No need for new laws, no need for alcohol price hikes but a big need to align efforts and resources…

But seriously tackling alcohol abuse has been claimed in Staffordshire, and countrywide, many times before without much real impact. 

And because of the enormous scope of my Department’s work it’s only the last couple of months that I’ve turned my focus to this issue. Nationally it costs billions, ruins lives and devastates families. In Staffordshire 1 in 40 people have a serious drink problem… dependent is the technical word.

It’s not, however, about being a killjoy. The vast majority of people have a drink, perhaps, at weekends or on the odd week night. They know when to stop and cause no harm.

The first problematical drinkers are those who go out on a Friday or Saturday night, get completely out of their heads and start being offensive or, worse still, violent. Sadly the exact thing that is commonplace outside pubs and clubs in the UK on any given night.

That anti social behaviour is dealt with by police, PCSOs, ambulance crews and business. In addition the Courts, criminal justice, the NHS, the reputation of town centres and insurance are all impacted. So incredibly costly to the public sector and the business economy.

Then there’s those who are dependent on alcohol… over 20,000 in Staffordshire. Costing the public purse a fortune in treatment, dependent drinkers are often unable to hold down a job, sometimes involved in domestic violence and get themselves ito a critical downward spiral. It impacts lives and also costs tax payers through Social Care, the NHS, police enforcement,  criminal justice and housing providers enormous sums of money.

And each of the elements of alcohol misuse and the responses to tackling it have historically been dealt with by different agencies in different ways in splendid isolation. That’s the major thing which needs to change and we also have to be brave and spend more of the current money available on getting people off alcohol dependancy once and for all instead of, as is done now, spending money on maintaining the status quo for people who abuse alcohol, and drugs, for that matter.

That’s nonsense in my view and we have to get people off the ‘treadmill’ which never ever makes overall progress and people back into a non-dependent state and then into a more normal life.

And that is entirely possible and practical. I’ve seen this approach working first hand with success rates of over 80%. It’s not about being soft, it’s about being pragmatic and intelligent. Yes, it’s investment up front but it gets ahead of the ‘game’ and steps back from conatant fire fighting which maintains the treadmill.

So, I’ve got meetings set up with the right people around the table from key strategic agencies and we now need to agree to point our efforts, approach and resources in the same direction. Very clear in my mind what we need to do, now just need it to happen.

We won’t by any stretch of the imagination get ahead of this problem anytime soon, but we can make up ground and eventually start to make clear progress. I’ll write again on this really important issue in due course.

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