Numbers Don’t Lie

The Stats

Numbers don’t lie. Institutions like The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, using data collection tools such as The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, spend an enormous amount of time and effort to bring us accurate statistics regarding the state of addiction in the United States. For example, in 2023, among individuals aged 12 or older, 48.5 million people suffered from Substance Use Disorder nationwide. In Los Angeles County alone, there were 2,990 Substance Use Disorder-related deaths, 146,087 Substance Use Disorder-related Emergency Room visits, and 139,179 Substance Use Disorder-related hospitalizations in 2024, with a whopping 1,482,612 individuals requiring substance abuse treatment. Measuring addiction, including the types of substances most frequently abused, the populations and age groups at highest risk, and the other contributing factors and consequences associated with the disease, is a fairly cut-and-dry process. Numbers don’t lie. 

But what about measuring recovery?

That’s where things get tricky. Is “success” in recovery indicated by mere abstinence from the addictive substance? I will take a wild leap and say that no, it is most definitely not. I know people who have been sober for many years, completely abstinent from drugs and alcohol, who lack any sort of compassion, are allergic to telling the truth, and wouldn’t be able to recognize the definition of “altruism” if it was tattooed on their arm. Technically, however, they are sober. But are they living a life of recovery? Are they working a program, any program, that stresses the importance of honesty and integrity, that teaches selflessness and service as a critical weapon in the fight against addictive behavior? They are not. They are white-knuckling it, trying to simply make it through the day, and going to bed with a nasty headache and nothing but resentment against a world that will no longer allow them to drink or use drugs. 

On the other hand, take a person who was addicted to heroin for a decade, who was perpetually homeless or incarcerated, and had lost custody of their children. If this person, after two years of being technically sober, decides to start having a glass of wine with dinner, do we proclaim that they have unequivocally failed? That they are no longer living in recovery? What if they still live by the values and principles of recovery? What if they are giving back to their community, remain an active member of the PTA, and are holding a steady job? Or a person who once traded sex for drugs, but is now maintaining a successful and healthy place in society by utilizing Suboxone? Could this individual be said to be living in recovery, even as they are still reliant on an opioid? Are these simply examples of “harm reduction” or “risk management”? Maybe. Are these also examples of living in recovery? Absolutely. 

Success for one person may mean that, even though their journey included a relapse, they were able to secure gainful employment. Maybe they resolved outstanding legal issues or had their record expunged. Perhaps they were able to repair fractured relationships with their family or go back to school and get a degree. It is possible that for some, success looks like returning to treatment after a two-day relapse, when, in the past, their relapses extended for months or even years. If we submit to the idea that relapse equals failure, if we use abstinence as the gold-standard measure of recovery, we are eliminating the beauty of progress and declaring that perfection is the only outcome that will be accepted and celebrated. 

If recovery is not a linear process, which it almost never is, how do you measure something that zigs and zags and stops and starts? The answer? Subjectively. By seeing the addict not as a list of symptoms and immovable truths, but as an individual with personal needs, circumstances, and goals. Recovery is a spectrum. For me personally, I know that I need to remain completely abstinent from alcohol and drugs. However, I also know that I must continue to utilize the tools I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, the tools that allow me to live as a compassionate woman guided by integrity and a desire to make things better in the world, if I want to remain truly living in recovery. Recovery is a deeply personal, multi-dimensional process that looks different depending on the individual, and there simply isn’t a reliable way to measure achievements that are highly subjective. 

So yes, when it comes to statistics on the prevalence of addiction in our country, the facts speak for themselves. But when we try to measure the very personal experience of recovery, well, sometimes numbers do lie.