No matter who we are or where we come from, we all know at least one person with a substance abuse problem. It can be alcohol, street drugs, or even prescription drugs — which we’re seeing with the spike in opioid addictions and deaths in the last 5 years. The latest numbers from drugabuse-dot-gov say, more than 23 million Americans suffered addiction to alcohol, marijuana, or prescription drugs in 2017.

But we also know from those same government statistics, that only 2-1/2 million people are getting proper treatment for those addictions. That’s quite a gap. Our guest on the BrandBuilders Podcast today is one person in Charlotte doing something about that: Ward Blanchard founded the Blanchard Institute Substance Abuse Treatment Center in Charlotte and is here to give us some insight into his center’s important work.