YouGov data published last month: 1 in 3 British adults who drink say they are consuming less alcohol than a year ago. Only 8% say they are drinking more. A striking picture of shifting drinking habits across Britain...

🎧️ Ep 6 of Conversations about Alcohol: how do you talk to patients about alcohol without them feeling judged? Katriona Paterson joins Dr Rachel Phillips on the evidence behind consultation styles that actually work. A free podcast for primary care teams Listen: www.shaap.org.uk/alcohol-matt...

This week is #AlcoholAwarenessWeek. The theme this year is 'Alcohol and me' - a chance to reflect on the role alcohol plays in our lives and how it might be affecting our health & wellbeing. @alcoholchangeuk.bsky.social's free, confidential check your drinking quiz is a good place to start👇️

Drinkaware has launched a 5 year strategy to tackle alcohol harm. Its' CEO has given an interview to The Grocer setting out the organisation's ambitions, relationships with industry, and its position on the forthcoming UK alcohol labelling consultation...

Police Scotland will breathalyse passengers at Glasgow and Prestwick airports this summer. Sensible. However, if the concern is people driving drunk after flying, the conversation about alcohol availability on flights is just as important as what happens at the airport gates.

⚽️ 👀 A new commentary in The Lancet examines alcohol promotion at the 2026 men's World Cup. The paradox: the world's most popular sport is being used as one of the most effective platforms for normalising alcohol consumption - reaching billions of fans across multiple channels simultaneously...

A coroner has raised serious concerns about alcohol delivery apps following a man's death. 7 million UK adults report ordering alcohol while already drunk. The regulatory gap is clear - @alcoholchangeuk.bsky.social's End the Delivery Trap campaign sets out what needs to change.

New alcohol sales figures from @publichealthscot.bsky.social show slow, steady progress, and how far there still is to go. In 2025, 10.7L of pure alcohol were sold per adult drinker in Scotland - about 20.7 units a week, almost 50% above the low risk guideline. Falling, but still too high.

Put rum and coke in a bottle, call it an alcopop, and it sounds rowdy. Put the same thing in a can, call it a cocktail, sell it in a food hall, and it sounds sophisticated. Same product, same alcohol, different packaging and price. That's a marketing tactic.

🎧️ Episode 5 of Conversations about Alcohol: Minister @mareetodd.bsky.social opens up about her family's experience of alcohol misuse and why it shapes her approach to policy. Rare, honest listening for primary care teams. Listen for free: www.shaap.org.uk/alcohol-matt...

Drinkaware's CEO questions whether the WHO's 'Best Buys' are needed to reduce alcohol harm, when "a number of the big trends are already going in the right direction." 2024 saw the 4th highest alcohol death rate since 2001, hardly a positive trend. www.thegrocer.co.uk/interviews/k...

A new report from National FASD makes the case for urgent action on Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder across the UK. The findings are stark and the argument for investment is compelling. FASD remains one of the most under recognised neurodevelopmental conditions in the country...

📣 Exciting new vacancy with @alcoholfocus.bsky.social 📣

BuzzBallz. 99p shots. High-ABV canned cocktails marketed to Gen Z. In our latest blog, IAS researcher Emma Thompson examines what the death of 'premiumisation' really means – and why the industry's 'responsible drinking' narrative just got a lot harder to defend. www.ias.org.uk/2026/06/24/t...

How does the alcohol industry embed itself within LGBTQ+ communities? 🏳️‍🌈 Research presented by Beth Meadows and Kat Petrilli at our Alcohol Occasionals series last year examined 464 posts across six major brands, the findings make for uncomfortable reading...

New research explores alcohol use in Romany Gypsy and Traveller communities among the most marginalised in the UK, and significantly under represented in alcohol research. Health inequalities are well documented. Their stories, told in their own words, much less so... 🧵

🎧️ Conversations about Alcohol: podcast for primary care. Ep 4, part 2: Dr David McCartney is back sharing both his clinical expertise AND his lived experience of addiction and recovery. A particularly powerful episode that challenges stigma head on Listen for free: buff.ly/BeiA6Uo

"We never give up on anyone, even if they give up on themselves." - Dr Kieran Moriarty CBE's blog for @aha-uk.bsky.social, on 35 years building Alcohol Care Teams and why people with alcohol use disorders deserve exactly the same compassion and rigour as any other serious illness.

