This week on the Indie Spiritualist, Chris has an insightful conversation with the spiritual teacher and author, Gabor Maté, about trauma, addiction, and recovery.

What do we get out of our addictions? How does trauma cause us to disconnect from ourselves and dismiss our own experience? Gabor raises these important questions and provides guidance to rise above our suffering and self-abuse so that we may better care for ourselves and our loved ones.

Show Notes

Addictions Are Not The Problem

Gabor and I discuss how addictions are not the problem but instead are the person’s attempt to solve a problem in their life.

Growing Up

Gabor and I explore the emotional and psychological conditions of children and their environment while growing up as a key component of the root cause of addiction.

Trauma, Addiction, and the Brain

Gabor talks about the relationship between trauma, our brain, and addiction.

Making Change

Gabor breaks down how we can begin to understand and then work with the traumas in our lives for true healing.

Falling

Gabor talks about why many people who have tools, been in recovery, or on a spiritual path and work with mantras, meditation, prayer, yoga, and so forth, still fall into old self-defeating behaviors at times.

Rising

Gabor and I explore the shame, stress, self-loathing and other negative feelings that come along for those who fall back into self-defeating behaviors and what people can do to not get lost in those overwhelming negative feelings?

Watching Addiction

Gabor talks about what family members can do for a loved one who is caught in the grips of addiction.

God and Recovery

Gabor talks about what a power greater than ourselves really means and how we can begin to transcend our limited egoic selves.

More About Gabor Maté

Gabor Maté is a sought-after speaker and teacher, regularly addressing health professionals, educators, and lay audiences throughout North America. As an author, Dr. Maté has written several bestselling books including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction; When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress; and Scattered Minds: A New Look at the Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder, and co-authored Hold on to Your Kids. His works have been published internationally in twenty languages.

Dr. Maté is the co-founder of Compassion for Addiction, a new non-profit that focuses on addiction. He is also an advisor of Drugs over Dinner. Dr. Maté has received the Hubert Evans Prize for Literary Non-Fiction; an Honorary Degree (Law) from the University of Northern British Columbia; an Outstanding Alumnus Award from Simon Fraser University; and the 2012 Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award from Mothers Against Teen Violence.

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