38% of families who organised a structured evidence-based intervention still could not persuade their loved one to enter treatment — this is the action-side failure rate drawn from CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) RCTs. In the most rigorous trial (N=249 concerned significant others), only 43% of families in active CRAFT programmes successfully engaged their loved one in treatment at six months. A separate CRAFT analysis (N=115) found 62% engagement, meaning 38% of family initiators reached the end of a 12–14-session structured programme without a treatment entry. Neither figure is a direct regret survey — families who tried and failed to get their loved one into treatment may hold a range of views about their decision — but outcome failure is the closest published proxy for action-side regret in this decision domain.
The inaction side carries a heavier documented burden. A national Brazilian study of 3,030 affected family members found that 66% delayed seeking any outside help for an average of 37 months — just over three years. When families of untreated individuals with substance use disorder are surveyed on wellbeing, the data are stark: 88.9% reported significant emotional adjustment difficulties and 51.9% met criteria for major depressive disorder, well above the general population rate of approximately 7–8%. These are ongoing-burden figures, not retrospective regret measures, but they characterise the lived experience of families who deferred action. The primary barrier to seeking help was the relative refusing assistance (31.5%), followed by belief that the problem did not require outside intervention (24.0%) — attitudes that often persist until a crisis forces the issue.
Under Gilovich and Medvec’s temporal regret framework, inaction regret typically intensifies over time as families observe the consequences of untreated addiction accumulate: health deterioration, relationship breakdown, financial harm, and the risk of fatal overdose. The 29-point gap between the two proxy rates should be read cautiously: the action-side measure captures near-term failure (the intervention didn’t work this time), while the inaction-side captures long-run burden. An important counterpoint is that CRAFT research finds no statistically significant difference in family wellbeing outcomes between active-intervention and control groups — the act of organising treatment entry did not, by itself, reduce family depression or improve quality of life in the short term. Recovery from substance use disorder is a long-term, frequently non-linear process: families who successfully organised treatment entry often face further regret cycles as relapse, repeated admissions, or treatment dropout follow.