The abusive use of legal and illegal drugs has been the focus of a great world worry, being considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a chronicle and recurrent disease, with serious personal and social consequences. This qualitative nature research aimed to study the social representation about the drugs, which were elaborated by 37 chemical dependent relatives (alcohol and crack). Individual interviews were done, with semi-structured script; data were analyzed by the software ALCESTE. The results indicated that these relatives represented the drugs as something harmful, which harms the family relationships, being responsible for conflicts and family disharmony. According to these representation, drugs lead to emotional overload and stress states, highlighted by behavioral changes and finantial questions, due to the aggravation of the dependence and to the frequent hospitalizations. The absence of drugs was pointed as one of the forms of reaching the quality of life of the relatives.
Drugs; social representation; family
