I was the director of a widely know rehabilitation center in the Northeast. Our focus was/is on alcohol but there are few "pure" alcoholics in our society though alcohol does remain the drug of choice for most addicts.

Statistics are extremely skewed for many reasons,,ie...lost contact with patients/follow up care and feedback on relapse,,many relapsers will not re enter the same facility. Marketing statistics often distort success rates for obvious reasons and of course,,, shame which is one of the engines of addiction..people simply don't report the Truth.

However social workers, addiction professionals and those in recovery for extended periods of time are intimate with the real relative rates of recovery from addictions. For instance,,many groups of AA and NA keep a visiable board that records anniversary dates. Just looking at the board depicts the drop off rate of those who remain in recovery. It is a sad graphic but yet with it's glimmer of points of light in an otherwise dark sky...Though I am involved with hundreds of folks in recovery I have less than a handfull of associates with sobriety over ten years and fewer still at 15 and beyond. Like a diabetic,,I have a lifetime disease and without proper management it will kill me...because it wants to...

A worthwhile question to your freind would be how many folks does he/she know with over 10 years clean and sober from any drug? Have him/her compare that with his total exposure and a simple reality appears..

Recovery is possible with humility, willingness, self honesty, comittment and a long term consistent effort to change. This collection of traits within the psyche of the addicted is rare.

IMHO.

Lenny