Bristol is sitting on an alcohol “timebomb” which will destroy lives and break up families.

That’s the stark warning from health professionals who claim that there are 10,000 alcoholics and a further 50,000 men and women who either binge drink or consume more than their recommended daily amount.

To add to this dangerous cocktail, Bristol has only one specialist NHS bed in the city to treat anyone suffering from drink-related problems.

Health professionals are concerned that, unless attitudes to alcohol change, they will struggle to cope with the results of the alcohol timebomb in a few years.

The sole bed for alcoholics at Callington Road mental health hospital in Brislington is for drinkers with the most serious long-term health problems, such as seizures, and it is always occupied.

Meanwhile, normal hospital beds in Bristol are increasingly  taken up by patients coming in with alcohol-related  problems.

Illness due to alcohol is costing the National Health Service £1.7 billion a year, with up to 22,000 deaths and 150,000 hospital admissions each year.

Bristol Primary Care Trust had the highest number of admissions in the South West for alcohol-related conditions, at 2,302 last year – more than six cases a day.

Peter Walker, director of the Addiction Recovery Agency in King Street, Bristol, issued the stark warning and      claimed disproportionately more money is being spent on the treatment of the estimated 6,500 Class A drug addicts than alcoholics.

Bristol Drugs Project received £5.3 million from the Government this year for its drug treatment programmes for about 3,000 drug addicts each year.

This compares to the £1m spent by Bristol PCT on treating alcoholism, which does not include the cost of treating alcohol-related illnesses such as cirrhosis.

Mr Walker said: “If you are an alcoholic or drug addict and you want to get into a detox unit and rehabilitation, you have to have a community care assessment, which is carried out by social services or another agency.

“Needs are assessed against specific criteria. In some areas where the criteria are strictly adhered to, only people who are very severely ill benefit. People who are that ill may not get the best out of rehabilitation.

“For example, if they have brain damage due to drinking, their ability to engage with others may be limited.”

He said treatment and funding for alcoholics depends on where they live.

“Most of the  money in the Bristol area is focused on drug misuse because of its link with crime,” said Mr Walker. “There is a huge disparity in the funding available for alcohol and drug misuse. Compared to the scale of the problem, it doesn’t make sense.”

In a survey by the Government’s Information Centre for Health and Social Care, one in four men and one in eight women in the South West admitted to drinking every day for more than five days in the week before they were questioned. One in eight men in the region said they drank up to eight units and more than a third drank four units on at least one day that week.

Nearly one in every eight women in the survey drank eight units on at least one day leading up to the survey – the safe daily limit for women is up to three units.

The long-term effects are devastating and are seen every day at  the Wild Goose coffee shop run by Crisis Centre Ministries in St Paul’s. All the customers are homeless and many have a drink or drug problem, often both.

The staff do their best to help, directing those who want to stop drinking to the treatment agencies and charities in Bristol.

The Addiction Recovery Agency  has been offering help for drug and alcohol misusers for 21 years and last year helped 2,250 people. It has an alcohol misuse service, but there are just 18 places  and most  are allocated to drug addicts.

For the ordinary person who thinks they might have a drink problem, their GP is the first port of call. But recognising there is a problem in the first place is part of the issue.

Assistant director of public health for Bristol, Barbara Coleman, said: “A lot of people who would be deemed to be harmful drinkers – those who drink every day or binge drink – do not recognise  their drinking is harmful.

“Our long-term goal is to double the provision but in the meantime we have to raise awareness of the long-term effects.”