"In our society, we tend to look at people's behaviours, rather than ask what is behind the behaviour... Kids are considered to be bad or good, but nobody's asking what is making the child behave a certain way... I've never met a single person who ever chose to be a drug addict... It's easy to focus on how someone is different from you than recognize what you share... That tendency is magnified when the person doesn't resemble you. Consider the "stereotyped image" of a drug user one may pass on the street... We see them as something other than ourselves... And it's hard for us to recognize our common humanity... In reality, most people have more in common with drug users than they'd like to admit... Virtually everybody's got some kind of an addiction. Maybe not to drugs, but to some behaviour that they crave that gives them relief. Whether it's video games, sex, work or shopping, addictions to any of these activities tap into the same brain circuits that drug users activate with intoxicating substances."
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Quoted in Amid rising hostility toward drug users in Vancouver, Gabor Maté urges empathy, Ben Mussett · CBC News (September 5, 2020)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gabor_Mat%C3%A9
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Gabor Maté
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