140 Fun Facts About Addiction Recovery

In which Ohio city did Bill W. and Dr. Bob meet in 1935, founding Alcoholics Anonymous?

Bill was on a failed business trip and, fearing relapse, asked to be put in touch with another alcoholic; Henrietta Seiberling introduced them.

What date is celebrated as the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous?

It marks Dr. Bob's last drink; Bill W.'s own sobriety date is December 11, 1934.

What was Dr. Bob Smith's medical specialty?

He stayed sober from June 1935 until his death from colon cancer in 1950 and is said to have helped some 5,000 alcoholics.

Through which Christian revivalist movement did AA's founders meet?

Its American leader Sam Shoemaker ran the Calvary Rescue Mission where Ebby Thacher got sober before visiting Bill.

Which old friend visited Bill Wilson in November 1934, refused a drink and said he'd 'got religion'?

Ebby became Bill's guide in sobriety; the visit is where the idea of one alcoholic talking to another began.

Which New York doctor treated Bill W. and framed alcoholism as an 'allergy' plus mental obsession?

His 'Doctor's Opinion' opens the Big Book; his hospital used the deliriant belladonna during detox.

Why is AA's basic text nicknamed 'the Big Book'?

Published in 1939, it has sold 30 million copies and the Library of Congress named it one of 88 'Books that Shaped America'.

Where in the Big Book are the Twelve Steps first laid out?

The 'Ninth Step Promises' come in Chapter 6, 'Into Action'.

The first of the Twelve Steps says members admit they are what over their addiction?

It refers to lack of control over the compulsion despite consequences; Overeaters Anonymous reads it as 'powerless over compulsive overeating'.

What is the term for the experienced member who guides a newcomer through the Twelve Steps?

NA describes one as 'simply another addict in recovery who is willing to share his or her journey'; sponsees usually do their Fifth Step with them.

Which step involves reviewing a written moral inventory with another person?

The inventory itself is the Fourth Step; the Ninth is making amends.

AA's Twelve Traditions were formally adopted at its first international convention in which year?

Bill W. first published them in the April 1946 Grapevine as 'Twelve Points to Assure Our Future'.

Which theologian is credited with the Serenity Prayer, adopted by AA from about 1941?

The first AA group found it in a 1941 New York Herald Tribune obituary; Niebuhr had used it in sermons since about 1932.

Which Akron nun gave early AA patients a Sacred Heart medallion to return before a first drink?

The sobriety chip tradition itself is thought to have started in Indianapolis in 1942; there is still no official AA medallion.

Sobriety coins are traditionally the size of what?

Standard medallions are 34 mm across; they are AA culture rather than conference-approved literature.

Approximately how many members did AA estimate it had in 2021?

Active in 180 countries, with 73 percent of members in the US and Canada.

A 2020 Cochrane review found Twelve-Step Facilitation for AA produced higher rates of what?

It also found better healthcare cost savings than treatments such as CBT.

Who was the first woman to achieve long-term sobriety in AA and founded the National Council on Alcoholism?

She organised the National Committee for Education on Alcoholism in 1944 to spread the message that alcoholism is a disease, not a moral failing.

Which fellowship for families and friends of alcoholics was co-founded in 1951 by Bill W.'s wife Lois?

Alateen followed for teenagers; Al-Anon is the third-largest twelve-step programme.

Narcotics Anonymous, the second-largest twelve-step fellowship, was founded in which year?

By 2024 it held 77,000 meetings a week in 145 countries; its Basic Text says NA 'has no opinion on outside issues'.

Which twelve-step fellowship first met in Los Angeles in 1957 and offers a 'twenty questions' self-test?

Publicity from columnist Paul Coates helped; GA's 'twenty questions' is a self-test for compulsive gambling.

Overeaters Anonymous was founded in 1960 after Rozanne S. attended a meeting of which fellowship?

She realised the Twelve Steps could apply to food; the first meeting was in Hollywood.

What does SMART stand for in the secular programme SMART?

