. An addiction seems to arise when a person wants to change something about themselves, and becomes dependent on a thing outside of them in order to produce that desired change. The desire to change usually comes from a place of pain, usually unconscious.

This suffering usually originates from our Jungian shadows. What lies within our shadows? Jung states they’re those things which we have always denied and repressed. The things which society has deemed bad or immoral. Those characteristics that, when first exhibited in the real world, were laughed at or ridiculed. Though these characteristics can indeed be bad, at times they are also positive. After all, strict parents may have a different moral compass than lenient parents. Maybe a teacher in our formative years thought we were too mischievous, or loud, or impulsive, and so now we fear assertiveness and creativity. As a result, those traits we secretly wished we still embodied are now tucked back in the darkness of our shadows, replaced by a tame and predictable person.

Those with the deepest, darkest shadows seem to be the ones most prone to addictions, of any kind. Either dependent on substances to grant the confidence to be the person they wished they could be naturally, or distraction mechanisms, such as compulsive social media usage and video games, to avoid life in general. All at the cost of our very psychological wholeness.

Often, for the aforementioned reasons, someone becomes addicted as a way to self medicate depression, anxiety or insecurities; others to cope with their place in life, and the people within it; others again to distract themselves from their existential dread or sense of worthlessness.

How can one bring their shadow to the forefront? Excellent question and one I have been trying to figure out for quite some time now. According to Jung, the goal is wholeness, not perfection. The path to an integrated shadow, and thus a greater character, lies in the integration of those elements which have always been denied. One must figure out what their shadow consists of, what led it to be what it is, accept it without judgement, and lead it to the forefront, into the light. Granted, it’s easier said than done.

Unfortunately, the problem of an addiction-free life relies on the brain, the very apparatus damaged by addiction. Luckily for us, the brain is elastic. It can be rewired, and new neural pathways can be crafted. One, it seems, has to find their own personal why. Why are you the way you are, and why do you no longer want to be associated to the person you have become? It is a constant choice between temporary, anticipatory happiness, impossible to satisfy, or long-lasting contentment, that usually comes through doing those things which require more effort, but inevitably lead to a fulfilling life, lived without regret.