Understanding an Alternative Addiction Reality

Many Americans embrace a view of addiction at odds with epidemiological data.

A few items in the news recently:

I. Jamie Lee Curtis announces her 22nd year of sobriety.

Actor Jamie Lee Curtis has proudly proclaimed her 22 years of sobriety from the pharmaceutical opiate, Vicodin.

II. The CDC announces a record level of drug deaths.

According to the CDC, “Over 81,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States in the 12 months ending in May 2020, the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period.” [Note that the large majority of these deaths came before the pandemic shutdown.]

Drug deaths have in fact been increasing radically since the late 1990s. The death rate due to drugs—including not only opioids, synthetic (fentanyl) and natural (heroin), but also methamphetamines, cocaine, benzodiazepines, and, of course, multiple drugs consumed at the same time—has quadrupled from that point, when over three-quarters of a million of Americans have died in total. The current annual drug death rate is 13,000 more deaths than occurred in 2018.

Most people outgrow addiction.

Nora Vokow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who is among the most prominent advocates for the chronic brain disease theory of addiction, recognized this reality in a 2018 article:

Some critics also point out, correctly, that a significant percentage of people who do develop addictions eventually recover without medical treatment. It may take years or decades, may arise from simply aging out of a disorder that began during youth, or may result from any number of life changes that help a person replace drug use with other priorities. (My emphasis)

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