Ben considered himself a healthy 41-year-old. He was a true waterman: a paddleboarder, fly fisherman, and many years ago, a champion crew team member at his university. He ate nutritious food, drank enough filtered water, and made himself invaluable at work as the vice president of a large company. To an outsider, he looked like…

In the previous article, which was the first of this three-part series, we explored how rampant substance use disorders are in the United States. As many as 21 million people are currently affected by substance-related addiction, but only 10 percent of those seek treatment. We also discussed the idea of addiction as a brain disease….

In California, some estimate that as many as 2.3 million people struggle with alcoholism—7 percent of the state’s population. Meet Yolanda. For decades, she was a “functioning alcoholic”—with a job, a daughter, and a place to live—but because of her addiction to alcohol, she lost it all. In this powerful interview, you will hear Yolanda’s…

As 26-year-old Byron Remeyer picked up his guitar and looked out at into his audience, he quickly estimated that a thousand people had their eyes on him as he prepared to perform. Though early in his music career, large crowds didn’t make him nervous. It was the closing ceremony of the 2013 class of The…

As 26-year-old Byron Remeyer picked up his guitar and looked out at into his audience, he quickly estimated that a thousand people had their eyes on him as he prepared to perform. Though it was early in his music career, large crowds didn’t make him nervous. It was the closing ceremony of the 2013 class…

Rates of alcoholic liver disease have soared 30 percent in the last year at the University of Michigan’s health system, a rise doctors blame on higher amounts of alcohol intake during the pandemic. Anecdotal reports suggest that some patients increased drinking to a bottle of wine or five to six drinks daily from March 2020…

SANTA ANA, Calif.—When Virginia Mort’s husband died suddenly three years ago, her neighbor, Larry Hausner, stopped by to offer his condolences. Hausner told Mort he’d like to lend a hand by taking out her trash. He’s been doing it ever since. “Without fail, he has never missed a week in three years,” Mort told The…

My history with alcohol has been fairly tame. In my teen years, I partied with friends, but eventually my drinking tapered off as I got older and focused more on physical and spiritual health. Over the years, my attitude toward drinking ranged from indifference to suspicion as I noticed how others used or misused alcohol….

As the pandemic sends thousands of recovering alcoholics into relapse, hospitals across the country have reported dramatic increases in alcohol-related admissions for critical diseases such as alcoholic hepatitis and liver failure. Alcoholism-related liver disease was a growing problem even before the pandemic, with 15 million people diagnosed with the condition around the country, and with hospitalizations doubling…