Follow-up of 97 young non-psychotic male opiate abusers: relationship between achieving abstinence, age, and duration of abuse.

Ninety-seven young non-psychotic men with intravenous opiate abuse, who had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, were seen at follow-up 3 years after admission. All were traced. At follow-up, 19% were abstinent, 9% had died, whereas the remainder were still addicted. Those who had become abstinent had done so around the age of 20 and/or before they had been addicted to opiate for 3-4 years, almost regardless of the time at which their total drug abuse had started.