It draws on cognitive behavioural therapy and motivational interviewing rather than a higher power.

What does Rational Recovery call the 'addictive voice'?

Trimpey's AVRT technique treats every pro-drinking thought as 'the bark of Beast'; the group declared meetings obsolete in 1998.

Women for Sobriety's 'New Life' programme was created in 1976 by which sociologist?

She drew on Emerson's 'Self-Reliance' and New Thought as an alternative to AA.

What is the motto of LifeRing Secular Recovery?

It grew out of Secular Organizations for Sobriety and incorporated under its own name in 1999.

The Christ-centred programme Celebrate Recovery began in 1991 at which megachurch?

John Baker wrote its curriculum; it claims 5 million participants across 35,000 churches.

Which former First Lady disclosed her alcoholism and founded a treatment centre in Rancho Mirage?

She confronted her prescription-drug and alcohol dependence in 1978 after a family intervention.

The Betty Ford Center merged in 2014 with which Minnesota treatment pioneer founded in 1949?

The combined Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is headquartered in Minnesota, home of the '28-day' treatment model.

The first Oxford House sober-living home opened in 1975 when residents of a closing halfway house did what?

Paul Molloy led them; there are now nearly 3,000 democratically run Oxford Houses.

Every Oxford House operates on three rules. Which of these is one of them?

The others are no drugs, alcohol or disruption, and paying the equal shared expenses.

The DSM-5 (2013) merged 'substance abuse' and 'substance dependence' into a single diagnosis graded how?

Severity depends on how many of 11 criteria are met; 'severe' is treated as synonymous with addiction.

Which is the only behavioural (non-substance) addiction recognised in the DSM-5-TR?

Internet gaming is listed for further study; the ICD-11 goes further and includes gaming disorder.

Roughly what share of people with a substance use disorder eventually reach remission?

Usually only after many years, which is why addiction is managed as a chronic, relapsing condition.

Which neurotransmitter's signalling gives a drug and its cues their pull on attention in addiction?

Meanwhile brain stress systems become overactive and prefrontal control weakens, leaving craving poorly restrained.

Delirium tremens typically begins how long after a heavy drinker's last drink?

Seizures peak earlier, at 24 to 36 hours; benzodiazepines are the standard treatment and DTs can be fatal untreated.

What is the Latin meaning of 'delirium'?

A ploughing metaphor for disordered thinking; the term delirium tremens dates from 1813.

Which scale is typically used to monitor alcohol withdrawal in hospital?

The Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol guides benzodiazepine dosing.

Which medication, sold as Narcan, reverses an opioid overdose by blocking opioid receptors?

Patented in 1961, it works within two minutes intravenously; the nasal spray was approved in 2015 and is now sold over the counter.

Methadone, used in maintenance treatment for opioid use disorder, was developed in the 1930s in which country?

Gustav Ehrhart and Max Bockmühl synthesised it; maintenance doses of 80 to 100 mg a day show the best results.

In which year was buprenorphine (Suboxone) FDA-approved for treating opioid use disorder?

It is a partial agonist, so it caps respiratory depression; the naloxone is there to discourage injecting.

Which drug, sold as Antabuse, makes drinking unpleasant by letting acetaldehyde build up?

Its effect was discovered by accident when rubber-factory workers exposed to the chemical developed severe alcohol intolerance.

Which industry accidentally revealed the Antabuse chemical's effect on drinkers?

It was used in vulcanising rubber around 1900; workers at a Swedish boot factory noticed it too.

Which drug, sold as Vivitrol in a monthly injection, blocks opioid effects and cuts alcohol cravings?

John David Sinclair's method pairs it with continued drinking to 'extinguish' the habit; WHO still prefers agonists like methadone for opioid disorder.

Contingency management, where patients earn vouchers for abstinence, was introduced in the 1990s for which drug?

It remains the most reliably effective method for producing cocaine abstinence in controlled trials.

Motivational interviewing, described by William Miller in 1983, helps clients resolve what?

Miller and Stephen Rollnick developed it while treating problem drinkers.

