Increase awareness

Making information available enables people to make an informed decision. Through its campaigns and the media, Balance will continue to raise awareness of alcohol units, recommended limits and the risks of exceeding those limits on a daily or almost daily basis in order to encourage people to consider reducing their consumption. We will aim to help people take individual responsibility.

However evidence tells us that just educating individuals about safe limits is not enough to reduce alcohol harm. We need to change the role alcohol plays in society.

We need to make people aware, not just of the health risks, but of the damage alcohol is causing to families and communities.

We need the Government to help change social norms around alcohol by making it less affordable, less available and by restricting its promotion.

The facts:

• A third of North Easterners are drinking above the Government’s recommended limits on a daily or almost daily basis.

• Just under a fifth of North East drinkers ‘binge’ drink on a daily or almost daily basis.

• Male and female drinkers in the North East drink 28% and 18% more respectively in terms of units compared to the England average.

• 63% of 11 to 15 year olds in the North East claim to have ever drunk alcohol and 26% claim to have “drunk alcohol in the last week” - the highest rate of all the Government Office Regions. 

• Alcohol consumption within UK homes has increased by 34% between 1992 and 2008.

• In the past 60 years, the average intake of pure alcohol per person in the UK has risen steadily from five litres in the 1950s to more than 11 litres in 2007.