For many young people today, support for people who use drugs often begins not with intervention from a doctor or treatment service, but with a podcast, a TikTok creator, or an online recovery community.
In England, 14,352 children and young people (aged 17 and younger) accessed substance use treatment in 2023/24, a 16% increase on the previous year, although still significantly below levels seen in the late 2000s, according to the latest young people’s treatment statistics.
Young people often remain unaware of the existence of free-at-the-point-of-use drug and alcohol services in their area and instead go seeking answers online about their substance use in the digital sphere. The question is: can drug and alcohol services adapt to this widening ecosystem of recovery content?
When and where to find help
Young people do not always identify with having a substance use problem in the first place. Youthful experimentation and weekend binges are considered relatively normal, leaving many feeling that they simply are not “bad enough” to need support. Yet for some, particularly those who have experienced adverse childhood experiences and trauma, this can spiral into self-medication and destructive forms of escapism.
In 2023, around one in five children and young people aged 8 to 25 were categorised as likely to have a mental health condition. Combined with long waiting lists and high thresholds for mental health support, many young people are left without appropriate support before professional help becomes available.
A young woman I spoke to, D, had struggled with weekend bingeing turning into “benders”.
“I wish I could have accessed a service for people who were definitely having issues with drinking/substances but not in the way that it was an everyday issue.”
Her experience speaks to the normalisation of “sesh culture” in the UK, where harmful use can be hidden within wider social and cultural norms. It also highlights how some young people fall into the gap between prevention and specialist treatment. Additionally, young people are commonly using different substances from those presenting in older treatment populations.
D raised another important point. Because she did not identify with the need for drugs or alcohol every day, she sought support and guidance from the digital world, notably podcasts: “I listened to a lot of sober podcasts… so that I felt like I wasn’t alone.”
Recovery platforms
Her experience reflects the rise of recovery podcasts, such as Hannah Viney’s Class A People. These platforms use personal storytelling to destigmatise substance use and can reduce listener isolation. Jamy, a Resilience Worker in 1625 Derbyshire, a drug and alcohol service for children and young people, explained, “We might be one of the only people in their lives who are not telling them that what they’re doing is wrong.”
Similar trends have emerged on TikTok, where creators such as Lukey Storey and Ryan in Recovery have built large audiences by speaking candidly about addiction and recovery. Ryan launched The Deep End, an online recovery platform that offers access to offline group meetings, yoga and meditation sessions as well as online access to a private Discord community.
The popularity of platforms like The Deep End raises an important question: why are people willing to pay for these kinds of services promoted digitally when treatment services are often available free of charge through local healthcare and support groups?
Different youth treatment needs
The answer is unlikely to be that treatment services are ineffective. Rather, these platforms often offer accessible community, convenience, anonymity and connection with others who share similar experiences. Young people are not only wanting anonymity but also support that resonates with their life experiences, subcultures and age group.
UK drug and alcohol treatment services were historically built around and shaped for people with long-term heroin dependence, with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence reporting that most people in contact with drug-treatment services in England in 2004/05 were opioid-dependent. Presently, this cohort still makes up a large portion of the treatment population, with the largest age group receiving opiate treatment being 40-44 years old.
Fewer than one in ten people in opiate treatment are under 30. In contrast, younger adults are increasingly appearing in services when using drugs like ketamine, cocaine and alcohol. While Ketamine use has increased across the board, use among young people has seen the sharpest increase: among 16-24 year-olds, it increased by 231% between 2013 and 2024 in England and Wales).
This means that recovery support that feels meaningful to a 45-year-old experiencing long-term opioid dependency may not automatically feel relevant to a 22-year-old navigating nightlife culture, social media, school or university life or early career pressures.
Another young person, S, had accessed support for ketamine use through a treatment provider: “I was receiving one-to-one support for four months. Groups were never an option for me. I work in the homeless sector, therefore there would likely be individuals who I work with attending the groups.”
This highlights a reality often overlooked within treatment services: group work doesn’t work for everyone. Concerns around confidentiality, stigma, social anxiety or professional boundaries mean group settings can be unappealing or potentially even unsafe; for example, those who have experienced domestic abuse or intimate partner violence may risk sharing a space with perpetrators.
Despite this, research increasingly supports the value of peer support in recovery: a 2025 systematic review of peer recovery support services involving more than 12,000 participants found that peer support can improve treatment engagement and retention among people experiencing substance use disorders.
Keeping up with the times
Drug treatment services are also not standing still; some are making active efforts to keep up with the changing recovery landscape.
Jamy described that their working model is built around flexibility and accessibility: “We meet people where they’re at,” they explained. “Some young people will be thinking, ‘Can I afford public transport?’ We have people in rural areas. We’ll drive to people’s homes, meet them in the community or see them at schools.”
Treatment providers have also increasingly experimented with partnerships, podcasts and digital outreach. Turning Point teamed up with Hannah Viney to sponsor her Class A podcast, while Change Grow Live launched its own podcast, Believe in People. Beyond this, people with lived experience are building their own recovery platforms and audiences, becoming informal peer-support figures in their own right. Viney, for example, has used TikTok and her Class A People podcast to share her experience of cocaine addiction and recovery, challenge stigma and connect with others experiencing similar difficulties. Her TikTok content reportedly attracted 30,000 followers and 10 million views within three months, while she received around 50 private messages a day from people seeking advice about their own drug use.
Here, there’s a growing potential to help bridge the gap between treatment services and the ever-growing digital spaces where young people are active. However, meaningful digital engagement requires investment and strategy, and despite an injection of funding post the 2021 Dame Carol Black review, budgets remain tight and resources overstretched.
Services need to connect with this growing ecosystem of recovery content so that young people know that in-person support exists. At the same time, they must also ensure that once young people arrive, support is in the best place possible to foster engagement and is appropriate to their needs.
This doesn’t mean young people and older adults can’t recover alongside one another. Intergenerational recovery spaces can be hugely powerful. However, a service attempting to tailor care to both a 22-year-old concerned with their ketamine use and a 45-year-old experiencing long-term opioid dependence faces a genuine challenge, highlighted in this 2026 research report, which states, “young adults (aged 18-25) have been particularly neglected in existing service provision and referral figures suggest that adult treatment services may be inappropriate in meeting young adult needs in England.”
The solution is not separate systems for everybody, but instead a system with wider choices and greater youth involvement in service design. Organisations such as Youth RISE, a global organisation advocating for youth impacted by drugs, have long argued that young people should be involved in shaping the policies and services intended for them.
“Young people are best placed to reach and engage their peers. Creating opportunities for them to lead peer programmes, contribute to advisory boards and shape services helps ensure support is both visible and accessible. Further than this, it’s about preparing young people for these roles,” Ruby Lawlor, Youth RISE’s Executive Director, told TalkingDrugs.
“Simple steps such as using clear language and sharing agendas in advance can make a significant difference.”
Recovery podcasts, TikTok creators and online communities cannot replace specialist treatment, safeguarding or evidence-based interventions. Yet despite lower numbers of young people in treatment than in the early 2000s, young people are not rejecting support. They are actively seeking it through online media, peer networks and digital communities. Drug and alcohol services remain an essential part of the recovery landscape, providing expertise, safeguarding and clinical support that digital platforms cannot replicate.
But if services are serious about improving access for younger generations, they must do more than simply exist. They must be visible, relevant and designed in partnership with the young people they hope to reach.