The alcohol industry is open about what the World Cup is for. Diageo's VP of global sports partnerships says sporting events "absolutely help recruit new customers in a big way." Not retain them. Recruit them. That's the strategy and it's playing out across 104 matches over six weeks.

"That alone shows how absurd it is to trust the alcohol industry to police itself." Jem Roberts of @ias.org.uk on the growing trend of alcohol products designed to look like sweets, soft drinks and toys, and what it says about self regulation.

At First Minister's Questions this week, Carol Mochan MSP asked about children's exposure to alcohol marketing during the World Cup and Commonwealth Games. His response: the industry promotes responsible drinking, and individuals can make "a considered judgment." We need to address that..

No and low alcohol drinks aren't the population-level fix for alcohol harm that headlines suggest. In our latest blog, Oscar Rousham shows that most buyers already drink at low risk - but for a smaller group of regular heavy drinkers, they could help. www.ias.org.uk/2026/06/18/n...

Global alcohol consumption is set to fall over the next decade, driven by health concerns and changing habits. Good news, but worth noting the industry's response will be to find new markets and new consumers. A decline in one place doesn't always mean a win for public health everywhere else.

When you see health information, use the TRUST acronym to help figure out if it is misinformation. An excellent tool by @wcrf.org for their Cancer Prevention Awareness Week, which focuses on health misinformation.

This week is Cancer Prevention Action Week, led by @wcrf.org 💡 This year's theme - Science Not Fiction - cuts through the noise around health misinformation to focus on what the evidence actually shows about cancer prevention. In a world of viral health claims, it's more timely than ever...

Happy #CancerPreventionActionWeek! Since 2021, we have been the leader of an annual moment supporting people to make informed, evidence-based choices about their health. Today we've been leading the national conversation on this year's theme... misinformation! 🤝 Discover: wcrf.org/CPAW2026

🎧 Conversations about Alcohol - podcast for primary care practitioners Episode 4 (pt 1): Dr Rachel Phillips talks to Dr David McCartney about the neuroscience of addiction, recovery capital, what that means and what GPs can do to better support patients. Listen free: buff.ly/BeiA6Uo

⚽️Scotland's first match in the World Cup tonight⚽️ If you're watching, try counting the number of alcohol brand adverts, sponsorships and references you spot during the match. Alcohol is deeply embedded in how football is broadcast and sold to us. Once you start noticing it, it's hard to unsee... 👀

A new report from @alcoholfocus.bsky.social and @aha-uk.bsky.social audited over 530 UK alcohol product labels, the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date. The findings make for uncomfortable reading if you believe voluntary labelling is working... ahauk.org/news/alcohol...

Dr Suzanne Crowe, a consultant in paediatric intensive care, writes compellingly about the serious risks of teenage binge drinking in Ireland, where 64% of teenage drinkers report binge drinking regularly and one in three meets the criteria for alcohol use disorder...

With the World Cup kicking off, Sam O'Brien West shares his experience of alcohol and football. Drinking from age 14, often the drunkest in the room. Now 3 years sober, he reflects on what changed. "I still feel the same euphoria when somebody scores."

Yesterday's @sarnalcohol.bsky.social Alcohol Occasional heard from Dr Ayotunde Isiaka and John Mooney on whether Scotland's MAT Standards - designed to improve drug treatment - could be adapted for alcohol...

New analysis from AFS and @UK_AHA has confirmed that alcohol companies are keeping consumers in the dark about health risks Read more 🔽 www.alcohol-focus-scotland.org.uk/news/news/on...

What’s really on alcohol labels? ❌ 1 in 5 don’t meet even basic guidelines ❌ Only 28% list ingredients ❌ Health warnings? Almost nowhere The largest ever review of alcohol labels shows why voluntary labelling doesn’t work - and why regulation is needed now.

