Hospital alcohol treatment doubles in 10 years

Binge drinking has led to alcohol-related hospital admissions doubling in a decade. Doctors blame Britain’s excessive boozing on cheap supermarket deals and long licensing hours.

The latest NHS figures reveal:

- A staggering 207,788 people were taken to hospital with drink-linked injuries or illness in 2007-2007. That compares with 93,459 across all ages in 1995-1996.
- 9% were under the age of 18 and two in three were men.
- 14,668 have been admitted for liver problems in the past two years.
- 1,602 admitted for alcohol poisoning.
- 20% rise in GPs prescribing drugs for alcohol dependency.
- Drinkers are consuming even more – 11.4 units per week on average, the highest figure ever recorded.

“Alcohol is an anti-anxiety drug, so people may have cravings to drink to alleviate the stress they feel in everyday life,” says Dr Peter Rowan, a specialist from Cygnet Health Care, Britain’s leading provider of psychiatric care for patients with psychological, emotional and addiction problems.

While much debate has taken place recently about alcohol, according to Cygnet Health Care, Britain’s leading independent providers of psychiatric care, we have failed to draw out the reasons why so many people have troubled relationships with it. The reasons we drink and the consequences of excessive drinking are intimately linked with our mental health, and this holds the key to dealing with growing worries about alcohol misuse.

According to Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, says: “One of the least explored but most fundamentally important factors in the mental health of the general population is our use of alcohol. However, mental health is swept under the carpet while debate focuses on the physical consequences of alcohol misuse.”

Alcohol is tied up with many areas of our lives, and we use it in many ways: to help us relax, feel brave, introduce ourselves, seal business deals, celebrate life events, drown our sorrows, remember, forget, welcome people, say goodbye to people, get to know people, manipulate people, because we feel like it, because we need it, to numb ourselves, and sometimes, because we’ve forgotten how to do anything without alcohol.

Recent figures show that 38% of men and 16% of women are drinking above recommended limits and can be classed according to World Health Organisation standards as having an alcohol use disorder. This is equivalent to 8.2 million people in England alone. And 1.1 million people nationally are alcohol dependent.

Severe mental illness and alcohol

At the more severe end of the spectrum, the co-existence of alcohol problems, and mental ill-health is very common, and often referred to as ‘dual diagnosis’. The idea that people ‘self medicate’ their mental health problems using alcohol is also very well known and documented. The basic premises is that the psychopharmalogical properties of alcohol help individuals deal with negative effects of mental ill-health by altering the chemistry of the brain, which in turn counters the negative feelings. The prevalence of alcohol dependence among people with psychiatric disorders is almost twice as high in the general population. People with severe and enduring mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, are at least three times as likely to be alcohol dependent as the general population.