Alcohol Awareness Week is a week of awareness-raising, campaigning for change, and more. This year’s Alcohol Awareness Week takes place from 3-9 July 2023 and is coordinated by Alcohol Change UK. Each year, over 5,000 public health teams, workplaces, GP surgeries, pharmacies, hospitals, charities and other community groups across the country sign up to take part
In this article Dan Sparkes, Substance Misuse Support Worker provides an overview of some of the challenges facing public health services
Historically alcohol has, and continues to, play an important role in social engagement and bonding for many. Social drinking or moderate alcohol consumption for many is pleasurable. However, alcohol consumption – especially in excess – is linked to a number of negative outcomes such as
- being a risk factor for diseases and health impacts
- crime
- road incidents
- and for some, alcohol dependence.
Globally alcohol consumption causes 2.8 million premature deaths per year (Our World Data, 2019).
In the UK alcohol was registered as being the cause of, or related to 9,641 deaths in 2021. Opiate related deaths for the same period were 2,219. Although these figures may not seem that high the reality is those figures are probably much worse, considering the secondary physical and mental health issues it can cause.
The 2021 census highlighted that the related death figures were the highest on record and 27.4% higher than pre-pandemic levels (2019). The report states “Alcohol-specific deaths have risen sharply since the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, with alcohol liver disease the leading cause of these deaths”. This rise is likely to be the result of increased alcohol consumption during the pandemic. Other Research has suggested that people who were already drinking at higher levels before the pandemic were the most likely to have increased their alcohol consumption during this period.
But is COVID purely to blame? For context alcohol related deaths were quite stable between 2012-2019. The Majority of us found the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns difficult experiencing long periods of isolation which affected our mental health and wellbeing. While figures show alcohol sales were down in 2020 this is in part due to pubs, bars and restaurants being closed while online/ home deliveries increased. Ultimately the most vulnerable were negatively affected which invariably is always the case.
When The Guardian published an article in May 2023 titled ‘Tories’ failure to tackle alcohol harm is causing public health crisis, say MPs’ this did not come as a surprise to those of us who have been working in substance misuse services over the last decade. We have seen funding for services consistently cut and heard promises of action being broken on an equally consistent basis. There is a real shortage of rehabilitations centres, especially locally – which saw places like Focus12 in Bury St Edmunds close in 2018, after being open for 21 years.
It’s been 11 years since there was last an alcohol strategy from the UK government but in the foreword for that document it opens “Binge drinking isn’t some fringe issue, it accounts for half of all alcohol consumed in this country. The crime and violence it causes drains resources in our hospitals, generates mayhem on our streets and spreads fear in our communities. My message is simple. We can’t go on like this. We have to tackle the scourge of violence caused by binge drinking. And we have to do it now – David Cameron (2012).”
Problem drinking is reported to be costing the NHS 25bn a year, but even that figure may not reflect the true scale of harm being done. A staggering 82% of the 600,000 dependent drinkers in England are not in treatment, and this is despite success rates of 60%. Evidence suggests that on average every £1 spent on treatment immediately delivers £3 of benefit and significantly more in the longer term.
So to summarise, when people enter treatment and successfully complete it we are seeing the benefits on the wider society and ultimately upon the NHS.
