As always, the details in the headline miss out important aspects from within the study. from the discussion:
This has been raised here before. The absolute hardcore alcoholics just stop spending money on things like food and electricity to keep drinking, worsening the outcomes for them.
And also
This comes from the bottom graph here. The "trend" shows an upward trajectory in deaths in both Scotland and England since 2020.
This is a model - a statistical analysis of likelihoods. I'm not saying it is wrong; I'm just saying that putting hard numbers (eg 156 deaths per year) on this is a little bit spurious.
Now, onto the deaths - we know that we are still in a period of excess deaths post-pandemic. We're getting into the Covid territory of: did these people die of alcohol related diseases, or with alcohol related diseases? In other words, an alcoholic who dies because of Covid will be included here. Conversely, an alcoholoc who dies due to his alcohol related illness but within 28 days of a positive Covid test will also count as a Covid death.
Next, take hospitalisations:
A huge drop for both countries in April/May 2020 as hospitals simply stopped admitting people. The graph shows a clear dip, but a much deeper one in Scotland. The fact that NHS Scotland admitted fewer people here than NHS England is a driver in these statistical analyses. To be fair in the study they do discuss the fact that the pandemic with various Covid restrictions blurs their control group somewhat.