In Prochaska and DiClemente's stages of change, which stage comes right before 'action'?

People in preparation intend to change within a month; the model was born in smoking-cessation research in 1977.

The 1970s 'Rat Park' experiments found rats consumed less morphine when housed how?

Bruce Alexander built a colony 200 times the size of a lab cage to test whether isolation drove drug-taking.

Portugal decriminalised personal drug possession in 2001, referring users to what instead of court?

The threshold is a ten-day supply; the aim was cutting HIV infections, half of which came from injecting.

Insite, North America's first supervised injection site, opened in 2003 in which city?

In 2017 it recorded 2,151 overdoses on site and no deaths.

Which UK charity runs the Dry January campaign, formalised in 2013?

4,000 people signed up the first year and 215,000 worldwide in 2024; Finland ran a 'Sober January' as early as 1942.

Which vitamin did Bill W. promote in the 1960s as the 'third leg in the stool' of recovery?

He learned of it from Abram Hoffer; his supervised LSD experiments the decade before were far less popular with AA members.

Which magazine listed Bill W. among its 100 most important people of the 20th century, as 'The Healer'?

He died in 1971 after 36 years of sobriety.

In the United States, a standard drink contains roughly how much pure alcohol?

That is a 12-ounce can of 5 percent beer, a 5-ounce glass of 12 percent wine or a 1.5-ounce shot of 40 percent spirits.

Which is the most commonly consumed psychoactive substance in the world?

Unlike almost every other psychoactive drug, it is legal and unregulated nearly everywhere and even sits on the WHO's essential medicines list, as caffeine citrate for premature infants.

Which substance is the greatest cause of preventable death worldwide?

Half of smokers die from smoking-related illness, and each cigarette is estimated to shorten life by an average of about 11 minutes.

Roughly how many years earlier do active smokers die, on average, than non-smokers?

The WHO puts tobacco deaths at more than 7 million a year, and nicotine remains one of the most addictive substances known.

After inhalation, roughly how long does nicotine take to reach the brain?

Its half-life in the body is only about two hours, which is why cravings return so quickly and dependence sets in so hard.

Which Beijing pharmacist invented the modern electronic cigarette around 2003?

By 2021 there were about 82 million e-cigarette users worldwide, against 1.1 billion smokers.

Which US e-cigarette brand, born of Stanford design-school work, held about 72% of the market by 2018?

It advertised in Seventeen and on the Nick Jr. channel, and the FDA moved to ban its products in 2022 amid concern about teen vaping.

Fentanyl is roughly how many times more potent than morphine?

Paul Janssen synthesised it in 1960; US overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids rose from about 2,600 in 2011 to more than 70,000 in 2021.

Which veterinary sedative, nicknamed 'tranq', increasingly cuts street fentanyl and resists naloxone?

It was tested on humans in 1960s West Germany as a blood-pressure drug before being shelved for animal use.

Which company sold heroin over the counter from 1898 as a supposedly non-addictive cough remedy?

Felix Hoffmann, who also synthesised aspirin, made it at Bayer; the name came from the German heroisch, meaning heroic or strong.

Which brand of methamphetamine was sold without prescription from 1938 and issued to Wehrmacht troops?

Soldiers were often useless for a day or two afterwards, and the drug is now a second-line ADHD treatment sold as Desoxyn.

Cocaine is derived from the leaves of a plant native to which continent?

Karl Koller's 1884 discovery that it numbs tissue made it the first local anaesthetic, and it is still used that way in some ear, nose and throat surgery.

Which 1914 US law taxed opiates and coca products, often seen as the start of federal drug prohibition?

The 1909 Smoking Opium Exclusion Act had been the first federal ban on non-medical use of any substance.

Which US president declared drug abuse "public enemy number one" in June 1971?

Nixon had also signed the Controlled Substances Act the previous year, creating the drug schedules still in use.

How many schedules of controlled substances did the 1970 Controlled Substances Act create?

