Gabor Maté

Hungarian-Canadian physician and author who developed Compassionate Inquiry therapy and whose work on trauma, addiction, and the mind-body connection — particularly The Myth of Normal — presents addiction as a response to trauma rather than a moral failing.

Argues that all addiction is an attempt to manage pain that originated in trauma — that the question for addicts is not 'why the addiction?' but 'why the pain?' — reframing addiction from moral failure to adaptive coping mechanism that requires compassion rather than punishment.