A problem forgotten

It's a problem that has been getting steadily worse over the last decade, lots of it has to do with the boom in heavy and hard drug use being seen as the 'main' substance misuse issue that our society has to deal with. 

I'm talking about alcohol and more directly about alcoholism, which doesn't seem to bother people anywhere near as much as drug use. To my thinking alcoholism, heroin addiction, even over the counter (OTC) medicine addiction are essentially one and the same in the way they affect the person in the end - addiction is alcoholism is addiction - Any one who just can't stop using a substance when the negative aspects out way the positive aspect of that use, is in big trouble - lies, deceit, denial and total emotional shutdown followed by increasing self-loathing is not far off! 

Another aspect of alcohol abuse that's causing chronic liver problems in people as young as their early twenty's is binge drinking, which has become a very popular pastime indeed. But there is a big difference between an alcoholic and a binge drinker. A friend of mine, Tom, once described this difference as -

"If a doctor tells a binge drinker that he will die within a year if he continues to drink, he will stop straight away. The alcoholic in the same situation, wouldn't be able to"

Why should alcoholics be treated any differently to addicts? Is it because treating them wouldn't bring a big crime rate dividend? 

The National Audit Office (NAO) has recently looked at what the NHS Primary Care Trusts (PCT) have been doing in the way of providing alcohol services. Primary Care Trusts are a very important part of the NHS, and they get about 80% of the total NHS budget. PCTs decide what health services a local community needs, and they are responsible for providing them. 

The NAO found that a quarter of PCTs had not carried out assessments of the problem locally, four in 10 did not have a strategy in place and a third did not know what they were spending on the problem.

Where evidence on investment was available, just £600,000 a year - or 0.1% of the budget - was spent on average.

The report said, because of the lack of co-ordination, the services were not providing value for money.

The NHS spends £2.7bn a year on alcohol abuse, treating ailments such as liver disease. Why not spend a bit more than the frankly laughable amount of £600,000 on trying to stop the problems getting this far along? There are lots of people out there that would respond to a brief intervention from their GP with some aftercare to follow up. Come on, the problems there, now do something about it.

Thank you to the BBC for the facts and figures