Schedule I is for drugs judged to have high abuse potential and no accepted medical use; the DEA and FDA decide what moves between schedules.

Which constitutional amendment brought in national Prohibition, in force from January 1920?

The Volstead Act set the enforcement rules, and the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the whole thing 13 years later.

In what year did Prohibition end in the United States?

Opposition had grown as the Depression bit and critics pointed to lost tax revenue and rural values being imposed on cities.

The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act pushed states to age 21 by threatening to withhold what?

Reagan signed it on July 17, 1984; the law limits purchase and public possession, and only a handful of states ban under-21 consumption outright.

Which mother founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 1980 after her daughter Cari was killed?

The driver had recently been arrested for another drunk hit-and-run; Lightner left the group she founded in 1985.

Which Indiana State Police captain invented and trademarked the Breathalyzer in 1954?

It replaced Harger's 1930s Drunkometer, which had motorists blow into a balloon inside the machine.

Blood alcohol concentrations above roughly what level may be fatal?

The common US driving limit of 0.08 percent is a fifth of that; some countries set the limit at zero.

What level of alcohol exposure has been established as safe for a fetus?

Because alcohol is a known teratogen, controlled trials on pregnant women would be unethical, so no threshold has ever been set.

Under which Los Angeles police chief was the D.A.R.E. programme launched in 1983?

At its peak it ran in three-quarters of US school districts, with police officers visiting elementary classrooms and Daren the Lion as its mascot.

Whose reply to an Oakland schoolgirl in 1984 became the "Just Say No" slogan?

The phrase went unnoticed until the school reviewed footage the next year and a 12-year-old suggested a Just Say No club.

Red Ribbon Week, held every October, began as a tribute to which murdered DEA agent?

He had worked undercover in Guadalajara for more than four years before he was kidnapped in 1985.

Roughly what share of the risk of developing an addiction is estimated to be genetic?

Twin and adoption studies put the heritability of alcohol use disorder at around 50 percent, spread across many common gene variants.

Cannabis is by far the most widely used illicit drug; roughly how many people used it in 2013?

That is between 2.7 and 4.9 percent of everyone aged 15 to 65, with the highest use in Zambia, the US, Canada and Nigeria.

MDMA, known as ecstasy or molly, was first synthesised in 1912 by a chemist at which company?

It sat unused for decades before therapists tried it in the 1970s and it hit the street in the 1980s.

On which day is the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout held?

The first national event was in San Francisco's Union Square in 1977, growing out of a Massachusetts idea to donate a day's cigarette money to a school.

US drug overdose deaths peaked at roughly what annual figure in 2022?

The rate had climbed from 2.5 per 100,000 people in 1968 to 33.2 in 2022 before falling back to about 77,600 deaths in the year to March 2025.

Which agency estimated that take-home naloxone programmes had prevented about 10,000 US deaths?

Handing the antidote to drug users and their carers, with training, is one of the best-evidenced harm-reduction measures.

Which US drug crisis did the CDC describe as arriving in three waves, starting with painkillers?

Wave two was heroin, wave three synthetic fentanyl, and researchers now describe a fourth wave of stimulants mixed with fentanyl.

In which city was Cocaine Anonymous founded in November 1982?

An anonymous film-industry member started it after seeing how little help existed for cocaine's particular difficulties.

Alateen is a part of which fellowship, designed for younger relatives and friends of alcoholics?

Al-Anon itself was co-founded in 1951, sixteen years after AA.

SAMHSA was established by Congress in 1992 out of the abolition of which agency?

The Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration had combined NIAAA, NIDA and NIMH since 1973.

Roughly how many copies has AA's Big Book sold, placing it among the best-selling books ever?

Time magazine placed it among the 100 most influential English-language books since 1923, and the Library of Congress named it a 'Book that Shaped America'.

In which year was Alcoholics Anonymous, the 'Big Book', first published?

Its full title promised the story of how more than one hundred men and women had recovered from alcoholism.

Which hallucinogen did AA co-founder Bill W. take in medically supervised sessions from 1956?

