The cost of alcoholism

The Irish News (28 March 2013) has reported that:

• 300 lives are lost every year in Northern Ireland to alcoholism, six times the number killed on the roads last year.
• There were 8,000 alcohol-related hospital admissions last year.
• The cost to the economy was estimated at £900 million.

Those figures are a stark reminder of the cost of alcohol abuse in Northern Ireland, the human cost as well as the financial cost to society and especially to the health service.