Many people are pleased with the Surgeon General for having shifted then perspective of addiction in his recent report (the first of its kind) on substance use disorder. Can we all learn how to think about addiction differently? We’re going to have to—the very life expectancy of the United States (while other developing countries are simultaneously improving their own mortality rates) has plummeted.

Viewing addiction as a medical condition, rather than a moral failing, is the first step to repackaging the concept of being an addict—viewing it as a disease that can happen to anybody, regardless of age, status, gender, or otherwise. With this concept established, hopefully, those wanting to help an addict should be able to view the addict’s situation objectively—and so should politicians, healthcare professionals, and employers, and anyone else that wants to extend a hand.

The startling statistic, “1 in 10 deaths among working adults are due to alcohol misuse” means that we’re nowhere near resolving our alcohol problem, especially since “[i]n 2015, 66.7 million people in the United States reported binge drinking in the past month and 27.1 million people were current users of illicit drugs or misused prescription drugs.”

But addiction is not merely inherited—it’s also determined by the environment you grew up in, whether you had access to drugs or not, especially at a young age. Your chances of becoming an addict are also associated with genetics and personality traits, and especially with any latent mental or physical illnesses.

It’s not unreasonable to assume that just about any given person can become an addict. Some might be slightly more predisposed than others, but ultimately, we all need to be educated about the prevalence of addiction, and take the measures necessary to make sure that the high mortality rates due to substance and alcohol abuse fall as precipitously as they’ve risen in recent years.