LSD let Bill W. relive, he said, the spiritual experience that had ended his own drinking in 1934. Most AA members opposed the experiments, and he never publicly urged the drug on others.

Which food did a 1987 anti-drug advert fry in a pan to show 'your brain on drugs'?

An egg cracked into a hot frying pan was followed by the deadpan line 'Any questions?' The Partnership for a Drug-Free America remade it in 1997 with actress Rachael Leigh Cook smashing the egg with the pan.

Which Amy Winehouse single won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 2008?

"Rehab" grew from a remark Winehouse made to producer Mark Ronson as they walked down a street: 'He tried to make me go to rehab and I was like, pfft, no no no.' Ronson took her straight back to the studio.

Which moonwalker recounted his alcoholism and depression in the 1973 memoir Return to Earth?

Buzz Aldrin's spells in hospital alternated with bouts of heavy drinking until he quit for good in October 1978. He later tried to support other drinkers, including the actor William Holden.

Which spirit's hold on London did William Hogarth show in a 1751 print of a ruined slum street?

Gin Lane was issued with a companion print, Beer Street, whose beer drinkers look happy and healthy by contrast. Hogarth made the pair in support of what became the Gin Act of 1751.

Which drug's trade did Britain fight two 19th-century wars to protect, the first of which won it Hong Kong?

Opium shipments had soared to about 30,000 chests a year by 1833. When the Qing government cracked down, Britain sent a naval expedition to demand reparations and reopen the trade.

Which body added 'gaming disorder' to its International Classification of Diseases in 2019?

The World Health Organization files it under 'disorders due to addictive behaviours', and its main test is a loss of control over gaming. The listing came into force in January 2022.

Which fairy-tale heroine named a South Korean law that shut under-16s out of online games overnight?

Cinderella fitted because the block began at the stroke of midnight and ran until 6 a.m. Passed in 2011, the law drove some teenagers to steal resident registration numbers to get round it, and it was abolished in 2021.

Which university's Alcohol Project got sitcoms such as Cheers to feature designated drivers?

Harvard's School of Public Health borrowed the idea from Scandinavia, where it had been taking shape since the 1920s. Its 1988 campaign is credited as one factor in the fall in alcohol-related road deaths by 1994.

Which word do the last four digits of SAMHSA's treatment referral line, 1-800-662-4357, spell?

HELP is how 4357 reads on a phone keypad. The line gives confidential referrals in English and Spanish, every day of the year, to people and families facing substance use or mental health problems.

Which future US president gave up alcohol in 1986, a decade after an arrest for driving under the influence?

George W. Bush credits his wife Laura's steadying influence for the decision. He had been pulled over near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport in 1976.

Which 1996 Danny Boyle film follows Mark Renton and his heroin-using friends around Edinburgh?

Trainspotting was adapted from Irvine Welsh's 1993 novel, and its soundtrack became a best-seller. A sequel, T2 Trainspotting, followed in 2017.

Which organ breaks down 90% or more of the alcohol in a drink soon after it is swallowed?

The liver's capacity to process alcohol is almost completely saturated by a single standard drink. It turns the alcohol into acetaldehyde, which is then broken down into acetate.

Which compound, first isolated in 1964, is the principal psychoactive ingredient of cannabis?

THC is one of at least 113 cannabinoids identified in the plant. CBD, another of them, was isolated earlier, in 1940.

Which HBO drama stars Zendaya as Rue Bennett, a drug-addicted teenager and unreliable narrator?

Euphoria won Zendaya the Emmy for lead actress in a drama for each of its first two seasons. It is based on an Israeli miniseries of the same name.

Which war's American troops could not board the flight home until they passed a urine test for heroin?

Vietnam War servicemen who failed the test had to stay behind, go through detoxification and try again, under a programme nicknamed Operation Golden Flow.

Which brain-made peptides, released during exercise, dull pain in much the way morphine does?

Endorphins take their name from 'endogenous morphine'. They turned up when scientists went looking for the body's own counterpart to the drug, after a receptor for it was found.

