How we check
How we check what we publish
The rules the editors follow for sources, dates, uncertainty and corrections, so a reader can judge how far to trust any page.
Health information about drugs and alcohol is full of confident claims that do not survive a look at the source. This page sets out the rules the editors use to avoid adding to that pile, and what a reader can expect from every page of the library.
Where facts come from
Every number, date, name and statement of effectiveness in the library comes from a page the editors opened and read. Preference goes to national health and research agencies (for example the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, SAMHSA and the NHS), professional bodies and peer-reviewed reviews, including Cochrane reviews. Each page lists its sources at the end with a note on what each was used for. Statements the editors could not trace to an opened source were left out rather than softened.
How uncertainty is handled
Therapies differ a great deal in how well they have been studied. The pages say plainly when a review reports limited, mixed or low-quality evidence, and they avoid language such as "proven" for anything a review does not describe that way. Informal phrases that circulate widely, such as the "3 Ps" or lists of "five skills", are explained as informal framings with no official list behind them, and the pages show which published ideas they are tied to.
Dates and change
Guidance changes. Each page shows the date it was last updated, and where a fact depends on a particular guideline the page names the publisher. The library was last checked on 11 October 2026. Pages that describe services, such as the overview of public mental health services in one city, can go out of date faster than pages about how a therapy works, and readers should confirm current details with the official source listed.
What the pages do not do
The library does not give personal advice, diagnoses, doses, tapering schedules or instructions to start or stop any treatment. It does not rank or recommend providers, and it carries no advertising. Medical claims are written to describe what public bodies and published reviews report, with the reminder that a qualified clinician decides what fits a person.
Language
Pages use person-first, non-stigmatizing wording, following the approach public health agencies recommend: a person with a substance use disorder, not labels that define a person by a condition. A few page addresses, kept stable so that older links still work, contain older wording; the headlines and text do not.
Corrections
If a page contains an error, a broken source or something out of date, tell the editors through the contact page. Confirmed errors are corrected on the page and the update date changes. The editors cannot answer personal medical questions or help in an emergency.