by Henry Marsh
You are invited to
spend some time with Mr. Marsh, an eloquent neurosurgeon who escorts us
into his operating theater, his parent's home as his mother lies dying,
interminable maddening administrative meetings in his NHS hospital and to
accompany him to Ukraine where he has volunteered as a surgeon for over 15
years. You'll share his triumphs and suffer the sadness and humiliation of his
mistakes and failures. His war stories
are captivating; as are his anecdotes about his family, his education and his
jousting with the bureaucracy of the English National Health System (the NHS). Brief book review and large number of excerpts on OJCPCD.
A fine documentary, The English Surgeon, profiled Henry Marsh (you will need to scroll down if you check the link).
This is from the author, Gabor Mate:
I've written In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts because I see addiction as
one of the most misunderstood phenomena in our society. People--including many
people who should know better, such as doctors and policy makers--believe it to
be a matter of individual choice or, at best, a medical disease. It is both
simpler and more complex than that.
Addiction, or the capacity to become addicted, is very close to the core of
the human experience. That is why almost anything can become addictive, from
seemingly healthy activities such as eating or exercising to abusing drugs
intended for healing. The issue is not the external target but our internal
relationship to it.
Addictions, for the most part, develop in a compulsive
attempt to ease one’s pain or distress in the world. Given the amount of pain
and dissatisfaction that human life engenders, many of us are driven to find
solace in external things. The more we suffer, and the earlier in life we
suffer, the more we are prone to become addicted.
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