Addiction In Gabor Mate's 'Embraced By The Needle'

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Recommended: Peer pressure is said to be one of the major factor in teenage drug abuse

Can you remember a time you were unhappy? Of course you can. As many would say, being unhappy isn 't a pleasant experience and it 's not something one desires. Gabor Maté’s essay “Embraced by the needle” focuses a lot on how drug addictions always originate with unhappiness. Maté starts his essay by stating: “Addictions always originate with unhappiness, even if hidden” (288). Maté says this as if unhappiness was the only reason people get addicted to drugs when in reality that is simply not true. There has to be another way someone can get addicted to drugs right? It can 't just be being unhappy. I disagree with Maté when he mentions that addictions always originate with unhappiness. In this essay I want to argue that even though unhappiness …show more content…

Everyone who has been peer pressured to do something knows that it is quite difficult to say no because you risk losing a friend or maybe you 're friends might not see you as “cool” anymore. An article about peer pressure and drugs states that when making a decision, teens think about both the risks and rewards of their actions and behaviours. The teen’s decision might be influenced by who is around and if they think others will be impressed (Teens.drugabuse.gov) Being peer pressured to do drugs is like being little and having your parents tell you to try a food you thought was disgusting, but once you try it you automatically fall in love with it, one may or may not like what they are pressured to do. Maté doesn 't mention anything about peer pressure but he does mention people who were forced to have undesirable actions towards them, including a 36 year old native who had dishwashing liquid poured down his throat at age 5 for using foul language, these are the unhappy moments that can cause people to try drugs with hopes of easing the pain. As I said before, drugs give the user a very pleasing and satisfying experience but most people unfortunately forget about the negative outcomes that can result from doing drugs. Peer pressure leads to experimentation …show more content…

Maté never mentions anything about boredom as he has unhappiness as the central cause of drug addiction in his essay. I’m sure everyone has had an instance where they’ve found themselves bored and all of a sudden they want to do something to kill the boredom, everyone who has ever been bored has definitely had this experience. The same article about boredom and drugs has survey results conducted in the UK and 29% of the teenagers, that were used for the survey, said that they had turned to drugs as a means to relieve boredom. Not only can boredom cause addiction, many addicts said that they don 't want to give up drugs because they fear that their life in recovery will be boring and their life will not be focused on that one thing they really enjoy when in reality it 's the life of the addict that is boring and predictable. Boredom can cause problems before and after the addiction. Boredom is a huge cause of drug addiction and it shouldn 't be something taken lightly as some people live their lives in addiction to drugs because of boredom. Life is what people make of it but avoiding boredom required a bit of effort. It should be quite obvious

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