Trying to Quit for Decades
Beating addiction has never been easy.
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Granger Collection, New York
1784
Surgeon Benjamin Rush articulates the concept of alcoholism as a disease in a pamphlet, “An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind.” Rush’s remedy: “Taste not, handle not, touch not.”
1826
The American Temperance Society is founded in Boston. Within 10 years, 1.5 million people pledge to abstain from alcohol.
1884
Freud begins prescribing injections of cocaine, which he describes as a “magical drug,” to patients suffering from pain and depression.
1929
American physicians Arthur Light and Edward Torrance try, and fail, to identify physiological reasons for the withdrawal pains morphine addicts experience.
1935
Akron surgeon Bob Smith and New York stockbroker Bill Wilson, both alcoholics, found Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio.
1947
Methadone is introduced to the United States as an analgesic, but doctors quickly tap into its potential as a treatment for heroin addiction.
1979
The number of illicit U.S. drug users peaks at 25 million, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.
2006
Researchers at King’s College in London find that people with a specific genetic variation in their dopamine transporters are 50% more likely to become cocaine addicts.
2006
The FDA approves an anti-addiction drug for smokers, Chantix (varenicline). The pill partially stimulates nicotine receptors to ease withdrawal symptom.
