Testimony from people on the frontline of the battle against booze

Evening Standard13 April 2012
PARAMEDIC

Brian Hayes, London Ambulance Service paramedic who set up the Booze Bus' service to ferry drunken Londoners to A&E

It is a given that people will be vomiting in ambulances. One young girl we picked up defecated all over the ambulance bay when we dropped her at A&E. Most will wet themselves. Then there are injuries like broken legs. People think they can fight the world. I've seen people get beaten up until they're unconscious. You always get people who are glassed and suffer terrible scarring.
And then they start on the ambulance crews. Punching and kicking. There's not a weekend that goes by when a paramedic isn't attacked. We always go to someone, even if they're drunk. But it's self-inflicted. Drink drops people's inhibitions and just one night can ruin your life. We were called out to this chap. He was smashed out of his head and decided he was going to climb on the lions [in Trafalgar Square]. But he broke his neck and ended up in a wheelchair for life. He was 23.

We had another bloke who fell off a railing by Pudding Lane. An Australian, two years ago. He was on this small fence and tried to climb over just out of bravado. His head injuries were massive and he died.

Then you get young girls blind drunk who don't know they've even been picked up until they wake up in hospital with their skirts around their waists. They wouldn't know if they'd had unprotected sex. There was this girl, early twenties. We picked her up in Stamford Street. It was 3am, she reeked of booze and was just collapsed in the street. I told her "You need to take your coat off" so we could check her out. It turned out she had nothing on underneath except for her shoes. This was on a freezing cold night in winter. And she had no idea who she was, where she was or what had happened.

The youngest person I've dealt with was 12. They were at a family party and had been drinking the dregs from glasses. The mother found them in the toilet, vomiting. The oldest was 84 and a publican.

Before the booze bus, the calls would stack up in the control room for people with falls or chest pains. We'd have people drunk in the back of the ambulance. That's all that was wrong with them: they were drunk.

ALCOHOLIC

Doug Hartley, 16, recovering alcoholic from Sussex

MY drinking started off as a bit of a laugh when I was 13. All my friends did it so it seemed normal to drink vodka shots. At that age you don't think anything bad is going to happen.
I used to go drinking in London at weekends. One New Year's Eve I drank 72 units. I'd drink 10 litres of Strongbow and still be able to walk home. I was even getting in from school at quarter to four and having a drink. I'd knock back a bottle of Pimm's.

My mother didn't know because most of the time I'd be out. Or I'd come home late and pass out secretly in bed.

The people I used to hang around with were older and had spent time inside — it was easy to get drink. There were problems at home and I had issues all over the shop, so I liked going out on Fridays and when I drank it made me feel better.
One night I'd been out and had a couple of Smirnoff Ices and vodkas. There was this girl in the street who was drunk and covered in sick. This car nearly ran her over, so I tried to pick her up but she slapped me.

Early the next morning there was a knock at my door. I was asleep on the sofa so my mum answered. These two police officers came in and arrested me for rape — the girl I'd helped said she'd been attacked. For the next 23 hours I was in a cell. They took my clothes, swabbed me and didn't allow me to use the toilet. Luckily I was cleared. The CCTV footage showed I was innocent.
But if I'd never been out drinking, I'd never have been in that situation. It was horrific. Those 23 hours I'll never forget.

More than anything in the world, I want to be there for my son Ashley who is eight-and-a-half months. I'd have been barred from seeing him. But I've not touched alcohol now for seven months.

BAR OWNER

Bar owner Alex Foley, 49, runs the Chapel Bar in Islington

We have had our fair share of incidents with people being too drunk. We've had to cut prices to compete with supermarkets and other shops, so we serve drinks for £2 between 5pm and 7.30pm, with happy-hour drinks including cocktails with double spirits for £3.80 and a spirit and mixer for £1.90 from 7.30pm to 10pm.

If you don't offer it the customers will go somewhere else. At the weekends it turns into a bit of a club, and the bar is licensed until 3am so we are required by law to have bouncers. I would not want to run it without security.

