With one in 13 adults addicted to alcohol, 65 per cent of suicide attempts related to drink and half of all homeless people estimated to be alcoholics, isn't it about time we really tackled the demon drink? Barry Nelson reports.

With a passion for pubs and a preference for a pint, the British have always been known for their liking of alcohol. But for many people, this fondness for a tipple has gone too far - the charity Alcohol Concern says that more than three million of us are "hooked on alcohol".

Its latest research shows that one in 13 adults are dependent on alcohol and the problem does not just stop there. Evidence also shows that 65 per cent of suicide attempts are related to alcohol and that up to 50 per cent of homeless people are thought to be alcoholics.

In the North-East, where drinkers down more units of alcohol than almost anywhere else in the country, an estimated 133,000 are dependent on alcohol. Doctors have seen a huge increase in the number of people suffering from life-threatening liver disease.

Britain is obviously facing something of a crisis, as is shown by the fact that the Government is set to address the issue with its imminent National Alcohol Strategy.

"The incidence of alcoholism has definitely increased since the 1950s - everything has increased since then," says Andrew McNeill, director of the Institute of Alcohol Studies in Cambridgeshire.

"The amount of alcohol consumed has doubled and there are more deaths from alcohol-related diseases than ever before."

In previous decades, alcoholism was swept under the carpet far more than it is today - making detection of alcohol abuse harder - but McNeill argues there are many reasons to believe that more people than ever are hooked on booze.

"Society's views towards alcohol have changed a great deal," he says. "We are less religious than we used to be and there has been an emergence of a youth culture which is very alcohol-based.

"There has been a whittling away of the things that kept alcohol at bay - it is relatively cheaper now, there's a different attitude to women and alcohol and there are many more licensed places.

"In the 50s, men went to pubs and drank beer, now men and women drink many types of drinks in many different places."

There are now two particular groups - women and young men - who have taken to drinking above sensible levels, which puts them at risk of developing an alcohol dependency.

"Between 1990 and 2000, there was over a 50 per cent rise in the number of women drinking above sensible limits," says Anne Jenkins, of Alcohol Concern.

"More women are working and have a greater disposable income and they can buy alcohol as it is an accepted part of social life now.

"And while drinking among men has remained fairly stable, evidence suggests a lot of young men are drinking large amounts regularly.

"Basically, there has been a shift in cultural patterns that has made drinking more acceptable."

She argues cultural patterns also make a higher incidence of alcoholism more likely in certain parts of the country.

"In the North, for example, there are more people drinking larger amounts because there is more of a tradition of drinking, particularly in social situations."

The stress of modern life has also been blamed for the high number of people reaching for the bottle. Cold Feet star, John Thomson, for example, attributed his much publicised binge-drinking and subsequent drink-driving ban to the pressure of work.

With people spending more hours in the office and having less time to spend with family, they turn to booze as a socially acceptable form of escape.

But more sophisticated advertising may also have created an overly fond British relationship with booze.

"Younger people are very image-conscious and advertising makes great use of that," says Jenkins. "The industry needs to be aware of the power it has and we have to be vigilant.

"Also, a lot of regeneration of city centres in recent years has gone hand in hand with the development of bars and clubs, so alcohol becomes the focus for socialising."

Mick Davies, general manager of the region's only residential detox centre for people with severe drug and alcohol problems, is hoping that the Government will give the treatment of alcohol problems a much higher priority. But he also believes that it is time for a rethink on how we regard the demon drink.

"There is probably no other area of health care where we have so much death and illness and so little is done about it," says Mick, who has run the privately-owned Tunstall Unit in Sunderland since it opened five years ago.

"Drink has its positive side, I enjoy a drink as well as the next man, but Joe Public is in denial about the more negative side," he says.

He believes that there is a "massive under-reporting" of alcohol related deaths, partly because of a reluctance to stigmatise the dead. "If we simply asked pathologists whether alcohol contributed to a person's death, we would see a huge increase," he adds.

Mick argues that alcohol is dangerously affordable and what is needed is a sharp price hike. "On public health grounds alcohol prices should rise in line with the policy on cigarette taxation," he adds.

Mick would also like to see the existing laws enforced. He says: "It is against the law to serve alcohol to someone who is intoxicated but when did you see a prosecution? The law is an ass in this area."

He believes recent moves to relax rules governing the number of pubs and bars which can open within a given area are also a backward step.

Ideally, he says, pubs and other licensed premises should make more information available about the strength of different drinks and should provide details of where people can get help if they have a problem.

Mick hopes that a new drive to improve facilities for patients with alcohol dependency problems will end the "totally inappropriate" referral of many people to acute mental health hospitals because of the severe shortage of detoxification facilities in the region.

"If the drinks industry does not address some of these issues I believe it will come back and haunt it," he adds.

While he wants to see alcohol dependency treated more seriously Mick warns: "If we are asked overnight to do more for people who are dependent on alcohol we are going to have a huge capacity problem."

The ten-bed Tunstall Unit is the only centre of its kind in the North-East and takes NHS patients from throughout the region. But Mick believes that more facilities will be needed if Government policy changes.