
How Childhood Trauma Leads to Addiction – Gabor Maté
Maté’s approach to addiction focuses on the trauma his patients have suffered and looks to address this in their recovery, with special regard to indigenous populations around the world.
Maté’s approach to addiction focuses on the trauma his patients have suffered and looks to address this in their recovery, with special regard to indigenous populations around the world.
Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect, and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain.
Child abuse needs to stop and education is the key. The Adverse Childhood Experiences, or “ACEs,” quiz asks a series of 10 questions about common traumatic experiences that occur in early life. Since higher numbers of ACEs often correlate to challenges later in life, including a higher risk of certain health problems, the quiz is intended as an indicator of how likely a person might be to face these challenges.
The study found that mothers with opioid-related diagnoses documented at delivery increased by 131% from 2010-2017, and infants born with NAS increased by 82% over the same period.