Second hand harm

Family and friends

• More than seven in ten North Easterners associate alcohol consumption with family breakdown.

• Relationships between family members, employment and health issues can also be adversely affected by alcohol misuse.

• More than 100 children, including children as young as five, contact ChildLine every week with worries about their parent's drinking or drug use.

Children and young people

• Home is largely where young people learn to drink and there has been a worrying increase in drinking in the home, with 40% of North East adults doing most of their drinking at home.

• More than a quarter of parents in the North East have been drunk in front of their children.

• A Life Education survey found that almost a third of children think that for adults who drink wine, five or more glasses a night is normal drinking behavior.

• For young people who do drink alcohol, the implications could be life changing. It can impair brain development and affect their education. They become more vulnerable and are more likely make poor decisions and take risks. Research shows that a third of drinkers in the region have experienced a risky situation as a result of drinking too much.

Frontline services

• The North East has the highest rate of alcohol related hospital admissions in England with 2,406 per 100,000 population.

• In 2009/10 the North East Ambulance Service recorded 10,063 ambulance journeys where alcohol was a factor, almost twice as many cases as all other drug overdoses combined.

• More than a third of offenders being supervised by the National Offender Management Service in the North East are believed to be alcohol dependent.

Communities 

• 50% of all violent crime is alcohol-related.

• More than nine in ten North Easterners associate alcohol consumption with anti-social behaviour, crime and violence and domestic abuse.

• Around half of all violent incidents take place at the weekend (when binge drinking is most prevalent), with 66% of stranger violence and wounding offences taking place between midnight and 6am.