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more. Welcome

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to Feel Better Live More

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Bite Size, your weekly dose

0:53

of positivity and optimism to

0:55

get you ready for the weekend. Today's

0:58

clip is from episode 294 of the podcast

1:02

with fellow physician, author, speaker,

1:04

and friend, the incredible

1:06

Dr. Gabor Mate. Now

1:08

Gabor's latest book, The Myth of

1:10

Normal, is quite simply a masterpiece,

1:12

which has the potential to help

1:15

people the world over. In

1:17

this short clip, he shares his thoughts

1:19

on the real reason that most of

1:21

us have addictions and how

1:23

the pressures of modern day living are

1:25

impacting us more than we realize. Would

1:30

you go as far as to say that

1:32

pretty much all of us in Western society

1:35

are addicted to something? Well,

1:38

your words about what it means

1:40

to be a human being really speak to me

1:42

because addiction is the most human thing there is.

1:45

And when you understand it, when

1:48

you don't understand it, it looks like an aberration and

1:50

an abnormality and some kind of a moral

1:53

deviation. But when you

1:55

understand it, it's a very human thing. So

1:57

let's just define addiction as... manifested

2:00

in any behavior that a person

2:03

finds temporary pleasure or relief

2:05

in and therefore craves and

2:08

continues with that despite negative

2:11

consequences. So the definition then

2:13

involves pleasure, relief, craving

2:15

in the short term, harm in the

2:18

long term, inability to give it up

2:20

despite the harm. Now, by

2:23

that definition, of course, we're not just talking

2:25

about drugs. We're talking about all manner of

2:27

behaviors from sex

2:30

to pornography to gambling to eating

2:32

to shopping to the internet to

2:34

gaming to work as

2:37

probably as a physician, you know, and

2:39

to any number of other activities. And

2:41

my contention is that all addictions, they're

2:44

not primary problems. They're not inherited

2:46

diseases. They're not aberrations. They're

2:48

not more failures. Their attempts

2:51

to gain pain relief, emotional

2:53

pain relief for something or another. And so

2:55

the first question in addiction for me is

2:57

not why the addiction but why the pain.

3:00

And so we have to look

3:02

at the why the pain, we have to look at

3:04

people's lives, their life experience, their traumas, their adversity, their

3:07

suffering. And so that's why

3:10

I say that now when you talk to other

3:12

people, what did you get from your addiction? They'll

3:14

say peace of mind. They'll say connection

3:17

with other people. They see

3:19

sense of control. They see stress

3:21

relief. They

3:23

see a sense of purpose. Those

3:26

are all supremely human qualities. In

3:28

fact, they're qualities that we all

3:30

want. In fact, have

3:32

every right to expect. So that's

3:34

why I say there's nothing more human than addiction. Now,

3:38

problem of course is it creates more

3:41

pain. But the impulse

3:43

is simply the addict

3:46

just wants to feel like a normal human being. That's all. Yeah.

3:51

It's such a profoundly different

3:53

way of looking

3:56

at addiction compared to

3:58

I think the normal way. So

8:00

that in a sense, when I'm

8:02

saying about our species, really we're like zoo

8:04

creatures right now. We're living

8:06

in an unnatural environment. I'm not suggesting we

8:08

go back to being hunter-gatherers, but I am

8:11

suggesting we realize what we've lost and

8:13

how the particular social system in which

8:15

we live right now demands that we

8:17

stay lost. That's my whole

8:20

point. Once our eyes get

8:22

open to this, because

8:25

as you mentioned, for much of my life, I've been blind to

8:27

this. I felt

8:29

that success was important.

8:31

Being competitive was important. Being

8:34

a winner was important. And

8:36

as I've shared a lot of

8:39

these behavioral adaptations to

8:41

my own childhoods, I

8:44

find an innocence of peace and

8:46

contentment and calm that I

8:48

never had before. And actually what's

8:50

really interesting is as you do that, a lot

8:53

of the addictive tendencies I had-

8:55

They fall away. They fall away. Not

8:58

because you're trying to. You're not trying

9:00

to stop the addiction. This is kind of what I feel a

9:02

lot of the time with, let's say something like alcohol. And

9:05

as medical doctors, we say, this is the

9:07

limits. You should drink under 14 units of

9:09

alcohol a week or whatever it is, which

9:12

frankly, I find a lot of public

9:14

health guidance quite unhelpful. I

9:16

understand the need for it. But

9:19

A, it's dry. B,

9:22

there's no understanding within that of

9:24

what role does the alcohol play

9:26

in that person's life? And I

9:28

feel the classic case of

9:31

something like alcohol is new year. People

9:33

decide on January the 1st that this year is gonna be

9:36

different. Right, I'm

9:38

not gonna fall into the trap I fell in

9:40

before. I'm gonna cut down my intake. And they

9:42

do for the first week and the second week.

9:44

And they're not drinking at all. But by the

9:46

third week, when the stress of work is still

9:48

there, when the toxic relationship that

9:50

they're in is still there, when the boss

9:52

that doesn't value them is still there, it

9:55

starts to creep in because the alcohol is

9:57

playing a role, right? Serving a need. And

10:01

coming back to this cultural point, you

10:03

mentioned where would you study a zebra?