Which alcohol, produced when yeasts ferment sugars, is the type found in beer, wine and spirits?

Ethanol also goes by the name grain alcohol. It turns up naturally in overripe fruit and has even been detected in interstellar space.

Which gas, used to froth whipped cream, is also inhaled as a recreational drug for a brief high?

Nitrous oxide was nicknamed 'laughing gas' by the chemist Humphry Davy for the giddy mood it brings on. It also serves as an oxidiser in rocket propellants and motor racing fuels.

Which A&E documentary series about addiction, begun in 2005, won the 2009 Emmy for Outstanding Reality Program?

Intervention ends each episode with relatives giving the addict an ultimatum: accept a fully covered 90-day treatment plan or risk losing contact, income or privileges.

Which CBS sitcom starred Anna Faris and Allison Janney as estranged relatives in Napa trying to stay sober?

Mom brought Allison Janney back-to-back Emmys in 2014 and 2015 for playing Bonnie Plunkett, who tries to pull her life together alongside her daughter Christy.

Which 1936 film, financed by a church group to warn parents about cannabis, later won a cult following?

Reefer Madness was first titled Tell Your Children. It ends with a lecturer pointing at parents in the audience and warning that the next tragedy may be 'yours'.

Which ADHD medication, a mixture of four amphetamine salts, is often misused by students as a study aid?

Adderall is made of equal parts of four amphetamine salts. Surveys suggest 5–35% of college students use diverted ADHD stimulants, mainly to lift their academic performance.

Which country in 2021 limited under-18s to online gaming between 8 and 9 p.m. on Fridays and weekends?

China had tried limits before: a 2005 rule expelled players from a game after three hours, and a 2019 curfew barred minors from playing between certain hours.

Which term for unhealthy coping with a loved one's addiction did Melody Beattie's 1986 bestseller popularise?

Codependency most likely grew out of the late-1970s label 'co-alcoholic'. Beattie's book inspired a twelve-step fellowship, Co-Dependents Anonymous, founded the same year.

Which guitarist founded the Crossroads Centre, an addiction clinic on the island of Antigua, in 1998?

Eric Clapton, himself recovering from addiction, has raised money for the clinic since 1999 through his Crossroads Guitar Festival.

Which family owned Purdue Pharma, maker of the painkiller OxyContin, and gave to the Guggenheim museum?

The Sackler brothers bought the small drug company Purdue-Frederick in 1952. Arthur, the eldest, pioneered medical advertising aimed at doctors, while Raymond and Mortimer ran the firm.

Which class of tranquillisers includes Valium, the best-selling medicine in America from 1968 to 1982?

Benzodiazepines began with Librium, discovered by accident by Leo Sternbach in 1955 and the one most commonly used for alcohol detoxification. Valium followed in 1963.

Which state legalised recreational cannabis alongside Washington in November 2012 by passing Amendment 64?

Colorado's first licensed shops opened on January 1, 2014. The state had allowed medical cannabis since 2000.

Which singer earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination playing a drug addict in The Man with the Golden Arm?

Frank Sinatra's character gets clean in prison but struggles to stay that way outside. The film changed the ending of Nelson Algren's novel, in which he takes his own life.

Which temperance crusader became famous for attacking taverns with a hatchet in the years before Prohibition?

Carrie Nation, nicknamed 'Hatchet Granny', also opened a shelter in Kansas City in 1901 for the wives and children of alcoholics.

Which state was the first in America to cut its drink-driving limit to 0.05% blood alcohol, in 2018?

Utah had led the way once before: in 1983 it was the first state to lower its limit from 0.10% to 0.08%.

Which state banned the sale of alcohol in 1851 under a law crafted by Portland's mayor Neal Dow?

Maine's law met violent opposition in the Portland Rum Riot of 1855, when one man was killed and seven were wounded. It was repealed the following year.

Which country became the first of the modern era to legalise recreational cannabis, in December 2013?

