Louise Currie, co-founder of MindSpace Counselling “There are more people presenting with alcohol issues than there would have been previously,” Currie, co-founder of MindSpace Counselling, says. “Some of these people would have had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol but they were somehow managing it. They were distracted with the gym, with friends, going out; whereas now, in lockdown, they’re in the house and alcohol consumption is increasing.” Currie says people are drinking earlier in the day, every day and a couple who used to share one bottle of wine a night are now drinking two. “The clients I work with would be what you’d term ‘functioning alcoholics’ — people who still have jobs, people who appear on the outside to have it all together — but now family members are noticing because they’re not able to disguise it as well,” she says.