Alcohol Awareness Week

2015Data from the last year collected from the ‘Interesting Things About Alcohol and Other

Drugs’ slide sets

Most people (63%) in the UK recognise that alcohol can be a dangerous substance.

In your opinion, how dangerous is it for a person to use alcohol?

Source: YouGov - Fieldwork January 2015

UK drinkers are less likely to have one or two and more likely to have 10 or more drinks than their EU counterparts

Number of drinks on a usual drinking day

Highest levels in EU

Source: Special Eurobarometer 331: EU citizens’ attitudes towards alcohol

At some point during their lives half (46%) of homeless people have faced alcohol dependencySource: Nations apart? Experiences of single homeless people across Great Britain, Crisis (2014)

Percentage who indicated that they had experienced alcohol dependence, by age group

Alcohol dependence in male gang members in the UK is 11 times higher than amongst non-violent men

Independent Associations of Violence and Gang Membership With Alcohol Dependence

Source: Coid JW, Ullrich S, Keers R, et al. Gang membership, violence, and psychiatric morbidity. American Journal of Psychiatry. 2013;170(9):985-993.

Over half of adult prisoners were drunk when they committed offences in the last 12 months.

Offending in last 12 months and connection with alcohol use

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/needs-and-characteristics-of-young-adults-in-custody

One in five middle-aged or older people in the UK drink daily or almost daily.About the same proportion only drink on special occasions or never at all.

Alcohol intake frequency amongst a sample of over half a million 40-70 year olds in UK

Source: http://biobank.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/crystal/field.cgi?id=1558

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A comparison between UK, Northern European and Global use of alcohol. Source: Gowing, L. R., Ali, R. L., Allsop, S., Marsden, J., Turf, E. E., West, R., and Witton, J. (2015), Global statistics on addictive behaviours: 2014 status report. Addiction, 110, 904–919. doi:10.1111/add.12899.

In 2013/14, there were an estimated 1,059,210 admissions related to alcohol consumption where an alcohol-related disease, injury or condition was the primary reason for hospital admission or a secondary diagnosis.

Alcohol-related NHS hospital admissions in England, based on primary and secondary diagnoses in 2013/14

Source: Statistics on Alcohol, England, 2015 (HSCIC)

In the last decade there were 6,124 suicides in patients with a history of alcohol misuse, an average of 557 deaths per year

Number of mental health patients with a history of alcohol misuse who die by suicide

Source: National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness

One in five people know someone who drives over the limit.

Do you know anyone who drives over the limit nowadays?

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/think-drug-driving-evaluation-2015

About one in seven (15%) drinkers become dependent on alcohol at some point in their lives.The average duration for that dependence is 25 years.

Source: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/nsad.2015.32.issue-4/nsad-2015-0034/nsad-2015-0034.xml?format=INT

The number of on the spot fines for being drunk and disorderly has fallen by 50% since 2007

The use of Penalty Notices for Disorder (on the spot fines) in England and Wales for being drunk and disorderly

Source: Criminal justice system statistics quarterly: December 2014

47 thousand people were given a community treatment requirement (as an alternative to being sent to prison) for alcohol problems between 2005 and 2015

Community Order requirements for Alcohol Treatment in England and Wales

Source: Community sentences since 2000: How they work – and why they have not cut prisoner numbers