Uruguay's president José Mujica signed the law, which his government had proposed as a way to fight drug-related crime and health problems.

Which country, facing one of Europe's largest open drug scenes, began trials of prescribed heroin in 1994?

Switzerland has made heroin available to addicts under supervision ever since, as part of its national health system. Its trials used the drug as a maintenance treatment.

Which country's Gaming Commission ruled that loot boxes in FIFA 18 and Overwatch broke its gambling laws?

Belgium's justice minister said it was often children who came across such systems, 'and we cannot allow that'. Valve went on to block Belgian players from opening loot boxes in Counter-Strike.

Which psychologist studied the 'variable ratio' reward schedule that makes slot machines so hard to quit?

B. F. Skinner studied rewards that arrive after an unpredictable number of responses. That schedule produces the fastest responding and the habit that is slowest to die out.

Which opioid in prescription cough syrup is the usual active drug in 'lean', also called 'purple drank'?

Codeine syrup, usually paired with promethazine, gives the Houston-born drink its nickname, because the cough syrups used are often purple.

Which Oprah's Book Club memoir of drug addiction was exposed by The Smoking Gun in 2006 as partly fabricated?

A Million Little Pieces topped the New York Times list for fifteen straight weeks. The website's report was headlined 'A Million Little Lies', and James Frey's book was later marketed as a semi-fictional novel.

Which 1945 Billy Wilder film about an alcoholic New York writer won the Academy Award for Best Picture?

The Lost Weekend also shared the top prize at the first Cannes Film Festival. Wilder was drawn to the story after working with Raymond Chandler on the screenplay of Double Indemnity.

Which vitamin do long-term heavy drinkers often lack, causing the brain disorder Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome?

Thiamine (B1) deficiency first brings confusion, eye problems and an unsteady walk. It can then move into a second phase marked by impaired memory.

Which four-question screening test for problem drinking asks about needing a morning 'eye-opener' drink?

CAGE is an acronym of its four questions, the last being the Eye-opener. In its first study, on 130 hospital patients, those questions picked out all sixteen alcoholics.

Which Southeast Asian tree's glossy leaves contain alkaloids that bind to the body's opioid receptors?

Kratom leaves come from a tropical evergreen native to countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, where they have been used in herbal medicine since at least the 19th century.

Which online role-playing game, played by her late son, led Liz Woolley to found Online Gamers Anonymous?

EverQuest was hailed by critics as the 'most addictive online RPG to date', and some players jokingly called it 'EverCrack'.

Which 1971 book, sold as the real diary of a teenage drug user, was later attributed to Beatrice Sparks?

Go Ask Alice takes its title from a line in Jefferson Airplane's 1967 song 'White Rabbit'. Sparks went on to write other books presented as the real diaries of troubled teenagers.

Near which Kentucky city did the federal government open its 'Narcotic Farm' for drug addicts in 1935?

Lexington's 'farm' was the first of its kind in the country and took patients who admitted themselves. One, the writer Alexander King, recalled that he 'heard the best jazz ever played anywhere' there.

Which drug-treatment programme, founded by Charles Dederich in Santa Monica in 1958, became a violent cult?

Synanon began under the name Tender Loving Care and grew into a community built around a form of attack therapy. It disbanded in 1991 after members were convicted of offences including attempted murder.

Which US Surgeon General chaired the committee whose 1964 report tied cigarette smoking to lung cancer?

Luther Terry's report was followed within months by a federal ruling that cigarette packs must carry a health warning from January 1965.

Which hallucinogen from the root bark of a Central African shrub is used in clinics abroad to treat addiction?

Ibogaine's effects were first discovered by forager tribes, who passed the knowledge to the Bwiti of Gabon. Its medical use is limited by serious risks, including toxicity to the heart.

Which country held the first International Overdose Awareness Day in 2001, handing out 6,000 silver ribbons?

Australia's first event was started by S. J. Finn, who ran a needle and syringe programme at a Salvation Army crisis centre in St Kilda. The day is marked every 31 August.