For how we live.
There is no approved drug for methamphetamine use disorder. In 339 patients treated in ordinary clinics, a generic antidepressant cut use by about two days a month more than placebo, with more dropouts from side-effects.
Two of the largest datasets — 6.5 million UK bank customers and a Swedish national registry — tie heavier gambling to financial and health decline, and gambling disorder to a fifteenfold suicide death rate.
A British Columbia study emulated a trial across 41,000 patients. Those started on take-home methadone within weeks to months of induction stayed in treatment longer and died less than those on daily witnessed dosing.
Two popular stories — alcohol as a cause of low mood, and drinking as self-medication for it — both get less support from recent genetic and within-person data than the confident telling suggests.
Four separate trial emulations, each with a different comparator, all pointed the same direction. The strongest effect appeared among people being treated for alcohol use disorder.
A review lays out the evidence chain: animal studies showing reduced drug-seeking, one small human trial, and record-based analyses linking GLP-1 prescriptions to 40% fewer opioid overdoses.
A meta-analysis of 118 trials found acamprosate and naltrexone reduce drinking, with numbers needed to treat comparable to common heart drugs. They remain widely underused.
No medication has proven effective for cocaine use disorder. A single psilocybin dose, paired with therapy, produced more abstinent days and a longer time to relapse than an active placebo.
The same drug sold as Zepbound and Mounjaro reduced cocaine-evoked dopamine release and blocked drug-associated place preference in rodents. It's animal data, not a human addiction treatment.
Six months out, 40.5% of smokers given one high dose of psilocybin plus therapy stayed abstinent, versus 10% on the nicotine patch plus the same therapy. The trial ran 82 people.
Compared with a diabetes drug from another class, GLP-1 agonists were followed by fewer new diagnoses of alcohol, opioid, nicotine and other substance use disorders.