Gabor Maté said this quote

The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.

~ Gabor Maté

Adults envy the open-hearted and open-minded explorations of children; seeing their joy and curiosity, we pine for our own capacity for wide-eyed wonder.

~ Gabor Maté

Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.

~ Gabor Maté

Narrow behaviourist thinkingpermeates political and social policy and medical practice, thechildrearing advice dispensed by “parenting experts” and academicdiscourse. We keep trying to change people’s behaviours without a fullunderstanding of how and why those behaviours arise. “Inner causesare not the proper domain of psychology,” writes Roy Wise, an experton the psychology of addiction, and a prominent investigator in theNational Institute on Drug Abuse in the U.S.A.3 This statement seemsastonishing, coming from a psychologist. In reality, there can be nounderstanding of human beings, let alone of addicted human beings,without looking at “inner causes,” tricky as those causes can be to pindown at times. Behaviours, especially compulsive behaviours, areoften the active representations of emotional states and of specialkinds of brain functioning.As we have seen, the dominant emotional states and the brainpatterns of human beings are shaped by their early environment.Throughout their lifetimes, they are in dynamic interaction with varioussocial and emotional milieus. If we are to help addicts, we must striveto change not them but their environments. These are the only thingswe can change. Transformation of the addict must come from withinand the best we can do is to encourage it. Fortunately, there is muchthat we can do.

~ Gabor Maté