Recent years have seen real progress in the workplace to better support employees facing challenges. The Equality Act (2010) plays a key role, protecting people with certain characteristics such as disability, age, gender and sexual orientation from discrimination.

Currently, disability includes those conditions arising from alcohol dependence such as liver disease or kidney failure. Yet, it does not protect people with alcohol dependence. Nor does it account for the wider mental health and dependency-related challenges people may face, despite these being key drivers of discrimination.

In fact, the Equality Act specifically excludes alcohol dependence from the definition of disability, with past messaging from UK government justifying this on the basis that it is ‘self-inflicted’.

This means people with alcohol dependence, or a history of alcohol dependence, receive no protection, while conditions such as depression or eating disorders are included within the definition of disability and the protections of the Act. The difference in how these conditions are defined in legislation tells us that despite the headway made in tackling mental health-related stigma, the same cannot be said for alcohol dependence.

Read more: Work socials need to be more inclusive of those who don't drink

The strongest argument for including alcohol dependence in the Equality Act is that it is widely accepted as a treatable illness, not a lifestyle choice. It is concerning that in 2024, people...

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