10:05

Yeah. I think there's a key

10:07

point here. Who are we as humans? Many

10:10

of us feel that we

10:13

are competitive. Conversation

10:15

is something I think a lot about. As

10:18

someone who used to be competitive, who is no

10:20

longer competitive, really I can put my hand in

10:22

my heart and say, I'm not

10:24

competitive anymore. That was a trait

10:26

I developed. That's true. But some

10:29

people say, competition is natural. And I

10:31

guess, my view is

10:34

that it comes down to the relationship you have

10:36

with that competition. So can you speak a little

10:38

bit to competition? Well, yeah, well, first of all,

10:40

I know something about your personal history, which is

10:42

that, you know, being immigrants

10:45

from the subcontinent here to

10:48

the UK, and your parents,

10:51

with all their goodwill, they put this pressure on you

10:53

to excel. That if you were, I think

10:56

I heard you say once, that if you want to go

10:58

99% of the test, your mother would say,

11:00

what's wrong? What did you, how come you can get under? You have

11:02

to be the best. You have to be the best. Yeah, now they

11:06

did that out of their anxiety

11:08

that you just could see in this world

11:11

in which you came with

11:13

some disadvantage being immigrants and maybe people of

11:15

color as well, you know? But

11:17

as a result, you become

11:19

competitive. That's not your

11:21

nature. That's just your second nature. But even

11:25

in the phrase second nature, there's an implication

11:27

that there's a first nature. And

11:30

the first nature is you just are

11:32

a human being. You want to belong. Now, competition,

11:36

it depends what the intention is. If

11:39

it's a competition in the

11:41

sense that you want to

11:44

manifest your best, and

11:46

in a sense, you're competing with yourself, not

11:49

to be better than anybody else, not

11:51

to beat or to dominate or to

11:53

subjugate or exclude somebody else, but just

11:55

because you just want to be your

11:58

best. Well, that's great. The

12:01

idea that we're individually competitive creatures

12:03

really comes along with the rise of capitalism,

12:06

which is a system based on competition where

12:09

it is doggy dog and where the

12:12

bigger fish do swallow the smaller ones.

12:14

And as we

12:16

can see this happening right now with

12:18

the tremendous rise of inequality in the

12:20

last decades, eight

12:23

people in the world now control as much wealth as

12:25

the bottom 50% of humanity. Now,

12:31

the interesting thing about human nature is

12:33

that when people do something selfish or aggressive

12:35

or competitive, what do we say? Well,

12:38

that's just human nature. But

12:40

when people all do something selfless and

12:42

generous and kind, nobody says, oh, that's

12:44

just human nature. So

12:47

there's an assumption in this culture. And

12:50

what we do is we take

12:52

the core values of a particular

12:54

materialistic culture and we project

12:56

them onto human beings as if that was

12:58

our true nature. It isn't. And

13:00

to the extent that we try to conform to

13:03

it, we create suffering for ourselves and

13:05

for others. Now,

13:09

competition has between Liverpool and Manchester

13:11

City. In

13:15

this capitalist world, even like it's pretty vicious, not in

13:17

the sense of the players being vicious, but in the

13:20

sense of how can we get the best players in

13:22

the world and who can pay the most money for

13:24

the best striker and

13:26

where we'll haggle and go, we'll go

13:28

to Manchester City or Arsenal. Even

13:31

on that level, what's meant to be

13:33

play, we talk about playing football, but it's

13:36

no longer play. It becomes a business

13:39

of dominating others. So

13:41

whereas it could be just play, which

13:44

is, and in play, there's

13:47

no consequences to who wins and who doesn't. It's

13:50

just for the process, it's just for the enjoyment, it's

13:52

just for the sheer pleasure of the

13:54

activity. The human beings are meant to play. There's

13:57

a circuit in our brain that's

13:59

designated. to play, play

14:01

is essential for human development, for human

14:03

child development, for the brain development. But

14:07

even the play we've bathed into

14:09

a competitive cutthroat endeavor. That's

14:12

how far D nature will become. I

14:15

feel when I met you last time face to

14:18

face, I feel I

14:20

had multiple holes in my

14:22

soul. And now,

14:25

honestly, I sit here before you like

14:27

a different person to when I first met

14:29

you three or four years ago. We had

14:32

a great conversation that people enjoyed for sure,

14:35

but I feel I sit alongside you today,

14:37

complete and whole. And I've never

14:40

felt this deep sense of contentment

14:43

and happiness. Man, I'm

14:45

so happy for you. When you

14:47

talk about holes, there's a

14:50

teacher of mine that I quote often,

14:52

A.H. Almas. And he

14:54

says that we're born with these innate,

14:57

essential qualities. As

14:59

the world doesn't recognize them or discourages them, we

15:01

shut them off and we develop holes

15:04

instead. Then we spend all

15:06

our lives trying to fill these holes until

15:09

we realize that as soon

15:11

as, you know, like self-love or, you

15:13

know, self-acceptance or clarity or courage or

15:15

love for others or a sense of

15:18

belonging or sense of

15:20

unity, as these get shut

15:22

down, develop these holes instead, then this whole

15:24

society is so expert at

15:27

selling us stuff to fill those

15:29

holes temporarily, but only temporarily.

15:31

So you have to get getting more and more and more.

15:34

And the whole society lives on trying to fill

15:36

people's holes that can never be filled from the

15:38

outside. This is the whole ethic of this culture.

15:43

A lot of us, we know the right things to say, you

15:45

know, you know, we've studied

15:47

this. We know what we

15:50

should value, yet we still

15:52

can't help falling

15:54

into traps. These traps, I think

15:56

society lays out for us.