Understanding more about the impact of alcohol on our lives
Graeme recently visited the Tayside Council on Alcohol (TCA) to highlight Alcohol Awareness Week.
Alcohol Awareness Week is a chance for the UK to get thinking about drinking. It’s a week of awareness-raising, campaigning for change, and more. The theme for Alcohol Awareness Week 2023 is ‘Alcohol and cost’.
The cost-of-living crisis has played a key role in causing some people to drink more than they’d like to cope with worries around the crisis. But the cost of alcohol to individuals, our relationships, our families, and our stretched vital public services doesn’t have to be so high.
GRAEME
We can all take steps to make a change and I was glad to have the opportunity to meet with TCA to discuss how they are supporting people in Angus.
The harm caused by alcohol affects millions of people every year in the form of health problems, financial worries, relationship breakdown and family difficulties. It brings with it huge social costs too with the significant pressure it places on the NHS, the emergency services, police, and workplaces. The total social cost of alcohol to society is estimated to be at least £21 billion each year. We as individuals also spend tens of thousands of pounds on average on alcohol over the course of a lifetime.
But the personal costs are much starker with alcohol death rates increasing to the highest rate since records began since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and millions more people suffering from worsened mental and physical health every day as a result of harmful drinking.
Registered as a Charity in 1973, TCA grew from a grassroots desire to support individuals struggling to cope with problem drinking. Although the organisation has grown, and the range of services has expanded, they have remained true to this underpinning ethos of responding to the needs as expressed by the people and families living in communities across the three local authorities of Tayside.
Mr Dey visited TCA’s Arbroath location where he met with people supported by the organisation to discuss the services available in Angus.
We are really pleased to host this visit and thank Mr Dey for his interest in the work of TCA and for highlighting some of the challenges we face in responding to an upward trend in alcohol harms across Scotland.
KATHRYN BAKER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF TCA
We see the impact on this first-hand, not just with regard to an individuals own alcohol use, but the impact on families, children and of course the wider community.
