Rising toll of deaths related to alcohol

The number of alcohol-related deaths has more than doubled since 1992, from 4,023 to 9,031 in 2008.

Overall, rates have doubled since the early 1990s, from 6.7 per 100,000 population in 1992 to 13.6 per 100,000 in 2008.

Men are twice as likely to die from alcohol as women and the rate of male deaths has more than doubled since 1991, from 9.1 per 100,000 to 18.7 per 100,000 in 2008.

This is despite increasing awareness of daily drinking guidelines and the health effects of alcohol, according to the report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Other data on drinking habits showed one in five men (20 per cent) and one in seven women (14 per cent) aged 65 and over drink every day compared with 1 per cent of those aged 16 to 24.

Overall, 39 per cent of men and 31 per cent of women exceed the daily sensible drinking limit of three to four units a day for men and two to three units for women.

Asked where they drank on their most recent or heaviest drinking day, most people said they drank at home (46 per cent of men and 57 per cent of women).

When it comes to buying alcohol, people are most likely to have bought it in supermarkets in the last year (72 per cent), followed by bars (68 per cent) and restaurants (62 per cent).

The percentage of people who buy alcohol from an off-licence in the past year has fallen from 37 per cent in 1998 to 27 per cent in 2009, but has gone up slightly in restaurants (57 per cent to 62 per cent).

Another ONS survey found that people in managerial and professional jobs and households drink more than those in manual jobs (13.8 units compared with 10.6 units on average each week).