ALCOHOLISM in York has become a "ticking time-bomb" The Press can reveal today, with the city's booze clinic so swamped it can no longer meet demand.

York Alcohol Advice Service is receiving 90 referrals a month on average - equivalent to three a day, and up by one-third in the past four years.

Clients are now placed in a queue, and must wait up to three months to be treated.

Alison Tubbs, manager of the service, said: "As far as I am concerned, the main problem is cheap drink in pubs and in supermarkets. It so cheap and there are so many promotions - it's awful."

New figures show one person every two days in the city gets so drunk they have to be taken to hospital.

Alcohol abuse in York has become so widespread that the city's booze clinic can no longer meet demand.

York Alcohol Advice Service is receiving 90 referrals a month on average - equivalent to three a day, and up by one-third in the past four years.

Clients now have to placed in a queue, and must wait up to three months to be treated.

Alison Tubbs, manager of the service, today said York was facing a "ticking time bomb" over its binge-drinking culture.

She said a shortage of funding had left them struggling to cope, and would put alcoholics at increased risk.

The news comes as shocking new figures show one person every two days in the city gets so drunk they have to be taken to hospital.

In the first nine months of this year, 147 people were admitted to York Hospital with alcohol poisoning or acute intoxication.

Mrs Tubbs said: "It sounds to me like people have drunk a huge amount in a very short space of time - much more than they are used to drinking.

"If people have got alcohol poisoning they have just overloaded their system, so their bodies cannot metabolise that.

"It's awful. It's really worrying. If someone is on their own, when that happens and they happen to vomit they could choke on it."

Mrs Tubbs was speaking almost a year to the day after reforms to licensing laws, but she said they were not the problem.

She said: "If people are binge drinking it does not matter how long they are out for. The culture in this country is to get absolutely drunk, and you can do that in two hours.

"As far as I am concerned the main problem is cheap drink in pubs and especially in supermarkets.

"Supermarkets are selling alcohol as a loss-leader, and as far as we are concerned that is where the issue lies.

"It so cheap and there are so many promotions - it's awful."

York's booze problems have now reached the point where the service can no longer treat clients straight away.

She said: "The problem is that we have a window of opportunity when people realise they have a problem, and we need to see them as soon as possible.

"If we have to wait, the window will pass and they think perhaps they will not bother." She said they were still doing initial assessments straight away, but clients had to wait to be treated fully.

The service employs five full-time staff and one part-time, but Mrs Tubbs said they needed two more to cope with demand.

They rely on funding from North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust, City of York Council and the probation service, but funding has not increased in line with referrals.

Mrs Tubbs said: "The Government has drawn up an Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy, but they have no funding to go with it."

Earlier this year, York supermarkets were accused of endangering lives after an investigation by The Press into bargain-basement booze.

In one store, Netto in Layerthorpe, we were able to buy 26.5 units of alcohol for only £4.74.