Twenty-nine percent of women reported either living with a child, or being a parent when they started treatment, compared to 17% of men. Of those receiving mental health treatment, over half (55%) received it in a primary care setting, such as a GP surgery. The people in treatment with NPS problems had the highest proportion of housing need, with 45% saying they had a housing problem (urgent or otherwise) when starting treatment.
Alcohol Addiction Statistics
Figure 5 shows the number of people starting treatment who reported problems with each substance, separated into the 4 substance groups. However, alcohol was the third most frequently reported substance Alcoholics Anonymous in the opiate group after opiates and crack cocaine. The proportion of adults starting treatment for powder cocaine problems increased by one percentage point (from 19% to 20%) and is now the highest proportion since reporting began. Of the 375 young people who left treatment in secure settings in 2022 to 2023, 41% completed their treatment successfully.
Economic Burden of Alcohol Misuse in the United States
Bar chart of the current injecting status of people starting treatment split by substance group. Bar chart of people starting treatment split by substance group and referral source. Bar chart showing the number of people starting treatment in each of the 4 substance groups split by substance mentioned. Almost half the people in treatment for alcohol only (45%) were living in areas ranked in the 30% most deprived areas. PHE has published the latest opiate and crack prevalence estimates for each local authority in England. The proportion of opiate users who are not in treatment has continued to rise from 40.8% in 2014 to 2015 to 46.7% in 2019 to 2020.
Figure 1: Use of any drug has not changed in the last year
One-fifth of adults in treatment (20%) said they used cannabis, most commonly this was alongside opiates. Cocaine (non-crack) use was reported by 15% of people, the largest proportion of whom were in the non-opiate and alcohol substance group. The number of adults in treatment has increased year on year for the last 3 years, and the number in treatment this year is 14% higher than in 2020 to 2021, the lowest number of adults in treatment in the last 5 years. Figure 18 is a map showing the local authorities where the substance abuse in older adults number of deaths of people in drug and alcohol treatment are higher than, lower than, or similar to the mortality rate for England overall. Figures used in this map were calculated as indirectly age-standardised ratios for each local authority and are available in the data tables that accompany this report.
How we define a drug-poisoning death
However, figures for specific substances are limited, as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not have access to post-mortem or toxicology reports. Over half of these deaths involve more than one substance, so it is not possible to identify which was primarily responsible. In 2024, most areas experienced increases compared with the previous year, while some saw a decline. In England, the rate of drug-poisoning deaths increased to 91.1 deaths per million, compared with 90.8 deaths per million in 2023.
Trends over time
In the non-opiate treatment group, there was a similar proportion, with 31% of people who died in treatment living in these most deprived areas. There were 3,726 recorded deaths in treatment in 2020 to 2021, which represented 1.4% of all people in treatment. People with opiate problems accounted for nearly two-thirds (65%) of these deaths, and the alcohol only group a further 29%. The non-opiate only and non-opiate and alcohol groups had the largest proportion of people under 30 years old starting treatment, at 46% and 33% respectively.
Figure 3: The majority of adults who had taken drugs in the last year used them infrequently
The highest proportion (13%) of alcohol-attributable deaths in 2019 were among young people aged 20–39 years. Stacked line graph showing the percentages of deaths in treatment since 2005 to 2006 split by substance group. There were continued falls in the numbers of people with ecstasy problems, with 863 people starting treatment this year compared to a high of 2,399 in 2007 to 2008. The number of people who were using both NPS and opiates at the start of treatment remained similar to the previous year (from 751 to 763). Line graph showing the numbers of people in treatment with opiate and crack problems, opiate problems only and crack problems only since 2005 to 2006.
Adult substance misuse treatment statistics 2021 to 2022: report
Psychosocial intervention only was the most common treatment type in the non-opiate only (92%), non-opiate and alcohol (87%) and alcohol only (71%) groups. About one-fifth (21%) of people using opiates received a psychosocial intervention only. Across all substance groups, women consistently reported smoking at higher levels than men, which is different to the general population. The substance group with the lowest level of smoking overall was the non-opiate only group, with both the non-opiate only group and the alcohol only group having 39% smoking tobacco.
- When police forces make a drug seizure, the seizure is recorded, as is the drug offence.
- Nearly half (47%) of those that left had successfully completed their treatment, free from dependence.
- This publication reports primarily on those aged 16 to 59 years, for which we have a long-term data series.
- Referrals from healthcare were the second most common referral source and made up 15% overall.
After an increase in 2022 to 2023, the proportion of adults entering treatment for problems with crack cocaine use remained the same as last year (19%, or 32,399 people). A total of 28,065 people left treatment in secure settings between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023. Over a third (36%) of those were discharged after completing their treatment free of dependence.