🎧️ Conversations about Alcohol: podcast for primary care teams For Ep 3, our host Dr Rachel Phillips is joined by Dr Claire Gordon & Dr Stephen Smith to talk about Alcohol Related Brain Damage – what it looks like, who's vulnerable and why early recognition is so important Listen 👉️ buff.ly/4xkXe5A

At least 62 diseases are entirely caused by alcohol and dozens more are partly caused by it. A new review from Harvard researchers, published in Addiction, brings together some of the latest evidence on alcohol and health. Crucially, many of these harms can be slowed by cutting down or stopping

💡 New report alert💡 @alcoholhealthalliance.bsky.social and @alcoholfocus.bsky.social audited 530+ alcohol product labels - the most comprehensive UK analysis to date. The findings make a clear case for why voluntary labelling isn't working and mandatory requirements are urgently needed...

🎧Conversations about Alcohol: podcast for GPs & primary care Ep 2: Dr Adam Burley joins Dr Rachel Phillips to discuss the trauma:addiction link, dependency phobia in healthcare, why some patients resist help and what that means for treatment. Only 20 minutes and free to listen👇️ buff.ly/YGiORxK

June is #PrideMonth 🏳️‍🌈 Recent UK Census data found that #LGB people are twice as likely to die an #AlcoholDeath Trans people experience even higher levels of alcohol harm Alcohol services have a duty to ensure they are acceptable and inclusive for the #LGBT community

Thanks to @gillianmackaygreen.bsky.social for raising this important point during the Summer of Sport debate. The Commonwealth Games coming to Glasgow is a huge opportunity - normalising alcohol brands as part of that isn't the legacy Scottish sport needs.

Alarming FOI reveals arrests at Edinburgh Airport have doubled in three years, from 42 in 2023 to 84 last year. Antisocial behaviour offences doubled too. Airports remain largely exempt from the licensing rules that apply everywhere else. That needs serious reconsideration...

We believe that #AlcoholMarketing has no place in childhood, and that children have the right to play, learn and socialise in places that are healthy and safe. Alexandra Taylor of @alcoholchangeuk.bsky.social explains why they support our Alcohol-Free Childhood campaign. #AlcoholFreeKids

What happens when the alcohol industry becomes the voice of “responsible drinking”? @theactualjim.bsky.social explores how alcohol brands position themselves as advisers on alcohol harm while attention shifts away from the wider drivers of harm & stigma - bit.ly/4u5imRb

Researchers have developed the first objective measure of alcohol induced blackouts - memory tests that can identify them in real time. Blackouts are linked to injury, assault, arrest and overdose, making the ability to identify and intervene a significant public health concern.

💡 Our next Alcohol Occasional is on 8 June, 12:45-2pm💡 Dr Ayotunde Isiaka and SHAAP's John Mooney explore whether MAT standards can be adapted for alcohol treatment in Scotland in this free, online seminar. Register now to join the discussion on policy and practice implications: buff.ly/3KTiSKe

A report claims 80% of ill health in old age is individual responsibility. Public health experts quoted in the article disagree, pointing to poverty, corporate influence and policy failures as key determinants. The report itself calls for alcohol legislation - undermining its own headline claim.

An unflinching analysis of how harmful product industries operate globally. Big Tobacco wrote the playbook: deny the science, target children, lobby against regulation, frame addiction as freedom. Now Big Alcohol and Big Food are using the same tactics...

Disposable vapes were banned to help protect children from products with bright colours and fruit flavours. Now the alcohol industry launches 99p alcopop shots in bright colours and fruit flavours, claiming they're for adults 🤔 ... Sound familiar? Same playbook, different product.

For #BigAlcohol - the #WorldCup is a big chance to push alcohol to children and young people, as well as cement the curious relationship between alcohol & sport. #AlcoholMarketing #AlcoholFreeKids bigalcohol.exposed/how-big-alco...

Yet another tragic case highlighting the dangers of unregulated alcohol delivery. Glenn Perkins ordered alcohol every 90 minutes via apps until his death at 55. His daughters' attempts to intervene were blocked. We need the government to seriously consider stronger protections against online sales