Gabor Maté

I think it was.

Do you know what?

When I graduated from medical school and finished my internship, my first job was in the downtown Eastside of Vancouver.

which is North America's, indeed the Western world's, most concentrated area of drug use.

So in a physical level of radius, we have thousands of people injecting, inhaling, ingesting drugs of all kinds.

There's nothing like that in Australia.

There's nothing like it anywhere.

In Europe or even in the U.S.

And I felt completely at home there.

At home?

Yeah.

I just resonated with the energies of these troubled, very sensitive, very troubled, very dysfunctional, but very human beings.

And I worked there for six months and I always knew I was going to return.

So when the time came, I did return.

But it just called to me.

And of course, if I go back to the motivation of alleviating suffering, well, where is that most needed?

Amongst these ostracized, punished, excluded, impoverished, very ill people.

So it was a way to fulfill my mandate as a physician.

But again, I just felt very much at home there.

And I very much recognized myself in them.