Top 10 Facts And Statistics On Addiction

Around six people pass away from alcohol poisoning every day.
Over 90% of people with a substance abuse problem began using drugs, drinking, or smoking before the age of 18.
Heroin addiction statistics show that around 2.5 million people aged between 18 and 25 had a problem with illicit drug usage.
Around 21% to 29% of people who are prescribed opioids to help ease chronic pain misuse the drugs.
Alcohol addiction statistics show that around 14.4 million adults in the US suffer from alcohol use disorder.
Overdoses due to prescription medications cause the most overdose-related deaths in the United States.
Out of 100,000 people in the US, around 14.6 died of an opioid overdose in 2017, according to various stats on addiction.
Based on recent marijuana addiction statistics, around 24 million people in the US claimed that they used marijuana.
Addiction recovery statistics show that drug, tobacco, and alcohol abuse cost the United States around $600 billion annually.

Between 1999 and 2018, around 450,000 deaths were caused by opioid overdose.

STATISTICS CONCERNING PARTICULAR AGED GROUP

Adolescents (Aged 12-17):

In 2017, approximately 4% of the American adolescent population aged from 12 to 17 suffered from a substance use disorder; this amounts to 992,000 teens or 1 in 25 people in this age group.
About 443,000 adolescents aged from 12 to 17 had an alcohol use disorder in 2017 or 1.8% of adolescents.
An estimated population of 741,000 adolescents suffered from an illicit drug use disorder in 2017, or about 3% of this population.

About 5.1 million young adults who are aged from 18 to 25 struggles with a substance use disorder in 2017, which equates to 14.8% of this population and about 1 in 7 people.
About 3.4 million young adults who are aged 18 to 25 had an alcohol use disorder in 2017 or about 10% of young adults.
About 2.5 million young adults had an illicit drug use disorder in 2017 or about 7.3% of this population.
Heroin abuse amongst young adults between 18 and 25 years old doubled in the past decade.

Approximately 13.6 million adults age 26 or older suffered from a substance use disorder in 2017, or 6.4% of this age group.
About 10.6 million adults age 26 and older had an alcohol use disorder in 2017 or about 5% of this age group.
About 4.3 million adults age 26 or older had an illicit drug use disorder in 2017 or 2% of this age group.

More than 1 million elderly adults who are age 65 or older had a substance use disorder in 2017.
That same year in 2017, about 978,000 people in this age group had an alcohol use disorder and about 93,000 had an illicit drug use disorder.
Two-thirds of the senior citizens over the age of 65 who struggle with alcohol use disorders developed the disorder before age 65.
Between 21% and 66% of elderly individuals struggling with a substance use disorder also suffer from a co-occurring mental health disorder.

In the year 2017, about 9.4% of men and 5.2% of women from age 12 and older had a substance use disorder.
Men may be more likely to abuse illicit drugs than women, but women may be just as prone to addiction as men when they do abuse them.

American Indians and Alaska Natives who are age 12 and older had the highest rate of substance abuse and dependence in 2017, at 12.8%.
Whites had a 7.7% rate of substance abuse in 2017.
About 6.8% percent of African Americans struggled with substance use disorders, while the percentage of Hispanics or Latinos who suffered from substance use disorders was 6.6%.
Approximately 4.6% percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders suffered from substance use disorders.
Asian Americans had the lowest rate of substance use disorders at 3.8%.

Almost twice as many people who are unemployed struggle with addiction as those who are full-time workers, CNN Money reports around 17% of the unemployed and 9% of the employed population struggled with a substance use disorder.
Of the 2.3 million people in American prisons and jails, more than 65% meet the criteria for addiction.
Around 75% of individuals in a state prison or local jail who suffer from a mental illness also struggle with substance abuse, and the opposite is also true.