A Headline with Hope

Maybe it’s our nature.  We dwell on the negative. With addiction there is good reason.  It is easy to feel depressed, anxious and fearful, just as those suffering with the disorder.

Headlines don’t help. The pandemic and its forced isolation have fueled one of our worst periods since recording drug deaths.  Headlines scream:

Yearly drug overdose deaths top 100,000 for First time”  NBC news, Nov 17, 2021

US overdose deaths surge to an All-time High, Chicago News, October 25, 2021

Sadly, more than one of these “statistics” was close to our family.  We know sons of friends who  perished this past year.

But recently, there was a very different headline:

 There is life after addiction.  Most people recover.  (NPR, January 15, 2022)

As reported by NPR’s Brain Mann, the article cites the results of Harvard researcher Dr. John Kelly. In his peer-reviewed study Kelly discovered that some 22 million Americans are living in recovery today after a substance-use disorder.  The CDC and the National Institute on Drug Abuse corroborated his evidence with their own study, finding that three out of four people who experience addiction eventually recover.

Noted Kelly, “That’s huge…75%…it kind of goes against our cultural perception that people never get better.”

Maybe our negative natures will push back on this.  Or our own experiences losing loved ones to addiction will block belief in any positive news.

But it is worth repeating a line from the researchers…

“Most Americans who experience alcohol and drug addiction survive. They recover and go on to live full and healthy lives.”

…because we all need hope.