London: Britons are using "dutch courage" to mask the fact that they are suffering low-level depression, according to research. The soaring drinking rate — consumption has doubled in the past 50 years — is evidence that people are attempting to "self-medicate" their emotional upsets away, the London-based Mental Health Foundation reported on Tuesday.

Research carried out for the foundation identifies one tenth of the U.K. population who drink every day — around five million people.

The same one in 10 were most likely to report that they drink to feel less anxious or depressed and would find it most difficult to stop drinking. But it also challenges the idea that drinking is the terrain of the young — 15 per cent of over-55s drink daily compared with just 3 per cent of 18-34-year-olds.

People with psychiatric disorders are twice as likely to be alcoholic than the general population, the report says. Seventy per cent of men who kill themselves have drunk alcohol before doing so.

But the report highlights the wider problem of "self-medicating" emotional trauma with alcohol. Research by NOP found that 40 per cent of people drink to feel less anxious, 26 per cent to deal with depression and 30 per cent to "forget their problems."

Some 88 per cent of more than 1,000 people questioned would find it difficult to give up alcohol completely while 77 per cent said it made them feel relaxed.

Government figures showed that 38 per cent of men and 16 per cent of women drink above recommended limits while 1.1 million people in the U.K. are said to be dependent on alcohol.

Andrew McCullock, chief executive of the foundation, said: "People are drinking to cope with emotions and situations they can't otherwise manage, to deal with feelings of anxiety and depression.

Drinking alcohol is a common and accepted way of coping — our culture allows us to use alcohol for `medicinal purposes' or `dutch courage' from an early age.

But using alcohol to deal with anxiety and depression does not work as alcohol can weaken the neurotransmitters that the brain needs to reduce anxiety and depressive thoughts. This is why lots of people feel low when they have a hangover."

The report was published to coincide with the beginning of National Depression Week.

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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