Baby boomers and alcohol

When I started my consultant job specialising in older people’s mental health, I did not have the faintest idea that I would be writing this nearly 20 years later against the backdrop of an alarming rise in the physical, psychological and social harms from alcohol among older people…5 years into my job, I could bear in no longer. With a ward where up to half my older patients had alcohol related mental health problems and finding that my community team was giving the stock answer of “Sorry, but we are not an addictions service” for anyone referred where alcohol played a large part in the presenting problem, I decided to gain additional expertise in addictions. It wasn’t easy juggling this against a busy clinical job, but it meant that my eyes were finally opened to the possibility of developing a service for older people whose alcohol misuse accompanied other mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and dementia…

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