Ban booze for under-21s, says dad of girl who died from liver disease aged 24

Jim Thomson the dad of one of the youngest people in Britain to die from alcohol-related liver disease has called for a US-style ban on booze sales to anyone under 21.

His eldest daughter, Leigh, died from the condition aged just 24. She had been drinking excessively since 16, but it was only when she developed advanced liver failure at the age of 22 that her condition was picked up by doctors.

Jim, of Cambuslang, near Glasgow, Scotland, said: "It's worrisome for any parent to know their child was able to get such easy access to cheap alcohol at the age of 19. I think it's time we brought in laws like the USA have where you can't purchase alcohol until you are 21 years old.
 
"The government is happy enough to rake up the revenue and put 'drink responsibly' on the bottles, but how can you tell someone with an alcohol problem to drink responsibly?

Leigh was described as an intelligent and outgoing woman who volunteered with the British Red Cross and attended Felmington-Hallside Parish Church, However behind her positive front she had been secretly drinking three litres of cheap cider for the seven years leading up to her death.

Jim, whose wife Alice, Leigh's mother, died from alcohol-related problems in 2009 at the age of 42, said: "Leigh didn't come from a dysfunctional home. She was amazing, funny, articulate, and intelligent. She never got drunk in public. She was never falling about drunk. She would take a bottle of wine up to her room and not bother anyone. She'd get up in the morning, put her make-up on and she'd look immaculate. I took her to Alcoholics Anonymous and various meetings. It worked, but only for so long. She would be off the drink for three or four months and she would look brilliant. Then she would relapse."

Leigh's life slowly fell apart and she was unable to take up her place at college and lost her job as a carer. She gradually stopped seeing her friends and became increasingly isolated to the point where she was drinking at least two bottles of wine a day. She would get really ill, She would swell up and her skin would go yellow and her eyes would be bloodshot. She was really ashamed of her drinking.

He added that he never enabled or encouraged her drinking habits or gave her money, and because she was not on benefits he never knew how she was able to pay for the alcohol.
He said: "It is not a learnt behaviour. I am not a drinker. Alice was not a drinker until the last four years of her life. We didn't display that kind of behaviour. It may be part societal. If people don't go and drink and go to the pubs here, what else is there to do?"