Addiction & Rehab Statistics 2026: The Complete Data Report

Prevalence: How Many People Have a Substance Use Disorder?

The World Drug Report 2026 from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC, estimates that 331 million people aged 15 to 64 used a controlled drug during 2024. That represented approximately 6% of the global population in that age range. UNODC estimated that 1.2% had a drug use disorder, equivalent to roughly 66 million people when applied to the same population base. These global figures cover controlled drugs and should not be interpreted as a combined estimate for alcohol and drug use disorders.

The England figures come from the 2023/24 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. It found signs of dependence on any drug among 6.7% of adults, up from 3.8% in 2014. Signs associated with cannabis accounted for much of that increase, rising from 2.8% to 5.4%. Separately, 2.7% of adults had harmful or dependent drinking patterns and 0.9% met the survey threshold for probable alcohol dependence. These results apply to England rather than the entire United Kingdom, for which there is no single current household estimate using one uniform diagnostic method.

Australia’s National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing found that 3.3% of people aged 16 to 85 had a 12-month substance use disorder during 2020–2022. The rate was 4.4% among males and 2.1% among females, while adults aged 16 to 24 had the highest age-specific prevalence at 7.8%. The Australian Bureau of Statistics also estimated that 19.6%, or 3.9 million people, had experienced a substance use disorder at some point in their lives.

The Treatment Gap: How Many People Who Need Care Receive It?

Treatment coverage remains low at both global and national levels. UNODC’s World Drug Report 2026 estimates that at least 8.2% of people with drug use disorders received treatment in 2024. Coverage was highest in Europe and Oceania and lowest in Africa and Asia, although reporting was incomplete. The gender difference was substantial: approximately one in 23 women with a drug use disorder received treatment, compared with one in nine men.

In the United States, the largest part of the measured gap was not an unsuccessful attempt to obtain care. Among adults with a past-year SUD who received no substance use treatment, 95.6% said they had not sought treatment and did not think they needed it. This does not mean their condition was unimportant. It shows that awareness, readiness, stigma and differing perceptions of what constitutes a problem are central access issues alongside cost and service availability.

England recorded 329,646 adults in community drug and alcohol treatment between April 2024 and March 2025, the highest total since reporting began. Australia recorded 127,804 clients across 1,316 publicly funded alcohol and other drug agencies in 2024/25. Both totals demonstrate substantial service activity, but neither represents everybody receiving help. General practitioners, hospitals, private facilities, mutual-aid groups and informal recovery networks may sit outside these specialist datasets.

Substance-Specific Prevalence Snapshot

Substance abuse statistics vary considerably by drug. Frequency of use also does not equal a disorder: many prevalence surveys count any use during the previous year, while disorder estimates require symptoms such as impaired control, continued use despite harm, tolerance or withdrawal. Substance categories can overlap because one person may use, or experience problems with, more than one drug.

Cannabis remains the most widely used controlled drug globally. UNODC also reported that cannabis and stimulant use increased during 2024, while opioid use was broadly stable. In Australia, the 2022/23 National Drug Strategy Household Survey similarly found cannabis to be the most commonly used illicit drug: 11.5% of people aged 14 and over reported past-year use, compared with 4.5% for cocaine and 2.4% for hallucinogens.

Opioids involve fewer users than cannabis but account for disproportionate health loss. UNODC identifies opioid use disorders as the drug disorder category responsible for the greatest loss of healthy life years. In the United States, SAMHSA found that 17% of people with opioid use disorder received medication for opioid use disorder in 2024. Medication access is important because treatment needs differ by substance, and there is no single medication or clinical pathway appropriate for every addiction.

New psychoactive substances remain difficult to measure through household surveys. UNODC reported that 755 new psychoactive substances were identified on the global market in 2024, up from 582 in 2023. That figure describes substances detected, not the number of people using them. It nevertheless illustrates why drug monitoring and toxicology systems often identify emerging risks before reliable population prevalence estimates are possible.

Cost and Economic-Impact Snapshot

Economic estimates capture more than healthcare bills. Depending on the study, they may include reduced workplace productivity, premature mortality, crime, road collisions, social care and lost quality of life. Figures from different countries should not be ranked as though they use the same currency year, methods or definition of harm.

