Soaring calls for help from children (Image: Getty) Calls from desperate children living with alcoholic parents have soared by 60 per cent since 2019, new figures reveal. The National Association for Children of Alcoholics (Nacoa) says its helpline has seen a dramatic rise in young people reaching out for support. In 2025 alone, the charity received 37,000 contacts from people affected by a parent’s drinking, with high levels of relationship breakdown and parental death reported as presenting problems. Campaigners warn that an estimated 2.6 million children in the UK are now living with a parent who drinks too much – many in silence and shame. The alarming increase comes as separate new data from the NSPCC shows the scale of harm inside family homes. The NSPCC Helpline was contacted 9,192 times in the year to March 2025 by people worried about a parent or carer misusing alcohol or drugs – an average of 25 contacts every single day. In England alone, 73,250 children who were subject to a Child in Need assessment between April 2024 …