The number of people dying in Northern Ireland from exclusively alcohol-related conditions has increased by 46 per cent in the past decade, according to new figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra).
In 2022 there were 356 registered alcohol-specific deaths in the North, the highest on record.
Tommy Canning, head of treatment at Northlands Addiction Treatment Centre in Derry, said it was an “incredible” figure. “That’s more than one person every day dying, that’s a crisis, and it seems to be just floating by us and we’re not taking cognisance of it.
“This is a huge health issue and people who are suffering from alcohol-related illnesses need support and treatment and help,” he said.
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An alcohol-specific death includes conditions known to be exclusively caused by alcohol and excludes those which may be only partially attributed to alcohol use.
The Nisra report noted a “general increase” in the number of such fatalities in Northern Ireland over the past 20 years, from 194 in 2002, 244 in 2012 to 356 in 2022.
In 2022, more than 70 per cent of such deaths were due to alcoholic liver diseases.
According to the report almost two-thirds of such fatalities were among men, and alcohol-specific deaths were most prevalent in the 45-54 and 55-64 age groups.
The highest rate of such deaths was in Belfast and Derry, and in the past five years there were over three times as many fatalities in the most deprived areas compared with the least deprived.
Mr Canning said the reasons behind the increase in alcohol addiction and dependency were “to do with availability, to do with cost, and to do with the culture that we have engendered around drinking and home drinking”.
“The availability of alcohol over the past 10 years has changed dramatically,” he said. “Most people don’t buy alcohol purely in pubs or clubs or restaurants or hotels any more, most of it is being bought in supermarkets and off licences for drinking at home, so that’s feeding into the rise in alcohol use and that is then feeding into the issues that are presenting.”
To tackle it, Mr Canning said, issues around alcohol dependency and addiction needed to be put “at the forefront, we need to stop letting it go under the radar”.
“We need to continue to raise this issue, put it out there... and we need to have better support and better services for people.
“If 356 people have died, you can guarantee there are swathes of people below that who are in trouble, so we need to be able to address that and help people.
“On cost and availability, there are issues around minimum unit pricing that have never been fully embraced in Northern Ireland, and so all those things need to be looked at if we’re going to seriously tackle this issue and turn the tide on this.
“The numbers are telling us that this is going to continue to increase unless we do more,” he said.
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