By Carolyn Churchill

ITS culture of heavy drinking over the past 50 years has been blamed for Shettleston having the highest rate of alcohol-related deaths in the whole of the UK.

But in the wake of last week's revelations in the Evening Times, addiction specialists and voluntary organisations have vowed they are working hard to tackle the problem of booze in the East End of the city.

Around 3000 men and women are receiving treatment or care for alcohol problems at any one time.

Staff who work in GP practices, firefighters and police are being trained to help spot anyone with a potential problem so that residents can receive help at an early stage and initiatives such as drama workshops are helping to keep people sober.

In Shettleston, the alcohol-related death rate is more than five times the national average at 76 per 100,000, against 13.3 across the UK.

Jim McBride, head of addiction services for East Glasgow Community Health and Care Partnership, said: "The statistics are horrific. But we have had generations upon generations of deep-rooted cultural aspects of alcohol being used as a social opportunity as well as something that blocks out a lot of pain and trauma.

"In Shettleston, without a shadow of a doubt, poverty and deprivation plays a part But we are starting to see a small cultural shift where alcohol is seen as something that needs to be addressed.

"We have an increase in alcohol-related referrals in the past two years. We have got services that can manage it at crisis point or when folk are sober.

"In the long term I am fairly optimistic in terms of improvements. We have come far in a very short space of time."

Dr Gerald Spence, a GP at Cairns Medical Practice, based at Shettleston Health Centre, sees a "constant trickle" of patients who have serious problems with alcohol.

Some - who may be as young as in their early 20s - develop liver damage or other health conditions, while others regularly end up in accident and emergency departments because they have got involved in fights or been knocked over in the street by a car while drunk.

Dr Spence said "prevention is better than cure" and government policies such as reducing the availability of cheap alcohol would help to tackle the problem nationwide. But he insisted that locally, the work of the community addiction team in the East End was helping to address the issue.

He said: "They keep giving help for people who have not been able to be helped in the past. Sometimes people will, on the third, fourth or fifth attempt, get the message to stop drinking. The community addiction team doesn't give up on anybody."

Community addiction teams and GPs work alongside charities to deliver services. One such voluntary organisation, the Glasgow Council on Alcohol, works across the city and its approach is tailored to individual communities.

In Shettleston and the surrounding areas, many people with alcohol-related problems also face housing issues.

Meg Wright, chief executive of the Glasgow Council on Alcohol, said: "We have got prevention and education teams challenging the culture and empowering people to make positive choices through diversionary activities or working with schools and community groups."

Two years ago a report by the Centre for Social Justice described "Shettleston Man", who lives in social housing and is unemployed. He is expected to live to the age of 63 - 14 years below the national average.

Workers at the East End Healthy Living Centre are determined to help the area shake off that image. It provides a range of fitness classes and hosts projects such as stop smoking classes and has an alternative stress centre.

Nadine Bloomfield, programmes and marketing co-ordinator at the centre, said: "There is a lot of feeling in the area that people expect them to be unwell and addicted and die at a young age. We are trying to offer them the chance to take part in something positive." I want to live. You have to let go of the past . . . COLETTE CAROLAN, from Springboig, developed an alcohol problem after her mother passed away in January 2002.

"I just couldn't cope," she said. "I was so depressed and I turned to alcohol to numb the pain, which is the worst thing I could have done."

The 38-year-old eventually asked for help and was supported by her GP and the community addiction team working in Glasgow's East End.

"They were fantastic," she said. "They stuck by me through thick and thin. Every week they visited me and if they couldn't get me, usually because I was intoxicated, they came back the following day."

She was eventually admitted to Eriskay House, an inpatient ward at Stobhill for patients with alcohol and drug problems, and after her second stay there, managed to give up drinking.

She has now been sober for 116 days and continues to receive help with her recovery. She attends the Milestone project in Bridgeton, which offers counselling, creative writing and drama workshops to help recovering alcoholics stay sober.

It put on a production of The Wizard of Oz on Monday as part of the Grand (Getting Real about Alcohol and Drugs) series of events taking place across Glasgow this week.

Colette, who played Dorothy, said being involved in the project helped her to move on.

She is now positive about the future and plans to attend an access course in social care, with a view to becoming an addiction worker.

She said: "My doctor said if I had kept drinking the way I was drinking I wouldn't be here by Christmas.

"But I want to live. You have got to let go of the past. Life is too precious."