Nearly 1 in 10 adults and children in the U.S. are addicted to alcohol or other drugs such as cocaine or methamphetamines.
By eighth grade, 52 percent of teenagers have consumed alcohol, 41 percent have smoked cigarettes, and 20 percent have used marijuana.
Alcohol and other drugs directly stimulate the brain's production of reward chemicals, such as dopamine. Depending upon the method of use and the amount ingested, those who take drugs or drink alcohol expose their brains to higher levels of neurotransmitters (naturally occurring chemicals that transmit signals from one nerve cell to the other) than what occur normally. This, in combination with the fact that drugs override the brain's normal mechanisms for self-regulation, largely explains why addiction happens.
Once someone develops a substance addiction problem, it never completely goes away. The addict may learn to control the problem, but there is no known cure.
One in four U.S. deaths can be attributed to alcohol, tobacco or illicit drug use.
Excessive alcohol use is responsible for 100, 000 deaths per year.
The economic burden of substance abuse to the U.S. economy is estimated at a staggering $414 billion annually. Alcohol abuse alone costs nearly $166 billion each year.
16,000 deaths annually are due to illicit drug use. However, this estimate is likely to be conservative, because substance abuse is indirectly associated with deaths from diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, homicide, and other violent crimes and incidental injuries.
Heroin and cocaine account for about 70 percent of all drug cases.
Illicit drug users make over 527,000 costly emergency room visits each year for drug related problems.
Drug offenders account for more than one-third of the growth in the state prison population and more than 80 percent of the increase in the number of federal prison inmates since 1985.
Children from families with substance-abusing parents are more likely to have problems with delinquency, poor school performance, and emotional difficulties than their peers from homes without substance abuse.
