In the general population, about 4-6% of the people have an addiction and 1-3% of the people have adult ADHD. However, of people in the general population with an addiction about 13-15% also have adult ADHD. Of all people seeking treatment for an addiction, 15-25% also have adult ADHD. Finally, of all youngsters with ADHD, 30-50% develops an addiction.

In the first part of this presentation, I will present what is known about the prevalence, aetiology and treatment of comorbid ADHD and substance use disorders, and in the second part I will summarise the little that is known about the comorbidity between ADHD and gambling and gaming disorders. In the final part of my presentation, I will discuss the directions for future research

About the speaker

Wim van den Brink, MD PhD

Amsterdam University Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Wim van den Brink (1952) received his medical degree in 1981 from the Free University in Amsterdam. After his training as a psychiatric epidemiologist in Groningen (1983-1986) and New York (1986-1987) he received his PhD degree from the State University of Groningen in 1989. Since 1992 he is full professor of Addiction Psychiatry at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam. In 2014 he received the lifetime achievement award for science from the Netherlands Association of Psychiatry and in 2015 he was granted the status of honourable member of the Spanish Society for Dual disorders.

In 2017 he received the European Addiction Research Award from the European Federation of Addiction Societies (EUFAS) and in 2020 he became a Doctor et Professor Honoris Causa at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. He is a (co)author of more than 600 international peer reviewed scientific papers (HIWoS=77; HIGoogle Scholar=107). He has been a thesis advisor of more than 75 PhD students. Until recently, he was an associate editor of Drug and Alcohol Dependence and chief editor of European Addiction Research. He has been the chair of the Workgroups that developed the Dutch Treatment Guidelines on Alcohol Use Disorders, Opiate Addiction and Drugs other than opioids. He is one of the founders and president of the International Collaboration of ADHD and Substance Abuse (ICASA). He was the chair of the Scientific Program Committee of European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP). His main scientific interests are related to the neurobiology of substance use disorders and behavioural addictions, the pharmacological treatment of substance use disorders and related comorbidities, and the reduction of stigma regarding patients with an addiction