I’m a fact-checker for Guideposts magazine, and I’m trying to figure out how many families in the U.S. have someone with a substance abuse disorder. A Wikipedia page on alcoholism in families quotes your book Uppers, Downers, All-Arounders and says, “About one-fourth of the U.S. population is a member of family that is affected by an addictive disorder in a first-degree relative.” Is that accurate? If so, where did the data come from? Any information you have would be very much appreciated.
Answer:
How Wikipedia cited our data is not surprisingly a little different than how we stated the connection of U.S. alcoholism and family members are stated in our book. But first note that what is stated in our book is merely a projection based upon a lot of different data and there are differences between point prevalence, annual prevalence and life-time prevalence for any chronic persistent medical disorders.
What is stated in our current 8th Edition of Uppers, Downers, All Arounders is:
About half of American adults had (annual U.S. prevalence) a close family member who is a practicing or a recovering alcoholic.
[Chapter 5, page 5.2]
We projected this from the following sources:
5-1. SAMHSA. (2013). Results from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2k9NSDUH/tabs/TOC.htm (accessed January 1, 2014).
5-2. WHO. (2011). Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health. http://www.who. int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/msbgsruprofiles.pdf (accessed December 17, 2013).
5-3. CDC. (2013). Alcohol Use: Fast Stats. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol. htm (accessed February 25, 2014).
5-4. Dawson, D. A. and Grant, B. F. (1998). Family history of alcoholism and gender. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 59(1), 97-106.
5-5. Harwood, H., et al. (2000). Updating Estimates of the Economic Costs of Alcohol Abuse in the United States. Report prepared by the Lexin Group for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/ publications/economic-2000 (accessed December 17, 2013).
5-6. Monitoring the Future. (2013). http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/ data/13data.html#2013data-drugs (accessed December 20, 2013). 5-7. Nelson, T. F., Naimi, T. S., Brewer, R. D., et al. (2005). The state sets the rate: The relationship of college binge drinking to state binge drinking rates and selected state alcohol control policies. American Journal of Public Health, 95(3), 441-46.
5-8. NIAAA. (2000). 10th Special Report to the U.S. Congress on Alcohol and Health. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/10report/intro.pdf (accessed March 15, 2014).
5-9. Face the Facts. (2013). Americans and Alcohol: Spending More, Drinking Less. http://www.facethefactsusa.org/facts/americans-and-alcohol-spending-moredrinking-less (accessed January 25, 2014).
5-10. CDC. (2011). CDC Reports Excessive Alcohol Consumption Cost the U.S. $224 Billion. http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2011/p1017_alcohol_ consumption.html (accessed February 25, 2014).