Wigan needs continued funding for drug and alcohol rehab support after Covid-19, report authors say

Job insecurity, as well as the stress and anxiety of the restrictions, are likely to have caused these problems to escalate.

And a member of the research team which analysed Wigan’s figures has shared his own concerns about the effects of lockdown, saying it was a period of isolation and staying at home which triggered some of his worst problems with the bottle.

Delamere found Wigan has a raft of unenviable statistics related to problematic use of booze and illegal substances.

The rate of alcohol-related deaths in the borough is 67.7 per 100,000 population, according to Public Health England, compared to 46.5 in England as a whole.

The rate of drugs deaths is almost 50 per cent higher than the national average, at 6.7 per 100,000 population.

The borough has been rated sixth-worst in the country for the number of men who are admitted to hospital for intentional self-poisoning with alcohol.

There were the equivalent of 104 admissions in Wigan compared to a national average of 41.8.

The rate of hospital admissions for drug related mental and behavioural disorders is also more than double the national rate, at 362 per 100,000 people compared to 175.

In Wigan, 1,109 years of life were lost per 100,000 population due to alcohol-related conditions in 2018, the highest in the entire North West barring Blackpool and the fifth-highest in the country.

Delamere CEO Martin Preston acknowledged good work is being done in the area but said the report shows there is much more support required and urged the authorities not to let stereotypical views of addicts influence decisions over the purse strings.

Mr Preston said: “It’s easy for addiction treatment investment to be quietly cut because compassion for those addicted to drink and drugs remains low.

“It’s still a prevalent belief in society that people facing addiction issues are responsible for their own downfall and not as deserving of help as people facing other health issues.

“With The Greater Manchester Drug and Alcohol Strategy there have been big pushes to improve things and that must continue even now there is bigger pressure on budgets than ever.

“The long-term costs of not providing the right support are far greater than early and appropriately intensive help and intervention.”

For Alex Molyneux, who has been working with Delamere on the report and is the admissions manager at the firm’s clinic, the situation people currently face with working from home and not going out of the house much bring back alarming memories of his near-fatal experience with alcohol addiction.

The 54-year-old said: “It’s inevitable that the additional strain people are under due to Covid-19 will exacerbate things, the isolation and working from home will allow problems to develop.

“Then, to make things even worse, public healthcare budgets are going to be stretched to the limit after all of this and under-investment in drink and drug treatment could get worse.

“I did what a lot of alcoholics do and set up my own business working from home. I no longer wanted to interact. The isolation suited me. At home, drink was only ever arm’s reach away.

“My drinking really caught up with me in my early 40s when my then partner came home one day and found me collapsed. My pancreas had given up and my liver function was down to five per cent. I couldn’t lie to myself any more. I was an alcoholic.

“By the time of my collapse I wasn’t really able to function anymore physically or emotionally. I’d continued to drink even though I was regularly bringing up blood and struggled to keep anything down.

“I spent three months in hospital and part of my pancreas was removed. It was the first time in my life I wasn’t drinking.

“We’ve been looking recently at the scale of addiction issues in the areas closest to us and it’s scary.”