U.S. Problem Drinking Declines by Millions Over Five Years

Over the span of five years, millions of Americans have quietly crossed back over a threshold that once defined their relationship with alcohol as disordered — a shift registered not in headlines but in survey data, and felt most acutely in the families and lives that did not unravel. The decline in alcohol use disorder cases marks a genuine, if incomplete, public health achievement, one that invites reflection on what changes in a society when its people begin, in measurable numbers, to reclaim themselves from compulsion. Yet the improvement carries within it a shadow: those still struggling