Alcohol and Drug Addiction

Alcohol is the most widely abused drug in the United States today. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, more than 115 million Americans use alcohol on a regular basis, and at least 14 million American either suffer from alcoholism or have serious alcohol-related problems.

Many other people have drug abuse or drug addiction problems, to both illicit drugs and legal substances. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an estimated 20 million Americans use illegal drugs, and an estimated 9 million people use prescription drugs for non-medical reasons. Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, followed by cocaine and heroine. According to the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, approximately 3.7 million Americans reported trying heroin at least once and approximately 435,000 reported regular heroin use.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated the total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse to be $245 billion for 1992. Of this cost, $147 billion was due to alcohol abuse and $98 billion was due to drug abuse. In addition, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) found that, between 1988 and 1995, Americans spent $58 billion on drugs, broken down as follows: $38 billion on cocaine, $10 billion on heroin, $7 billion on marijuana, and $3 billion on other illegal substances and on the misuse of legal drugs.

Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Recovery

Unfortunately, efforts to treat addiction are costly and the rates of alcoholism and drug addiction recovery are consistently low. Typical one-year alcohol recovery rates for most conventional treatment approaches are 25 percent or lower. The rates of drug addiction recovery are even lower. Typical one-year heroine recovery rates for most conventional treatment approaches are only 5 percent, while 95 percent of patients either relapse or switch from heroine to methadone.

In contrast, controlled studies in Russia of Ketamine psychedelic treatment for alcohol addiction demonstrated a significant clinical effect of this alternative alcoholism treatment method, with 69.8 percent of patients remaining sober for more than one year after treatment. Another controlled study of the effectiveness of Ketamine psychotherapy for heroin addiction (PDF) showed that the rate of abstinence in the Ketamine group was significantly higher than that of the control group, with 25 percent of patients remaining abstinent for more than one year after treatment.

Eleusis has adapted this ground-breaking therapeutic tool of Ketamine psychedelic psychotherapy and made it available in the only medically supervised addiction treatment program within the United States that currently offers this powerful form of therapy.