On a damp Tuesday morning in Southport, the line outside a foodbank stretches past the Methodist church and down London Street. Parents with pushchairs. Pensioners in worn coats. A young man in work boots, staring at the pavement.
Inside, volunteers move fast, stacking tins, passing bags, handing out bread rolls before they go stale. There’s chatter, but it’s subdued. You can read the worry in people’s faces before a word is spoken.
“We see more people every week,” says Jean, a volunteer who’s worked here for six years. “Stress shows on their faces. Some talk about drinking more, some about tablets. It’s not just hunger. It’s the pressure they’re under.”
Bills That Don’t Stop
In Bootle, the Jobcentre is packed. Men in high-vis jackets check their phones. A mother hushes her toddler while scanning a noticeboard. For many, the grind is relentless: lost jobs, cut shifts, zero-hours contracts.
“My lad lost his job, and now he barely leaves his room,” says a Southport mother, eyes fixed on the floor. “He drinks, he takes pills… I don’t know where to turn.”
The bills keep landing: gas, electric, council tax. The average household energy bill in the North West rose again this spring. Rent, too, has crept higher. For families living week to week, it’s a fight just to keep the lights on.
Sleepless Nights, Short Tempers
Stress doesn’t only hit wallets. It shows up in sleepless nights and short tempers at home.
“We talk about treatment for substance use, but the truth is, support for benzo dependence is patchy,” admits Dr. Hughes, a GP in Bootle. “People wait months. In the meantime, they’re still anxious, still not sleeping, and some end up mixing alcohol or street drugs with their prescriptions.”
He says appointments are crammed with patients reporting panic attacks, tension headaches, chest pains that turn out not to be heart trouble at all but stress. “You can’t prescribe someone a job or a cheaper rent. And that’s half the battle.”
Coping in Risky Ways
When pressure piles up, some turn to coping strategies that bring their own dangers.
For one young man waiting at the foodbank, who didn’t want his name printed, the spiral began after redundancy.
“I was on the tools,” he says. “Then it stopped. No work. I couldn’t pay rent. I started drinking more. Then someone offered me diazepam. Said it would help me sleep. But you take one, then another. It’s hard to stop.”
Locals say benzo misuse is quietly rising. Pills bought on the street, mixed with alcohol, knock people out for hours. The danger, say doctors, is that dependence builds quickly.
“It’s not that people want to,” Jean at the foodbank adds. “It’s that they’re desperate for relief. When you can’t pay your bills and your head’s racing at night, a bottle or a tablet feels like the only way to shut it out.”
Families in the Middle
Parents, too, feel the impact.
Elaine, a mother of three in Crosby, says her eldest son has changed since losing his warehouse job.
“He’s angry, he doesn’t talk. He’s up all night. I find cans under his bed. I know he’s taking something else too, but he won’t admit it. It’s like he’s slipping away from us, right under our roof.”
She pauses, folding her arms tightly. “We used to worry about gangs on the street. Now it’s in the house. And I can’t keep up with it all.”
Stretched to the Limit
Local NHS and charity services are trying to keep up. But capacity is thin.
At Sefton Council’s drug and alcohol team, staff say waiting lists are the worst they’ve seen in years.
“When someone’s finally ready for help, the last thing they should hear is ‘come back in three months’,” says a support worker in Formby. “That’s when people fall off the edge.”
Charities like Citizens Advice are also overwhelmed. In Bootle, caseworker Martin says debt queries are up, alongside calls about mental health. “We used to deal mostly with housing or benefit forms. Now half the people who sit in front of me are shaking, in tears. They can’t see a way forward. Some admit they’re drinking or using pills. They’re ashamed, but they’re desperate.”
Numbers Behind the Faces
The latest figures from Public Health England show alcohol-related hospital admissions in Sefton are higher than the national average. Prescriptions for anti-anxiety medication have also climbed steadily in the past five years.
At the same time, unemployment remains stubbornly higher in parts of Bootle and Netherton compared to the wider Merseyside region. Experts say the link between job loss, poverty, and poor mental health is undeniable.
“Stress at home translates into higher risk behaviours,” explains Dr. Hughes. “And those behaviours—whether it’s drinking, smoking, or pills—become health problems down the line.”
What Help Looks Like Elsewhere
The struggle in Sefton stands in contrast to what’s available elsewhere. In Thailand, for example, Siam Rehab is an international centre with over a decade of experience, no waiting lists, and hundreds of Google reviews. It highlights what quick access to structured support can mean when someone is finally ready to ask for help—something that too often slips away here while people wait.
Kids Notice Too
Teachers say children aren’t immune.
At a primary school in Southport, staff quietly share worries about kids who come in tired, withdrawn, or anxious.
“You hear them talk about Mum crying, or Dad being angry, or no food in the cupboard,” one teacher says. “They know more than we think. And when parents lean on alcohol or tablets, the kids carry that weight into class.”
A youth worker in Maghull says she’s noticed more teens mentioning “Xanax bars” or “valium” in casual chat. “It’s scary how normalised it’s become. They’ll joke about it like it’s sweets. But you know behind it is stress at home, stress they soak up from parents.”
Policing the Fallout
Police in Sefton say substance use is tied into calls they receive daily. Domestic disturbances, antisocial behaviour, theft linked to drugs.
“Most of what we see isn’t about hardened criminals,” one officer says. “It’s ordinary families under pressure, people who’ve lost jobs, who are drinking or taking pills and can’t cope. We’re called when things spill over. But by then, damage is done.”
A Community Strained
Back in Southport, the foodbank queue thins as volunteers lock up for the day. Rain spatters the pavement. People check their phones, shuffle off with plastic bags, heads down.
Behind every tired face is a story of bills piling higher than pay packets, of sleepless nights, of pills or pints used to take the edge off.
The cost of living isn’t just measured in pounds and pence. In Sefton, it’s measured in stress that creeps into kitchens, in children who worry too soon, in substance use that seeps quietly into homes.
As Elaine in Crosby says, “It’s happening in my house. It’s happening on this street. It’s happening everywhere.”
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