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Clean Slate Clinic, in partnership with the UK national addiction charity Adfam and the University of Sussex, published a landmark white paper on alcohol dependence in the United Kingdom. It was launched at a panel event in London in January 2026, chaired by leading addiction psychiatrist Dr David McLaughlan and featuring former UK Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter. The research drew on nationally representative polling of more than 2,000 UK adults, and set out to understand why alcohol harm keeps rising even as average consumption falls, and what needs to change.

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The headline finding is that nine in ten people drinking at clinically risky levels do not consider themselves heavy drinkers. This is not denial. It is a structural problem. Most people measure their drinking against the people around them rather than against clinical guidelines, which means millions are at risk without knowing it. In the UK, hospital admissions for alcohol-specific conditions remain at close to 340,000 a year, and the economic cost to England alone is estimated at £27.4 billion annually (roughly A$55 billion — worth checking against the current exchange rate before publishing).

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For those who do recognise a problem, the barriers to getting help are substantial. In the UK the three biggest obstacles are long waiting lists in the National Health Service (NHS), fear of stigma, and the cost of private treatment — not a lack of awareness. Australia's system differs in its structure, but the underlying pattern of long public waiting times, stigma and cost is a shared one. It also means information campaigns alone will not close the gap. What is needed are services that are discreet, affordable and accessible without requiring time away from work.

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The research also sheds light on who is most affected. Almost a third of full-time workers met the clinical criteria for higher-risk drinking, including many earning £50,000 a year or more. Work stress was the most commonly cited reason for drinking in this group — at nearly twice the general rate. The problem was also spread evenly across the country and across electorates, meaning it cannot be solved by targeting particular regions or demographics.

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The white paper closes with a clear call to action: alcohol services need to shift away from crisis-led, in-person models towards earlier, digitally enabled intervention. Medically supervised home detox can reduce the cost of treatment by up to 85% per episode compared with inpatient care, while allowing people to get support without stepping away from work or family life.

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For a deep dive into these issues, the full paper is available here.