Alcohol use disorder: in Australia, an estimated 1 in 4 will ever seek help, the fewest of any disorder in the survey

How many ever get help

The Australian National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing of 2020–22 interviewed 15,893 people. For each disorder, the authors estimated what share of people would ever make contact with help for it. Alcohol use disorder had the lowest share of all disorders in the survey: 25%. Next came drug use disorders (36%), bipolar disorder (40%) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (41%); for major depressive disorder it was 94%. In the year the disorder began, 2% of people with alcohol use disorder made contact, against 35% with major depressive disorder (Birrell 2025).

A meta-analysis of 32 studies put the share of people with alcohol use disorder who receive any treatment at 17.3% (95% CI 12.8–22.3, the range where the true value probably lies), "approximately one in six", and at 9.3% in low and lower-middle-income countries (Mekonen 2021). In the US national survey of 2012–13, 7.7% of people with alcohol use disorder sought treatment or help in the past year and 19.8% ever, counting 12-step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (Grant 2015).

Across 25 countries

An analysis of World Mental Health surveys from 25 countries looked at 16,753 people with at least one mental disorder in the past year and asked which disorders made treatment more or less likely, after accounting for the other disorders, their number, severity and the country. Alcohol use disorder went with lower odds of any treatment (odds ratio 0.7, 95% CI 0.6–0.9), of treatment in general medical care (0.6, 0.5–0.8) and in social services (0.7; 0.4–1.0, rounded; significant in the paper), but not in specialist mental health care (1.0). Drug use disorders went with higher odds of any treatment (1.6). In the authors' words, alcohol use disorder was "the only disorder associated with multiple significantly decreased ORs"; specific phobia also had slightly lower odds of any treatment (0.9) (Evans-Lacko 2018). An odds ratio is not a share of people: it compares people with and without the disorder among those who already have some disorder.

Those who do get help do not wait longest

Among people who did make contact, the median delay (half waited less, half waited more) from the start of the disorder was 10 years for alcohol use disorder, 3 for major depressive disorder, 4 for drug use disorders, 11 for any anxiety disorder and 13 for social anxiety disorder (Birrell 2025). In World Mental Health surveys from 15 countries, the median delay among those who made contact ranged from 6 to 18 years for substance use disorders and from 3 to 30 years for anxiety disorders (Wang 2007). So people with alcohol use disorder who arrive have waited long, but alcohol use disorder stands out most in how few people arrive. Our briefing on anxiety disorders (in the sources below) covers the other side: people with anxiety disorders wait longer, but more of them get there, an estimated 85% against 25% (Birrell 2025).

What counts as treatment

Most of these numbers count any contact with help. Counting only care that meets a minimum standard makes every share smaller but does not close the gap: in World Mental Health surveys, 7.1% of people with substance use disorders received minimally adequate treatment (Degenhardt 2017), against 16.5% of people with major depressive disorder (Thornicroft 2017). These come from two different papers, and the substance figure covers alcohol and drugs together; we found no separate figure for alcohol.

Has it changed?

A 2004 review of 37 studies with fieldwork from 1980 to 2000 found the widest treatment gap for alcohol abuse and dependence: a median of 78.1% untreated, against 56.3% for major depression (Kohn 2004). Newer data still put alcohol use disorder at or near the bottom for getting help. In Australia, the median delay before first contact fell from 18 years in the 2007 survey (Chapman 2015) to 10 years in 2020–22 (two different surveys with close but not identical definitions), but the share expected to ever make contact also fell, to an estimated 25% from 34.6% in 2007, and was the lowest of all disorders; the authors, citing earlier work on the same survey, note that people who now meet the criteria have more severe disorders (Birrell 2025, Chapman 2015; the same two surveys, so the same caution applies). In Australia, people wait less, but fewer are expected to arrive. In the US, the share with alcohol use disorder who sought help in the past year barely moved: by the older DSM-IV definition, used to compare the years, 7.2% in 2001–02 and 8.1% in 2012–13 (Grant 2015; the 7.7% above uses the newer DSM-5 definition).

What does not fit

A review of surveys from nine countries in the Americas found a weighted treatment gap of 74.7% for substance use disorders against 66.7% for mood disorders and 63.9% for anxiety disorders (Kohn 2018). The difference between substances and mood disorders is smaller here than in the Australian survey, though the two measure different things, and alcohol is not shown separately from drugs. Where alcohol and drugs are separated, as in Australia and in the 25-country analysis, people with drug use disorders get help more often than people with alcohol use disorder, so a combined figure is likely to understate the gap for alcohol, but this review does not show it.

How this connects to our other findings

Our briefing "Most of the treatment gap for depression, anxiety and substance use opens before people seek help" showed that most people who go without care are lost before the first contact. Alcohol use disorder is the clearest case: in the Australian projection, three in four never make contact. That briefing reports that 24.0% of people with substance use disorders made a treatment visit; that figure covers alcohol and drugs together, over the past 12 months, in World Mental Health surveys. The 25% on this page is a different measure: alcohol use disorder alone, projected over a lifetime, in Australia. Our briefing on drinking and social networks looks at a different question, what is known about drinking spreading through networks and about treatment that changes a person's network; both are in the sources below.