Addiction is a Family Disease – UNITE to Face Addiction
You’ve likely heard some of the statistics:
- 23+ million Americans struggle with addiction but only 10% get the help they need
- 23+ million Americans are in recovery from their addiction to alcohol or other drugs
- 100 million family members are affected by a loved one’s substance use disorder, namely their drinking or drugging behaviors.
- These drinking or drugging behaviors are the unintentional behaviors (e.g., lying, cheating, stealing, verbal/physical/emotional abuse, neglect) they exhibit when the chemicals in alcohol and other drugs and/or the characteristics of or the risk factors for developing the brain disease of addiction and/or the very nature of the brain disease of addiction once developed change how a loved one’s brain works (meaning how cells “talk” to one another, aka electrol-chemical signaling process, aka neurotransmission, aka neural networks). When a person’s brain’s cell-to-cell communication processes change, their thoughts and behaviors change because the brain controls everything a person thinks, feels, says and does.
- These 100 million Americas are the moms, dads, brothers, sisters, children, grandparents, husbands, wives, inlaws, boyfriends, girlfriends, close friends…, aka the people who struggle with Secondhand Drinking | Secondhand Drugging.
Together, that’s over 146 million Americans – that’s more than one-third the American population! And WE are UNITEing to FACE ADDICTION on Octber 4, 2015, to:
- stand up for recovery
- stand up for those affected by secondhand drinking | secondhand drugging
- stand up for those still struggling with their disease
- end OUR silence.
Addiction is a Family Disease – Families UNITE to Face Addiction 10.4.15
Get the Facts, Plan to Attend, Become a Partner and Share Why You’re Going
Find out what this event is about, who’s going, who’s partnering, how to get there and so much more by clicking here for UNITE to Change Addiction FAQs.
Plan to attend. I realize we are all so very busy and often personal finances are low, but if there’s any way you can gather one or two friends to split the costs (don’t forget air miles 🙂 ), please plan to be there. And, if you can’t, please do what you can to share the message with your social media contacts, doctors, mental health care professionals, teachers, administrators and whomever else you can think of who needs to know that recovery is real, it happens to real people and it happens all the time!
This is OUR opportunity to unite those in recovery, those who struggle with substance use disorders and those who love them to end the silence, and when we end the silence, we end the stigma, secrecy, misinformation and shame that allows this public health concern – this brain disease – to march through lives unchecked. And when we end the silence, we change the conversations and that’s how we can break the cycles.
And if you plan to go – share why you’re going.
Lisa Frederiksen shares her reason for going to DC to join the UNITE to Change Addiction now rally on 10.4.15
Here’s why I’m going, and here’s the link to the reasons shared by others.
And if your organzation wants to Partner with UNITE to Face Addiction, click on this link, Become a Partner Organization, to learn more (when you’re there, scroll down a ways — you’ll see BreakingTheCycles.com is now a partner!).
Bottom line: Addiction is a Family Disease, so please, do what you can to join the cause and UNITE to Face Addiction
Lisa Frederiksen
Latest posts by Lisa Frederiksen (see all)
- Does a Loved One Have to Hit Bottom? - November 20, 2022
- Resources for Parents of Children with Substance Use and Mental Disorders - October 18, 2022
- 4 Things to Support Brain Health and Function for Recovery - August 30, 2022
Thank you for sharing this information about Unite to Face Addiction. It is such an amazing project. The more people we can get involved to participate, the better for all!
I so agree – thanks for helping to spread the word :)!