The age of the US alcohol estimate is itself an important finding. CDC continues to identify US$249 billion in 2010 as the most recent nationwide estimate available. Of that amount, 72% was attributed to lost labour and reduced workplace performance, 17% to property damage, collisions and criminal justice, and 11% to healthcare for injuries. The figure should not be inflation-adjusted or compared directly with newer estimates unless the calculation method is made explicit.

Economic burden and treatment expenditure are not interchangeable. A large societal cost does not reveal how much would be avoided by one intervention, and it does not prove that every person who uses a substance requires residential rehab. Appropriate responses range from prevention and brief intervention to outpatient care, medication, harm reduction, medically supported withdrawal and longer-term residential treatment.

Outcomes: Relapse and Success-Rate Snapshot

There is no scientifically sound universal rehab success rate. Programmes use different admission criteria, treatment lengths and outcome definitions. Some report completion at discharge, while others measure abstinence, reduced use, improved health, employment, housing stability, quality of life or whether someone returns to treatment months later. People lost to follow-up may also be handled differently.

NIDA’s widely cited 40% to 60% relapse estimate is best understood as a broad historical benchmark, not a prediction for an individual or a score for a particular rehab. NIDA compares recurrence of drug use with symptom recurrence in other chronic conditions and states that relapse does not automatically mean treatment has failed. It may indicate that care should be resumed, adjusted or intensified.

Recovery data provide a different perspective. SAMHSA found that 31.7 million US adults in 2024 believed they had experienced a problem with alcohol or drugs at some point. Of them, 74.3%, or 23.5 million adults, considered themselves in recovery or recovered. This was self-identified recovery rather than a clinical assessment, but it demonstrates that long-term improvement is common and can extend beyond abstinence-only definitions.

The practical lesson is to ask how an outcome was defined before comparing facilities or national systems. A credible provider should be able to explain who is included in its denominator, the follow-up period, how missing participants are handled and whether results are independently verified. Treatment decisions should be discussed with a qualified clinician or admissions team rather than based on one marketing percentage.

Access and Insurance Snapshot

The treatment gap is not created by insurance alone. In the United States, SAMHSA asked adults with an SUD who believed they needed care but did not receive it about their reasons. The most common were believing they should manage the problem alone, not being ready to start treatment and not being ready to stop or reduce use. Financial and service barriers were also common within this relatively small unmet-need group.

Access should also be understood clinically, not only financially. A readily available programme is not necessarily the right level of care, while a waiting period can be unsafe when withdrawal or overdose risk is present. Anyone facing an immediate medical emergency should contact local emergency services. For non-emergency decisions, a doctor or qualified admissions team can help identify whether outpatient, residential, hospital-based or medication-supported care is appropriate.

Sources and Methodology Note

This 2026 report prioritises official international agencies, national statistical bodies and government health departments. Sources were reviewed through July 21, 2026. The latest available reference period differs by dataset: UNODC’s global estimates primarily describe 2024, the latest US NSDUH describes 2024, England’s APMS was conducted in 2023/24, England and Australia’s latest specialist treatment reports cover 2024/25, and Australia’s most recent diagnostic national mental health survey covers 2020–2022.

Prevalence measures were not combined unless the underlying source supplied a combined total. Alcohol use disorder, drug use disorder, harmful use, dependence signs and risky consumption are related but non-equivalent concepts. Survey populations also differ by age and setting. Most household surveys exclude at least some people in hospitals, prisons, residential institutions, treatment centres or unstable housing, groups that may experience elevated substance-related risk.

• Global estimates were taken from UNODC’s World Drug Report 2026 data portal and interpreted as estimates for people aged 15 to 64.
• US prevalence, treatment and recovery figures came from SAMHSA’s 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which covers the civilian non-institutionalised population aged 12 and older.
• England prevalence figures came from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2023/24; service and outcome figures came from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System.
• Australian disorder estimates came from the ABS National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing 2020–2022; recent use and treatment figures came from AIHW.
• Economic estimates are presented in their original currencies and price periods. They were not converted, inflated or summed.
• Percentages may not produce exact totals because of rounding, confidence intervals, overlapping substance categories and differing survey eligibility rules.

The report distinguishes treatment need, service contact, episode counts, treatment exits and recovery because these are not interchangeable. One client may have multiple treatment episodes, and people can receive support outside specialist datasets. Similarly, a recurrence of use does not erase earlier improvement, and completion is not the only meaningful outcome. Future editions will replace figures when newer validated national or international releases become available.