Mr Gray, a liver specialist pulls no punches. ‘Until about 10 years ago, my patients with alcoholic liver disease were mostly middle-aged men. But women now make up about half of my caseload.
‘It used to be that patients were in their forties and fifties when I first saw them. But I’m seeing sizeable and rising numbers of women in their twenties. Some have irreversible liver damage.’
One 26-year-old female patient died of liver cirrhosis. ‘And we’ve got a 29-year-old on the ward now who has been in hospital through drink for several weeks,’ says Gray. ‘She’s been drinking heavily for 10 years and her liver has packed up. She has a partner and a two-year-old child but she says, “I prefer wine to tea”, even though she knows the harm it’s causing her.’ The woman’s future looks gloomy. ‘She will probably get over this illness. But if she continues…