For more detail on the re-weighting of CSEW data, please see the ONS methodological note Presentational and methodological improvements to National Statistics on the Crime Survey for England and Wales (PDF, 176KB). Only increases or decreases that are statistically significant at the 5% level are described as changes within the main bulletin, and in the tables, these are identified by asterisks. The use of some drugs are particularly rare and only have a low number of users, for example, heroin use. The range of variability for these drugs will be quite large because of sampling variability; figures will be liable to fluctuation from year to year. Changes from one year to the next should be interpreted with caution and greater attention paid to the medium and longer-term trends.
People in treatment: substance, sex, age
Referral from health and social care was the second most common referral source and made up 22% overall. Hospitals made up 5% of all referrals, while 4% of referrals came from social services. Only 9% of opiate referrals came from healthcare compared to 28% of alcohol only referrals. Of the people starting treatment in 2024 to 2025, 55% self-referred (which may be following advice from a healthcare professional) or were referred by family and friends. Figure 6 shows the number of people starting treatment in each age group, separated into the 4 substance groups.
- For non-urgent housing problems, the proportions were 22% of people with NPS problems and 12% for all people starting treatment.
- For people with opiate problems, the proportion with this risk was 18% while for people with problems with alcohol only this proportion was 5%.
- The NDTMS treatment figures only show us how many people dependent on alcohol and drugs are in treatment.
- The numbers show that opiates were the most frequently reported drug with slightly more people using opiates alone compared to opiates along with crack.
- The proportion of people in this group has remained relatively stable at 30% since 2022 to 2023, despite the number of people in this group growing from 86,257 to 99,955.
- 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.
4 Treatment exits and deaths in treatment
Across all substance groups, over 48,000 people (44%) said they had smoked tobacco in the 28 days before starting treatment in 2024 to 2025. This was substantially higher than the smoking rate of the general adult population in England, where 12.2% of men and 8.7% of women smoke. This was reported in the 2024 edition of the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Smoking habits in the UK and its constituent countries. This is the same proportion of deaths of all adults in treatment as reported last year. Over 7 out of 10 new starters in all substance groups reported a mental health treatment need. This need varied by substance group, ranging from 71% in the opiate group to 79% of the non-opiate and alcohol group.
Average Age of First Use
The financial toll of addiction is massive, driving healthcare expenditures, productivity losses, and criminal justice costs. Young adults are more prone to relapse, partly due to peer influence and ongoing high-risk situations. substance abuse in older adults Nonetheless, relapse is not failure – each attempt at sobriety can build coping skills and strengthen resilience. Pinpointing when individuals typically begin substance use underscores the need for early intervention strategies.
People in treatment
For adults aged 16 to 24 years, the proportion who had reported Class A drug use was much higher at 7.4% (approximately 467,000 people). Together, substance misuse easily surpasses $1 trillion in total annual costs once all indirect impacts are included. Preventive measures and increased treatment access can yield significant returns by reducing these expenditures. You can find more detailed data on the drugs people were having problems with, in the accompanying data tables.
- These figures are for people who die while they are in a treatment programme, not necessarily because their deaths are drug-related.
- There were 4,166 recorded deaths in treatment in 2022 to 2023, which was 1.4% of all people in treatment.
- Social media also glamorizes risky behavior, creating pressure to appear adventurous or mature.
- Pie chart showing the mental health need of people in treatment split by whether people were receiving treatment for this need and where.
The numbers show that opiates were the most frequently reported drug with slightly more people using opiates alone compared to opiates along with crack. Out of all people in treatment, 51% said they had a problem with opiates, crack or both. Almost half (49%) of people said they had problems with alcohol, with most of these being in the alcohol only group. One-fifth (20%) said they Substance abuse used cannabis, most commonly in the opiate substance group. The next most frequently reported substances were benzodiazepines at 5% and amphetamines (excluding ecstasy) at 3%.
Mental health
By contrast, the proportion of people dying in treatment this year increased only in the non-opiate only group (17%) and the opiate group (1%). The total number of people who died while in contact with treatment services in 2021 to 2022 was 3,742 (1.3% of all adults in treatment). This represents a 0.4% increase of deaths in treatment compared to last year (3,726, or 1.4% of all adults in treatment). Over two-thirds (70%, or 93,380) of adults starting treatment said https://www.pufflesoft.com/sober-living-oxford-house-vs-halfway-house-3/ they had a mental health treatment need. This is part of a trend of rising numbers over the previous 3 years (from 53% in 2018 to 2019). Two-thirds of new starters in all substance groups needed mental health treatment.
Treatment Options and Support Systems
The non-opiate and alcohol group continued an upward trend from 27,684 in 2017 to 2018, to 34,378 this year, a 24% increase. For people with opiate problems who were injecting at the start of treatment, the average number of days of injecting dropped from 20.5 days per month at the start of treatment to 7.8 days per month at the 6-month review. However, alcohol was the third most frequently reported substance in the opiate group and 53% of people starting treatment in the remaining 2 groups reported alcohol as a problem substance. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had a lingering effect on drug and alcohol treatment services, as it has other services. In 2020 to 2021, most services had to restrict face-to-face contact, which affected the types of interventions that service users received.
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