Vincent Felitti conducted a huge epidemiological study on early childhood experiences. He found that only a tiny group (3.5 percent) of people with four or more adverse childhood experiences became involved in injection drug use.
The Seductive, But Dangerous, Allure of Gabor Maté | Psychology Today
The Seductive, But Dangerous, Allure of Gabor Maté
Unfortunately, however, Maté is fundamentally proposing a reductionist vision of addiction, where abuse history and posited biochemical changes are now the essential causes of people’s self-destructive action. It is not enough to say that this model is highly conjectural. It also isn’t true, that is, it makes little sense of the data. Vincent Felitti conducted a huge epidemiological study on early childhood experiences. He found that only a tiny group (3.5 percent) of people with four or more adverse childhood experiences became involved in injection drug use. So Maté’s model is highly undiscriminating. The percentage of addicts increases somewhat with the number of adverse experiences. Even so, this relatively minor elevation in no way presupposes the damage is caused biochemically, rather than simply by detrimental psychological consequences and deeply dysfunctional homes and environments.
The Seductive, But Dangerous, Allure of Gabor Maté | Psychology Today