Not Enough People Seeking Help For Heavy Drinking
According to Public Health Wales, over 8000 people died from alcohol related disease needlessly between 2005 to 2014. I say needlessly died because an alcohol treatment assessment was recorded for less than a quarter of those people. These deaths resulted after years of heavy drinking. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this report is that one third of these deaths were in people under 50 years old. Public Health Wales is calling on people to be more aware of their drinking and to take action when they recognise it is becoming a problem.
This is a problem which I see every day in my office, drinking is usually not the problem that people present with, but it is a by product of the issues that they are dealing with. Alcohol is a very easy to get self medication for people who are finding it difficult to deal with life’s challenges. One of the key problems is that it is considered to be socially acceptable to drink so often the person doing the drinking nor do the people around them see how the drinking is beginning to take a far greater hold over the person’s life.
I have said it many times, but to talk to someone, a professional, a friend a family member anyone is often a far better solution to dealing with life’s challenges than by using alcohol as a coping strategy. If you are suffering please go seek non judgemental help.
