Addiction is one of the most common and consequential chronic medical conditions in the United States. Nationwide, more than 46 million people met the criteria for a substance abuse disorder as of 2021, the most recent data available.
Decades of evidence show that addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease of the brain. Nonetheless, there’s still widespread public misunderstanding of what constitutes “treatment” for addiction, not to mention heavy stigma associated with it.
