Alcohol Awareness Week, which starts today, is more important than ever as new ONS data for 2024 shows that alcohol-specific deaths in Greater Manchester are 30% higher than the national average.
The Greater Manchester area is one of the parts of England with the highest rates of alcohol-specific deaths.
Alcohol-specific deaths have improved slightly after peaking last year but remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Dr Richard Piper, Alcohol Change UK CEO, said: “Every death from alcohol is a preventable tragedy. Behind these figures are real families.
“A drop in alcohol-specific deaths nationally is good news but must not lull any of us, including the Government, into a false sense of security about alcohol harm in the UK.
“Deaths are still much higher than pre-pandemic levels and not falling fast enough. And these figures exclude the tens of thousands more deaths where alcohol plays a role, or the millions of us whose lives are affected by the wider toll alcohol has on our health, wellbeing and quality of life.
“While the Government has ambitious national plans to tackle issues like smoking and cancer, it’s falling short on meaningful policies to prevent alcohol harm. This needs to change.”
This year’s Alcohol Awareness Week campaign by Alcohol Change UK is centred around the theme of “Alcohol and me” and invites people to reflect on how alcohol could be impacting our lives and what we could do about it.
Kim, Alcoholics Anonymous member for nearly two decades, shared her journey towards sobriety after starting to drink at the age of 17.
“My parents and my stepmother were all three alcoholics and all three died of this illness.
“And that was not the person I was going to be, that was not the mother I was going to be.
“I was going to be this ‘little earth mother baking cookies with the kids’ type of mother. But that’s not the person I turned out to be.”
Kim described how she was initially getting drunk only on occasions but ended up drinking excessively every day.
“I thought I was okay because I was functioning.
“At least from the outside it looked like I was functioning because I had everything – I had a house, a car, a nice job, three beautiful children.
“And yet inside I was dying. What I didn’t realise was that I was using alcohol as a solution to my problems, but alcohol itself became a problem.”
Kim went to her first AA meeting at the age of 49 after many unsuccessful years of attempting to quit drinking on her own.
She has not had a drink since her first AA meeting.
“From the first meeting, I got a sense of hope. I was told to keep coming back, so I did. And I carried on coming back.”
Kim highlighted the importance of seeking help and support, which is also echoed by many campaigners and is a key domain Dr Will Haydock, Chief Executive at Collective Voice, calls on the government to address.
Dr Haydock said: “We haven’t had an alcohol-specific strategy in England since 2012. That’s 14 years, which is a long time to go without clear political leadership and strategic direction.
“We did have a drug strategy in 2021 that in terms of treatment included alcohol – so we have been able to improve our offer as a result of that strategy and the funding that came with it.
“We’re seeing more people in alcohol treatment than ever before, which is great.”
However, Dr Haydock said that while the drug strategy outlined a five-year plan to annually increase funding to treatment services to match pre-austerity levels, this strategy has not been signed off by the new government and funding has since remained at the level of the third incremental rise.
Dr Haydock said: “In that time we’ve had significant inflation and other cost increases, so we haven’t necessarily got the resource to do everything we would like to do.
“We’re calling on the government to publish its own strategy on alcohol and other drugs.”
Data from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities shows that while the number of people in alcohol treatment has increased over the past five years, the number of people leaving without completing treatment has also been increasing, something analysed in more detail in a recent Nuffield Trust report.
“Another reason why we need strategy leadership is because the issue isn’t just about treatment services,” said Dr Haydock.
While the amount of alcohol being consumed in England has generally been reducing, the patterns in which people are drinking have changed since the pandemic, with people who were drinking lower amount reducing their drinking, but people who were drinking higher amounts increasing their drinking.
“We also know that there are other factors which can be multiplicative in that they increase the impact of the alcohol on people’s health – for example if you have other health conditions,’ said Dr Haydock.
“This is why we often find that death rates related to alcohol are higher where there’s deprivation, where there could be factors like reduced access to physical activity or green spaces, and where diet can also be a factor.”
ONS data shows that the number of alcohol-specific deaths increases steeply with increasing levels of deprivation.
In 2024, there were nearly four times more people dying from the most deprived fifth of the population, called a quintile, compared to those in the least deprived quintile in the UK.
This is a pattern that has not changed for at least a decade.
This is despite people from the most deprived quintile drinking generally less than their counterparts from less deprived quintiles.
According to data from the Health Survey for England, in 2024 there were more than twice as many non-drinkers in the most deprived quintile compared to the least deprived, as well as only 14% of people engaging in high-risk drinking compared to 23% in the least deprived quintile.
These factors are likely to be at play in Greater Manchester, where all boroughs except for Trafford show a death rate higher than the national average, but there is considerable variation in numbers – with as many as 23 alcohol-specific deaths per 100k people in Rochdale.
“It’s really important that different organisations work on addressing these disparities together,” said Dr Haydock.
Dr Haydock also talked about the importance of a policy that can lead to behaviour change when it comes to alcohol use.
“Alcohol is much more affordable and available than it was 30 years ago.
“We’ve had changes to licensing laws and far more shops stocking alcohol around the clock, and we have online deliveries straight to people’s homes, making it easier than ever before to get hold of alcohol.
“The more accessible alcohol is, the harder it is to say no and change your behaviour.”
Alcohol Awareness Week is a chance to pause and reflect on the role alcohol is playing in our lives and consider if we’d like to make any changes.
Kim said: “I’ve had so many good experiences since I’ve been sober and done things I’d never dreamed I would do.
“And I can do anything in my life today. The only thing I can’t do today is pick up a drink of alcohol, and in return for that, I get a life beyond my wildest dreams.
“And seeing the ripple effect on my friends and family’s lives is amazing.
“My children put their heads on their pillow at night, worry-free because they’re not worrying about me drinking.
“AA has saved my life and lots of people’s lives, and I would urge people to give it a go.”
If you are worried about your drinking or someone else’s drinking, you can find support services on the NHS website as well as Alcohol Change UK.
Alcoholics Anonymous has a free helpline open 24/7 on 0800 9177 650 as well as a live chat service on their website.
Feature image credit: Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash
Join the discussion