The Truth About Addiction Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud

294 people die daily because we're treating the drug instead of the pain

107,543 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2023, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics provisional data. That’s 294 people every single day. One person every five minutes. By the time you finish reading this article, two more people will be dead.

We throw around words like “epidemic” and “crisis” until they lose meaning. So let me make it real: That’s more Americans than died in the entire Vietnam and Iraq wars combined. Every year. And those are just the ones who died. Not the millions barely surviving.

I’ve been addicted to alcohol, benzos, nicotine, caffeine, stimulants, and weed. Not all at once. Sometimes overlapping. Sometimes replacing one with another. Six years sober from alcohol now, but I still smoke weed every night to sleep. Still need caffeine to function. Still fight the urge to numb out with whatever’s available.

My childhood abuse created a brain that couldn’t tolerate silence. ADHD made stillness feel like death. PTSD made sleep without substances nearly impossible. I drank vodka and scotch every evening until I blacked out because unconsciousness was the only break from being me.

Here’s what I learned: Everything you think you know about addiction is probably wrong. And the way you’re trying to help your addicted loved one? It’s probably making things worse.

“Addiction isn’t about the substance. It’s about the pain the substance is solving.”

What Addiction Actually Is

Forget what you learned from After School Specials. Addiction isn’t weak people making bad choices. It’s not moral failure. It’s not lack of willpower.

Addiction is a solution to unbearable pain. Physical pain. Emotional pain. Existential pain. The pain of existing in a brain that doesn’t work right. The pain of carrying trauma. The pain of being human in a world that feels inhuman.

For me, alcohol wasn’t the problem. The problem was surviving childhood sexual abuse and violence with no tools to process it. The problem was a nervous system permanently set to “danger.” The problem was trying to appear normal when nothing inside me had ever been normal.

According to the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health from SAMHSA, 48.7 million Americans aged 12 or older had a substance use disorder in the past year. That’s 17.3% of the population dealing with addiction right now.

The substance is never the problem. The substance is the person’s best attempt at solving a problem you can’t see.

The Stages Nobody Explains

Stage 1: It Works The drug does exactly what you need. Alcohol quieted the anxiety. Stimulants made my ADHD brain finally focus. Benzos stopped the panic. It’s not just working, it’s the first thing that’s EVER worked.

I remember my first drink. The constant noise in my head went quiet. The crawling under my skin stopped. For the first time since I was maybe 7 years old, I felt like I could exist without wanting to tear myself apart.

Stage 2: It Works With Consequences Still works, but now there’s a price. Hangover. Tolerance building. Money problems. Relationship strain. But it still works more than it doesn’t, so you manage the consequences.

Stage 3: It Stops Working But You Can’t Stop The drug barely helps anymore. Sometimes makes things worse. But NOT using it is agony. You’re not using to feel good. You’re using to feel normal. To feel nothing.

By year three of nightly blackouts, alcohol wasn’t making me feel better. It was just making me unconscious. But conscious meant dealing with trauma I had no tools for. So unconscious it was.

Stage 4: It’s Killing You And You Still Can’t Stop You know it’s destroying everything. Your body. Your relationships. Your life. You want to stop. You try to stop. But your brain has been rewired. The drug is now required for basic functioning.

“By the time addiction is visible to others, the person has already been drowning for years.”

Why Your Interventions Don’t Work

That intervention you’re planning? Where everyone says how the addiction hurt them? Congratulations, you just added shame to someone already drowning in it.

I relapsed countless times before September 17, 2019. Each time, the shame from disappointing people made me need to drink MORE, not less. Shame doesn’t inspire change. It drives deeper use.

Cutting them off financially? They’ll find money. Steal. Sell things. Trade sex. You didn’t stop the addiction, you just made it more dangerous.

Ultimatums? “Choose drugs or family”? They can’t choose. That’s what addiction means. Their brain has been hijacked. You’re asking someone to choose between breathing and family.

Forced rehab? According to a study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, involuntary treatment shows significantly lower success rates than voluntary treatment. Because you can’t force someone to want something different. You can only warehouse them temporarily.

Tough love? Letting them hit “rock bottom”? People don’t need to hit bottom. They need to see a way up. Rock bottom for many people is death.

What Actually Helps

Reduce harm, don’t demand perfection. Clean needles. Narcan. Safe supply. Test strips. Meeting them where they are, not where you wish they were. Every day they survive is another chance for recovery.

I still smoke weed every night. Some people say that’s not “real” sobriety. But weed lets me sleep without nightmares. Without it, PTSD keeps me up until 4 AM, hypervigilant, waiting for danger that isn’t coming. Harm reduction saved my life.

Remove shame, don’t add it. Shame drives use. Every time. The more ashamed someone feels, the more they need the drug to cope with the shame. It’s a perfect circle of destruction.

Offer connection, not conditions. “I love you and I’m here when you’re ready” works better than “I love you but not until you’re clean.” Addiction thrives in isolation. Connection is the antidote.

Understand the timeline. According to research from the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, most people attempt to quit multiple times before achieving sustained recovery. Each attempt is learning, not failure. Recovery is measured in years, not days.