We are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Having drinks promotions is the risk we have to take, but staff have to try not to serve people if they are drinking too much.

Only a small minority who come in turn from being nice to abusive and threatening The women are getting as violent as the men. Once we had a wedding here and at the end of the night there was a substantial bill to pay. The bride, in her dress, threw her flowers at the bar manager, swearing and shouting and screaming, smashing glasses. Another time two girls had a fight and one stabbed the other in the bottom with a glass. Then she put her foot through a plate-glass window.

You have to fear for the bar staff. They've been hauled over the bar by the collar by people when they try to stop them drinking, but if you are going to have a bar full of 18- to 20-year-olds, you're going to get problems if you are selling cheap drink.

Sometimes I can't believe what I see. A few weeks ago someone ripped the toilet system off the wall. Why would you do that unless you're drunk? We have to call the police sometimes.

It is not just the lower classes who cause trouble — we have school-leaving parties here, and one party for a well-known school from the centre of town was so disastrous we had to shut it down. They are well educated but when they've been drinking they change. The bottom line is we drink a lot more than we should.

DOCTOR

Roger Williams, director of the Institute of Hepatology at University College London

There are always at least seven patients being treated for severe liver failure at any one time at UCLH, they are often local people who look very severely ill. It is very distressing to see them.

Their livers have failed and they have collapsed, usually after an episode of binge drinking. Sometimes they are intoxicated when they are rushed into A&E and they can be slipping into a coma. They are yellow and look bloated because of fluid accumulation.

I am seeing more women in their thirties being rushed in.

I find it very distressing to see young people with severe liver failure which they needn't have — it is so awful. The youngest person I have seen was a 21-year-old woman. She came in after a drinking session. That lady survived because she stopped drinking, which is satisfying.

From A&E, patients are transferred to the specialist liver ward or intensive care. They can die within the first 10 days of admission. Those who recover can spend up to six weeks in hospital so it is a big drain on the NHS. Some go on to stop drinking and I don't see them again but others relapse and you see the same faces on the wards.

I have seen what a strain this puts on the rest of the family, especially wives and husbands or partners.

I treated George Best and he abstained for a long time then relapsed. This happens very often. He supported anything that would cut down drinking among young people, so would have been in support of raising the price of alcohol.

I still drink alcohol, but my intake is never more than six units a week. There is no harm in drinking within the safe limits, which I think are fairly generous. The problem is people feel perfectly well drinking beyond safe limits until the damage comes to the fore.

COUNSELLOR

Nicholas Barton, psychotherapist, counsellor and chief executive of Action on Addiction, which runs alcohol and drug treatment centres

When patients walk through the door of our treatment centres they are often in a state of neglect. They can look unhealthy and dishevelled. Sometimes people have a drink before they come in to get their courage up.

Sometimes they are so intoxicated they don't realise they have come for treatment until they wake up and have gone through detox. They are very down and damaged.

As soon as they come in we must make sure their health is stable and they are going to live. Some patients have other related problems such as wounds from accidents and their health is in a shocking state. Some have been referred by a member of their family who feels desperate. The person themselves may have been so inebriated they were not able to make that call on their own. Sudden withdrawal from alcohol is very dangerous because they can go into fits, so they may be given medication. After being seen by doctors, they will be assigned a counsellor and take part in a programme which involves group therapy and individual counselling as well as health education classes.

We have to build them up and make sure they have a proper diet and ensure they get sleep. It takes about two weeks to detox and after that they stay for another four weeks because they are still very vulnerable to relapse.

Almost half of the patients at Clouds House, our main treatment centre in Wiltshire, come from London. I have seen the family members of someone with an alcohol addiction also suffering health problems. They often try to cope by using medication.

I see a lot of children about nine or 10 who've become overly responsible and almost like the parent themselves, cleaning up before they go to school. I never quite lose my surprise at how much damage people can do to themselves. But I do see some amazing changes. When they leave they are transformed.

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