There is a strong link between smoking and drinking. It is particularly interesting to note that up to 90% of all heavy drinkers also smoke, and that alcohol addiction is ten times more prevalent among smokers than among non-smokers. This was the conclusion of a team of Danish researchers from a large-scale survey of the population in Copenhagen.

The research involved more than 16 000 persons of between 20 and 93 years of age. They were checked after roughly 5 years and again after 10 years. The researchers selected female participants who did not drink more than 14 and male participants who did not drink more than 21 units of alcohol per week, the assumption being that one drink contains 12 grammes of alcohol. Nearly half of them were smokers at the start of the study, and only 18% total abstainers. During the follow-up it was found that 419 women (5%) and 575 men (9.9%) had become heavy drinkers. The term “heavy drinking” is taken to mean in excess of 14 units for women and 21 for the men.

Those who smoked regularly at the start of the study appeared to run an increased risk of becoming a heavy drinker. The greater the consumption of tobacco, the greater that risk. Women who had smoked more than 24 grammes of tobacco were 1.8 times more likely to become heavy drinkers than the women who had never smoked. The risk for men was 2.1 times greater.

The risk of developing an addiction to alcohol (more than 21 units for women, more than 35 units for men) for heavy smokers was even greater at the start of the study was even greater at the start of the study. Compared with non-smokers, that risk was 2.2 times greater for women and 4 times greater for men. Of the participants who did not drink at the start of the study, the follow-up found that 36% of the women and 50% of the men had begun to drink. The chance of this was greater among the smokers. No differences were noted between the various age categories.

The authors do not dare to venture any suppositions as regards the biological mechanisms that may explain the link between nicotine and alcohol. However, they maintain that smoking and drinking often occur in the same social circumstances. Many studies have already demonstrated that the health risks are becoming very great because of the interaction between smoking and drinking.

Seeing that regular smoking usually precedes alcohol dependency by a number of years, the researchers recommend taking the smoking habits of adolescents as a marker for subsequent high-risk drink addiction.

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