Drink and the modern girl

Natalie's mother noticed how much her daughter was drinking at Christmas. So they had 'the talk'. Which is how Natalie found herself one of thousands ringing a national helpline.

When Natalie went home for Christmas, her parents were delighted to see her. Visits were becoming less frequent after the 26-year-old had moved to London two and a half years ago to pursue a career as a public relations executive. But the holiday did not go as planned.

Natalie had been drinking heavily at family meals and staying out until the early hours. Her worried parents finally decided to act. Natalie later called it "the talk".

She said "It was a wake-up call. My mum is a nurse and she spends a lot of her time treating people with alcohol-related liver damage. She told me they had both worried for a long time that I was in danger of becoming an alcoholic."

The following morning Natalie reached for the phone and dialled for help. She was not alone. After years of binge drinking, Britain's female twenty- and thirtysomethings are starting to pay the physical and psycological price.

The availability of cheap drink, high disposable income and greater financial independence all mean record numbers of worried women are getting in touch with helplines and talking to counsellors.

And Britain's growing army of drinkers is not simply giving up alcohol temporarily to give their battered livers a break. They are taking the pledge never to drink again. The calls last week flooded into Drinkwise, the government agency set up to deal with problem drinkers.

This year has seen record numbers of drinkers picking up the phone. The helpline, established in 1993, with offices around the country, had an unprecedented jump in calls over the past year with a 66 per cent rise in enquiries over Christmas.

According to a spokesman for the group, callers were especially concerned about drinking over Christmas, and were eager to turn their lives around.

The growing problem was echoed by other groups around the country. Phone lines at the Samaritans were also ringing off the hook. A spokesman said yesterday: "We get a big increase in calls over Christmas and of course alcohol is part of that. It's a hard time when people are having to face up to the prospect for the year ahead. The new year can seem a very bleak place, especially for alcoholics.

The Priory, the UK's leading provider of private mental health care and alcohol rehabilitation, says high-profile alcoholics in the media have led to a growing acceptance among women that alcohol problems can at last be discussed.

Karen Croft, spokeswoman for the group, said: "What we hope is that the climate is finally changing and that 2006 is going to be the year that people feel comfortable acknowledging that they have a mental health problem such as alcohol and they can finally feel confident in stating that they need that help."

Media coverage of the problems of the former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has made it easier for women to talk, says Richard Kramer, director of policy at the alcohol charity Turning Point, an educational group dealing with addiction. He said: "The media coverage has been sympathetic to Mr Kennedy. His comments about seeking professional help for alcoholism helped to remove the stigma and shame associated with alcohol problems. It has helped draw attention to the extent of the problem in this country."

Mr Kennedy is not the only high-profile alcoholic in the news. Professor Nigel Williamson, George Best's former physician, is in no doubt that coverage of his client has been a major factor in a new openness towards alcoholism: "I'm not at all surprised at the big increase in women asking for help now. After George Best died I had many, many letters from people around the country with alcohol problems who felt able to suddenly talk about it. They had somebody to write to who was obviously concerned about the whole issue. It wasn't just men. Many of those were women as well. The situation, if anything, is more critical for women with alcohol problems because their biology is different."

As well a having a different biological makeup, social pressures are adding to the medical problems women face. Karen Croft of the Priory believes pressures on women have never been greater. She said: "Women are bombarded with messages that they have to succeed with every aspect of their lives. They feel they have to be beautiful, slim, eat healthily, have great careers, have wonderful relationships and raise perfect children. When you have the media bombarding women with these images it creates a climate in which women find it very difficult to admit to themselves 'I'm not perfect and I need help'."

Medical experts warn that more women will face problems. A spokesman for the Royal College of Physicians said: "Overwhelming evidence suggests that women suffer harm from alcohol at lower levels of consumption than men. Even allowing for differences in body weight, a woman will attain a higher blood alcohol concentration than a man from the same amount of alcohol. This may be because women have lower levels of alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), an enzyme involved in the metabolism of alcohol."

And according to the spokesman, the medical profession faces an uphill battle: "Alcohol advertising is now targeted at women. Cultural attitudes favouring drinking and heavy drinking are in glossy magazines and on TV and receive frequent celebrity endorsement."

A European medical report warned last year that European alcohol consumption was likely to double in the next five years, with female Britons topping the league. A spokesman for the Institute of Alcohol Studies believes the problem is deeply rooted in a changing society. He said: "Women now have many more opportunities to drink than they did previously, and women's drinking has become far more socially acceptable."

Natalie has been off drink for three weeks now. She thinks about it every day, and she will avoid seeing her old friends for a while. She drinks a great deal of fruit juice. "At first I was afraid and daunted at the thought of life without a drink," she said. "But I'm beginning to realise I've set myself free."

LARGE MEASURES

220 LITRES OF alcohol per year is the average amount drunk by British women aged 18 to 25. They consume more than five bottles of wine a week, almost four times more than their Italian counterparts and three time more than their French ones.

291 LITRES OF alcohol. The average amount that British women will drink annually by 2009, according to a European survey by Datamonitor. This is the equivalent of three large glasses of wine a day and would mean a doubling of alcohol consumption in a decade.

80.7 LIFE EXPECTANCY of a woman born in 2004. The figure for men is 76. In 1990 the difference was 7.5 years. The growing culture of drinking among British women is regarded as the main reason for the reduced difference.

23% OF WOMEN aged between 16 and 24 drink more than 21 units of alcohol per week. The advised limit is 14 units, or two per day. This is roughly equal to 175ml of red wine per day.

40% OF ALCOHOLIC women in Britain have tried to commit suicide. The figure for non-alcoholic women is 8.8 per cent.

35% OF WOMEN after reporting being raped admit to they had been drinking before to the offence. Some 70 per cent of those women were not even sure if intercourse had happened. In these cases, the conviction rate is just 5.5 per cent.

51,108 DRINK-RELATED hospital admissions in 2004 and 2005, a rise of 28 per cent since 1997.

45% OF WOMEN later regret drunken sexual encounters; 44 per cent find it difficult to socialise without a drink, and 73 per cent have regretted making a telephone call or sending a text while under the influence.

250% RISE IN liver cirrhosis deaths among women in England and Wales since the 1950s. In most other European countries deaths have fallen by an average of 20 to 30 per cent since the 1970s.

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