Kate: Nobody is immune from addiction
‘It gets better and help is there’
ADDICTION is ‘not a choice’, Kate Middleton warned yesterday, as she discussed with TV presenter Ant McPartlin his own struggle with painkiller abuse.
In a hard-hitting speech, Kate said no one was immune from addiction, and spoke of the ‘devastating impact’ of the Covid19 pandemic on abuse rates.
The duchess, 39, was launching a campaign called Taking Action On Addiction that aims to improve awareness and understanding of the problem. She talked to McPartpeople lin and his presenting partner Declan Donnelly about how many addicts struggle to ask for help.
McPartlin, 45, who went to a rehab clinic after a two-year addiction to painkillers following a 2015 knee operation, told her: ‘By the time I asked for help, it was bad. But as soon as you opened up to people... the problems start to disappear... It gets better and help is there.’
Kate, who wore a €1,000 scarlet pleated skirt by Christopher Kane and matching €266 Ralph Lauren jumper, said she wanted to help to deal with problems before they reach a crisis point.
In her speech, she said: ‘Addiction is not a choice. No one chooses to become an addict. But it can happen to any one of us.’
Kate, patron of the Forward Trust charity, said 1.5million people in the UK who had alcohol problems during lockdowns had no previous record of abuse. And almost a million children and young people in Britain had shown an increase in addictive behaviour. She added: ‘The pandemic has had a devastating impact on addiction rates. And families and children are having to cope with addiction in greater numbers than ever before.’
Kate met beneficiaries of the Forward Trust, as well as exaddicts. She said society needed to show ‘compassion and empathy’ for those struggling, but that there was a genuine hope of recovery.
She herself had met ‘many incredible people who have lived through the harsh realities of addiction’.