Substance misuse - who is affected?

The questions I have around addiction, questions that led me to start working on a book, are very common questions. They are questions that are not openly discussed, despite all of us living with addiction all around us. The book, this blog, and this passion project of mine are all meant to shine the light on these issues and bring them into conversation, because it is only by exposing addiction's secrets, shame and facts that we can begin to address the problem.

Fact: addiction is all around us. We are all affected by it, whether through interactions with family, friends, co-workers, lovers - chances are either we ourselves have faced addiction, or someone we care about has.

Beyond the people we know, there are also the cultural, economic and public health consequences to every one of us. This is a national disease. Let's look at the numbers:

Over 23 million people in the U.S. - one in ten - suffer from a substance use disorder.*

Another 23 million, another one in ten, have kicked a drug or alcohol addiction in their lifetime.*

That's one in every five people who are themselves affected by addiction. Then, the ripple effects on their family, their friends, their co-workers, their community follow - how do we count all of those who experience the sorrow, compassion and sense of powerlessness of watching someone struggle with addiction? It seems to be literally everyone.

These days addiction is headline news, because it is deadly. Alcohol misuse contributes to 88,000 deaths** in the U.S. each year, which is 1 in 10 deaths among working adults age 25-65. Death from other drugs were about half as likely, at 47,000**, but increasing at a growing rate. Opioid deaths doubled from 2010 to 2017, and increased again by 50% during the single pandemic year of 2020.***

Substance misuse is tied to psychological and emotional well-being, and in the U.S. we are losing ground on that front as well. "Deaths of despair" that link substance misuse deaths together with suicide doubled between 2010 and 2017.****. They disproportionally affect the U.S. caucasian population in rural and working class areas. These factors are in turn significant contributors to the declining U.S. life expectancy.

(All of this in turn affects the U.S. economy, which only seems crass to mention in light of the human toll. It will inevitably be addressed in a future post.)

These statistics lead to new questions. Why are we losing ground? Why is our society losing the battle against substance misuse? And what can we do to turn the tide? For future posts.

A question for you, reader - where has addiction impacted your life?

* Maia Szalavitz, Unbroken Brain, St. Martin's Press, 2016, page 9

**U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs and Health, 2016

***National Institute on Drug Abuse, https://nida.nih.gov

**** U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019/9/long-term-trends-in-deaths