Discussing alcohol use with young people

Let’s start with a fact: we know that fewer young people are choosing to drink alcohol than ever before.
Statistics on alcohol in England published by the NHS this year show that only 38 per cent of 11 to 15-year-olds have ever consumed an alcoholic drink, the lowest figure since these surveys began.

To put it more positively, 62 per cent of 11 to 15s have chosen not to drink alcohol yet. These encouraging stats are part of a consistent trend that we have seen develop over a number of years, so it isn’t a flash in the pan.

However, we also know that those young people who do choose to drink are drinking more. There are regions of the country where the number of young drinkers is still quite high. According to the same statistics, of those young people who had reported being drunk in the last four weeks, 63 per cent had “deliberately tried to get drunk”.