Stop making it about you. Their addiction isn’t about hurting you. It’s not about choosing drugs over you. It’s about survival. The more you make it about your pain, the more they’ll use to cope with causing you pain.

The Reality of Recovery

Recovery doesn’t mean never struggling again. I’m six years sober from alcohol but I still want to drink sometimes. Still dream about it. Still have to manage the underlying pain that made me drink.

Some nights I take three hot showers because it’s the only thing that stops the craving. Standing under scalding water at 2 AM because it’s better than relapse. Recovery isn’t pretty. It’s just better than the alternative.

Recovery is just finding better ways to manage that pain. Therapy. Medication. Exercise. Weed. Hot showers. Whatever works that doesn’t destroy your life.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that relapse rates for addiction (40 to 60 percent) are similar to rates for other chronic medical illnesses like diabetes and hypertension. That’s not failure. That’s the normal rate for any chronic condition. We don’t shame diabetics when their blood sugar spikes. We shouldn’t shame addicts when they relapse.

“Recovery isn’t becoming someone new. It’s finding sustainable ways to be who you already are.”

The Brutal Statistics

The 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health from SAMHSA reports:

• 48.7 million Americans had a substance use disorder

• Only 23.1% of people with substance use disorder received treatment

• 70.3% of adults with substance use disorder are employed

The CDC’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System shows drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury death in the United States for people under 50.

These aren’t moral failures. These are human beings in pain using the best solution they found. Until we offer better solutions, the dying continues.

What To Say To Someone Using

“I see you’re in pain.” “What do you need?” “I’m here regardless.” “You matter to me.” “How can I help?” “I believe you can survive this.” “You’re not alone.”

Not lectures. Not ultimatums. Not shame. Just presence and possibility.

What To Understand About Your Addicted Person

They already hate themselves more than you could ever hate them. They already know they’re fucking up. They already want to stop. They just don’t know how.

I spent years hating myself for not being able to just stop drinking. The self hatred made me drink more. It wasn’t until I learned to talk to myself with kindness instead of cruelty that anything changed.

The drug isn’t the problem. The drug is their solution to a problem. Until they find a better solution or the problem gets addressed, the drug remains necessary.

They’re not choosing drugs over you. They’re choosing survival in the only way their brain knows how. It’s not personal, even when it feels deeply personal.

Every cruel thing they do or say while using is the addiction talking, not them. Don’t forgive the behavior, but understand its source.

The Hidden Truth About Addiction

Most addicts are functional. According to SAMHSA’s 2022 data, over 70% of adults with substance use disorder are employed. They’re your coworker. Your dentist. Your kid’s teacher. Your pastor. They’re managing their pain with substances while maintaining careers, families, lives.

I maintained a career in financial services while blacking out every night. Showed up to work. Hit my numbers. Then went home and drank until I disappeared. Nobody knew because functional addiction is invisible until it isn’t.

The visible addicts, the ones on the street, the ones who can’t hide it, they’re just the ones whose pain exceeded their resources. The rest are all around you, suffering silently, managing quietly, dying slowly.

Addiction isn’t a moral issue. It’s a pain issue. A trauma issue. A lack of resources issue. A brain chemistry issue. A survival issue.

For Everyone Fighting This

You’re not weak. You’re not worthless. You’re not hopeless. You’re a human in pain trying to survive with the tools available to you.

I’m not perfect. I suck at sleeping without weed. I need caffeine to function with ADHD. I take more hot showers than any human should. But I’m six years without alcohol, and that’s something.

Recovery is possible. Not perfect abstinence necessarily, but finding ways to manage pain that don’t destroy your life. That might mean complete sobriety. Might mean medication assisted treatment. Might mean harm reduction. Might mean replacing dangerous substances with safer ones.

There’s no right way to recover. There’s only the way that keeps you alive and lets you build something worth living for.

For Everyone Loving Someone Through This

Your person is still in there. Under the addiction, behind the behavior, beneath the substances, they’re still there. Drowning but not dead. Lost but not gone.

You can’t save them. But you can refuse to let them drown alone. You can be the lighthouse that stays on, reminding them shore exists when they’re ready to swim for it.

Your pain matters too. Get support. Set boundaries. Protect yourself. You can love someone without lighting yourself on fire to keep them warm.

“Addiction thrives in darkness and dies in connection. Be the connection, not the judgment.”

We lose 294 people a day (according to CDC provisional data for 2023) because we treat addiction like a crime instead of a crisis. Like a choice instead of a disease. Like a moral failing instead of a human being screaming for help the only way they know how.

Those aren’t statistics dying. They’re people. Someone’s child. Someone’s parent. Someone’s love. Someone who deserved better than shame and judgment and isolation.

Someone who might have lived if we understood that addiction isn’t about drugs.

It’s about pain. And drugs are just the painkiller that was available.

The solution isn’t removing drugs. It’s addressing pain. And until we do that, we’ll keep losing 294 people every single day.

Two more just died while you read this.

They deserved better. We all do.

— Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

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