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August 28, 2008
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Recovery Advocacy Toolkit: Making Our Voices Count
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USA Today/HBO Family Drug Addiction Survey
New public opinion research of people who have immediate family members with current or past drug or alcohol addiction. In a USA Today/HBO Family Drug Addiction survey of 902 adults, the Gallup Poll found in April and May 2006 that the vast majority (76%) of people who have an immediate family member with an addiction believe that addiction is a disease and that it has both physical and psychological origins. The family members are also very positive about the possibilities of their immediate family members making a complete and permanent recovery (75%) with about one-half of those surveyed believing that complete recovery is possible only if the addict gets professional help.
Yet, according to the survey, the major factors that family members’ attributed their loved ones’ addictions to were lack of willpower (55% major factor; 16% not a factor), the ease of obtaining drugs or alcohol (54% major factor, 19% not a factor), and psychological illnesses such as depression or anxiety (50% major factor, 20% not a factor).
According to the survey roughly one in five Americans, or twenty percent of Americans, have an immediate family member (father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, or spouse) addicted to drugs or alcohol.
For recovery advocates, these USA Today/HBO Family Drug Addiction survey findings are very important because they demonstrate once again that even with family members who say overwhelming that they believe that addiction is a disease and who are very positive and hopeful about the possibility of their family member achieving long-term recovery, lack of willpower is the strongest-held belief about why they have addiction to alcohol and other drugs.
The complete articles Addicts’ Family Members Say Lack of Willpower Top Addiction Factor and Americans with Addiction in their Family Believe It is a Disease can be found at the Gallup Poll web site.