This process—the fancy names for it are “maturing out” or “natural recovery”—is not the exception: it’s what happens to almost all of the addicted people around you. This finding is so striking I had to read about it in slews of studies before I really took it on board: Most addicts will simply stop, whether they are given treatment or not, provided prohibition doesn’t kill them first. They usually do so after around ten years of use.
