ASK someone what the biggest threat to the country is and their first reaction would probably be one of the big issues - war, terrorism or environmental or economic meltdown.

Maybe it’s my awkward streak, but my answer would be different.

I would go for something closer to home, that we see every day; something that is supposed to give us a warm glow and feeling of happiness.

Something that is available round-the-clock and which if you don’t enjoy will probably bring you a reputation as a sourpuss.

That substance is alcohol, and I believe that it poses a far more potent threat than any of the bogey men beloved by the media.

Ten years ago, when I became Mayor, I said I believed alcohol caused more harm than hard drugs. A lot of people thought I was way over the top and maybe still think I am. I think events have proved me right.

A combination of lax licensing laws, price wars between supermarkets whose obsession with the bottom line would make a banker blush, and an acceptance of levels of public misbehaviour that would have baffled our grandparents have led to a crisis.

It can only be solved a radical change in legislation and in public attitudes to excessive, and binge, drinking.

I have used those two terms deliberately because they are two different problems. The young man or woman dangerously drunk and incapable on a city street at midnight is the public face of problem drinking.

But behind them on the living room sofa are thousands of respectable people putting their health at risk by consistently breaking safe drinking limits. It doesn’t matter to your liver whether you are in an ambulance heading for casualty or just watching it on TV. Too much drink will harm it, wherever you are.

Hospital admissions for drink-related illnesses have doubled since 1997. One-in-three emergency admissions are drink-related, Half of violent crime is caused by drink. An estimated nine million people regularly drink over the recommended limit, yet a YouGov poll showed that eight-out-of-ten believed this would cause them no harm.

I have talked to some of those people recently; people whose pleasant and occasional social habit turned first into a nightly ritual, then into something unmissable, then finally something they couldn’t do without.

In other words, they had become addicts.

With support and self-discipline they’ve got their lives back. Others won’t be so lucky.

Yesterday I was at the launch of a new initiative in Middlesbrough, the User-Led Recovery Project run by the Cyrenians, an independent charity. The project is working with people who are getting their own lives back after problems with drink or drugs.

They have more than 30 clients and are backed by many organisations in the town under the umbrella of the Safer Middlesbrough partnership.

The people they are helping aren’t any different from the rest of us, no better or worse, no weaker, no less entitled to support and understanding.

They simply made a bad choice and paid a terrible price for it. While we continue to tolerate a situation in which alcohol has never been as strong, cheap or easy to get, there will be many more paying that price. It has taken an age for a remedy as simple as minimum pricing to get on the politicians’ radar and it is clear to me it won’t be enough.

We need to rethink our whole attitude to alcohol, its availability and price, certainly, but also its acceptance and – if you like – respectability.