“We are facing a crisis of alcohol-specific deaths”

In December 2021, the UK government published From harm to hope: A 10-year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives. The strategy pledged to combat substance harms by not only addressing the issue at a criminal justice level, but also by investing in recovery, with £3 billion budgeted for the first three years of the programme. This was based on the Independent Reviews of Drugs led by Dame Carol Black and accepts all her key recommendations.

But while just 9.5% of people aged 16 to 59 reported using illegal substances in the year to March 2023, including just 3.3% reporting Class A drug use, 48% of those aged 16 and over reported drinking alcohol at least one per week in 2022. People also underestimate their alcohol intake by up to 40% due to a lack of awareness around what constitutes a unit, as well as of the potential risk factors. Despite this, the government have no cohesive strategy to reduce alcohol harms, which directly accounted for 10,048 deaths in 2022 – 32.8% higher than in 2019, following an increase in drinking during Covid-19 lockdowns.

Dr. Melissa Oldham is a senior research fellow within the UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group. Her work focuses on developing digital interventions for alcohol reduction.

“We recently conducted a large trial evaluating the effectiveness of the Drink Less app, which was developed by researchers at UCL, and we found that the Drink Less app seemed to help people who wanted to reduce their alcohol consumption in doing so,” she says.

“I think it’s a common perception that there is this binary distinction between ‘problem drinking’, which often people think of in very extreme terms and what people think of as low risk or ‘responsible’ drinking. But actually, national data from our Alcohol Toolkit Study shows that around a third of people in the UK drink at levels which increase their risk of experiencing alcohol-related harms and so there are lots of people in the UK who could benefit from reducing their alcohol consumption.

“The real aim of the app was to try to support people in making that attempt. It’s not about trying to say to people, ‘You should stop drinking altogether,’ if they don’t want to, but it will hopefully be helpful for people who maybe are drinking a little more than they want to, to reduce their drinking and reduce their harms as a result.”

Collecting data on alcohol use is challenging. This is partly a lack of public awareness over how much a unit constitutes and of the harms associated with even limited alcohol use, as well as alcohol consumption impacting people’s ability to record and recall information.

But another issue, Oldham adds, is that “some of the most vulnerable people aren’t captured in National surveys which are used to monitor trends in alcohol consumption. So people experiencing homelessness, for example, wouldn’t be included in our survey because it’s a household survey.”

Reaching people in need of support and reducing alcohol harm will require decisive action from the government. “In England, we are facing a crisis of alcohol-specific deaths,” says Oldham. “This spiked in 2020 and rose again in 2021 and 2022, which is the most recent year we have data for.

“There are policies that we know are effective in tackling alcohol related harm, such as minimum unit pricing, which has been quite successful in reducing harm in Scotland. Hopefully, we will soon see some decisive action from the government to reduce alcohol-related harms, prevent further excess deaths and ensure that people are getting the support that they need.”

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We are calling on the government to commit to developing – and properly funding – a national alcohol strategy that will focus on education and support, and that acknowledges the increased vulnerability of marginalised people. Please join us in our efforts by signing our petition, writing to your MP and sharing our #DyingForADrink campaign on social media.