Alcohol use disorder is the most common addiction in the United States, affecting more than 10% of people aged 12 and older.

A helpful resource from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (part of the NIH). This article examines addiction treatment and recovery through the science behind several accepted methods. The guide draws helpful comparisons with other chronic disease treatments. In particular, it discusses the overlap between medications and therapeutic treatments, and the understanding that relapse doesn’t indicate treatment failure—only a need for continued or modified care.

Exclusive data obtained by The Washington Post from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows how individual counties moved through three waves of the opioid crisis, each wave paving the way for the next. Between 2011 and 2017, the drug responsible for the majority of overdose deaths shifted from prescription pills to heroin to fentanyl. Together, oxycodone, hydrocodone, heroin, and fentanyl have been major drivers in declining life expectancy in the US.

Alcohol is the world's most popular drug—a molecule that can calm or excite and bond communities or tear them apart. We trace alcohol's journey from ancient rituals to modern hangovers, uncover how it shaped civilizations, and dive into the neuroscience of how it affects your brain and body. With insights from leading experts, we ask: Given all that we know, why do humans continue to drink?

US alcohol consumption fell 5% in 2025, with beer and wine leading the decline. Economists point to tighter budgets and less face-to-face socializing overall, while younger Americans are increasingly choosing not to drink.

A US government report indicates that about 10% of US adults took prescription medication for this disorder in 2023. Women, at 15.3%, were more than twice as likely to take one of these medications than the 7.4% of men.

Americans, in 2020, drank on average almost twenty-six gallons of beer per adult aged twenty-one or over, over the course of the pandemic.

The origins of the US' ongoing opioid crisis are typically traced to the more than 1 billion prescription pain pills that flooded medicine cabinets between 2005 and 2019. This prescription opioid epidemic resulted in more than 210,000 fatal overdoses and set the stage for the ongoing crisis fueled by heroin and fentanyl.

Although the substance is banned in the US, it's legal in Mexico. Americans who have traveled there for treatment, including the NFL's Braden Smith, say the drug helps deal with conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Read this research brief to learn more about why heightened mental health and substance use concerns persist three years after the outbreak of COVID-19. According to a recent survey, the vast majority of American adults view the nation as facing a...

Where did the US opioid crisis come from, and how did it spread? Learn this and more in this free, online Harvard University course. Learn about the disease model of addiction treatment and management, and get up-to-date with public health and law enforcement's current harm reduction practices. This free resource gives users a greater understanding of opioid addiction and the epidemic still haunting the US.

Opium reached the US at about the time early colonists were itching for ways to soothe aches and pains. The active ingredient in the substance was isolated in the early 19th century, eventually leading to the manufacture and commercial sale of morphine, heroin, and other opium-based drugs.

How often would you say you struggle to stay or fall asleep? If it's more than three times per week (and has been going on for at least one month), then you might have one of the most common sleep disorders: insomnia.

After decades of criminalization, cannabis is a legalized drug in an increasing number of countries around the world. This allows for accurate, robust research on the drug's effects on humans . While weed isn't as harmful as alcohol, regular usage has its negative effects. As strains of the drug become stronger, so does its consequences. Watch this video for a lucid look at the effects of cannabis on its users.

The US opioid crisis has unfurled in three distinct waves, each spiraling into an epidemic that's killed millions. The first crested in the 1990s with the overprescription of opioids for pain relief. The second manifested as heroin overdoses in the 2010s. The third began in 2013 with the rise of deaths related to tramadol and fentanyl.

In the 19th century, researchers began synthesizing and isolating poppy plant alkaloids, leading to the invention of morphine, codeine, heroin, oxycodone, and others. These highly addictive variants eventually gave rise to illicit use and a widespread underground market, laying the foundation for the current opioid crisis.

More than 18% of US adults reported that they currently have or are being treated for depression in both 2024 and 2025. In the 2025 survey, more than 11,000 adults were surveyed. The numbers have ticked upward since 2015—by about 8 percentage points—with most of the increase occurring from the 2020 pandemic onward.

This interactive article details how fentanyl has largely replaced heroin in the drug trade, with fatal results. Fentanyl was first developed in 1959 as an anesthetic for pain relief, but the drug took hold in the US black market in 2014 and has since exploded in the intervening decade.

The Middle East and North Africa is a major source, transit point, and consumer of illicit drugs. Despite having some of the harshest penalties for drug-related crimes, the region both influences and is negatively impacted by illicit substance abuse...

Naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, is an opioid-overdose reversal medication that typically begins working within a few minutes. An opioid antagonist, the treatment attaches to opioid receptors without activating them, forcing opioid molecules out of their respective receptors and allowing users' breathing rates to normalize.

The United States has been facing a migration crisis along its southern border. Thousands of people have been fleeing their homes in Central America, traveling north through Mexico, and claiming asylum in the USA. Much of this crisis can be traced...

The United States has been fighting a global war on drugs for decades. By making drugs more expensive and less available, the US has sought to reduce drug use and inhibit the international drug trade. However, increasing prison populations,...

Heart disease killed more than 680,000 people in 2023 and cancer killed around 613,000 people that year. Both causes of death are far above the next leading cause of death—accidents, which numbered around 223,000. Provisional data for 2024 indicates the leading causes of death remained the same.

This collection of infographics by the National Institute for Health Care Management helps put the crisis into perspective. The opioid epidemic has had three waves. Opioid-related deaths increasingly involve synthetic versions of the drug class, contributing to 83 percent of all opioid-related deaths in 2020. Use these infographics to learn more about the crisis.