Scots struggle to stay in work due to alcohol

Scotland's booze shame has been exposed with new figures revealing significant alcohol abuse in every city.

Thousands of drinkers across the country are incapable of holding down a job because of their addiction to alcohol and claim more in government benefits than anywhere else in Britain.

And Glasgow is the worst city in the UK where 2240 men and women claim incapacity benefit because of problem drinking.
advertisement

They represent 0.59% of the city's population. Although there are seven times more claimants in Glasgow than the neighbouring towns of Greenock and Port Glasgow, the Inverclyde area has Britain's highest percentage of abuse.

It has 320 claimants representing 0.63% of the local population.

The figures released by the Department of Work and Pensions under Freedom of Information show that nearly 50,000 adults across Britain are so dependent on booze that they can't work and are surviving on government hand-outs.

Glasgow currently has 57,000 people claiming incapacity benefits. The new statistics reveal 4% of that total are victims of alcohol abuse.

Many of the boozers live in areas of high deprivation and there appears to be parallels between alcohol abuse and life expectancy.

Glasgow has the lowest in the UK. Men across the city die on average at the age of 69.

In contrast, life expectancy in East Dorset is 80 in an area where just 0.2% of the population can't hold down a job because of alcohol abuse.

Campaigners say the new figures underline the need to intervene early to tackle drink and social problems.

Jack Law, head of Alcohol Focus Scotland, said: "We need to identify and treat problem drinking behaviour as early as possible before it affects people's health and lifestyle beyond repair."

Alcohol Concern said the problem costs the nation billions of pounds with a spokesman commenting: "Alcohol-related damage goes well beyond the broken high street shop windows we tend to think of.

"It's a major cause of chronic illness and work-related illness.

"The government has estimated conservatively that misuse costs the economy about £20billion each year through lost productivity."

Evening Times