All she had to do was click a few buttons and it would arrive in twenty minutes
In the wake of a young mother's death in Lincoln, a quiet grief has grown into a public reckoning with the frictionless convenience of alcohol delivery apps. Zoe Hughes, 35, died in 2023 after a fall while intoxicated, having spent up to £1,500 a month ordering alcohol through platforms designed to bring almost anything to a doorstep within minutes. Her sister Alex now leads a campaign asking a fundamental question that technology has quietly outpaced: when access to a harmful substance becomes effortless, who bears responsibility for the harm that follows? The government is reviewing licensing laws written in 2003, before the smartphone existed, as advocates argue that convenience itself has become a form of risk.
- A woman was ordering five to seven bottles of spirits or wine daily through food delivery apps, sometimes as early as six in the morning, before dying in a fall at home in 2023.
- Campaigners and recovering alcoholics alike describe the apps as psychologically dismantling every barrier that once slowed the path from craving to consumption.
- Alcohol Change UK and bereaved family members are pressing for daily purchase caps, restricted delivery hours, and voluntary self-exclusion registers modelled on gambling industry safeguards.
- Delivery platforms insist their drivers are trained to refuse service to visibly intoxicated customers and that account blocks are available — but none of these measures are mandatory or consistently applied.
- The UK government has acknowledged the concerns and is reviewing whether the 23-year-old Licensing Act can be stretched to govern a delivery landscape its authors never imagined.
Alex Hughes carries a petition on her phone with thousands of signatures gathered in her sister Zoe's name. Zoe was 35 when she died in 2023, falling down the stairs of her Lincoln home while drunk. A coroner ruled the death accidental, but the circumstances surrounding it have driven Alex to campaign for changes to how alcohol is sold through delivery apps.
In the months before her death, Zoe was spending between £1,000 and £1,500 a month on alcohol ordered through Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats — five to seven bottles a day, sometimes ordered at dawn. Alex traces the turning point to when Zoe moved from a rural family home, where buying alcohol required a trip to a shop, to a city flat where a few taps on a phone could bring a bottle in twenty minutes. The geography had changed, and with it, every natural brake on her drinking.
Alex is now calling for a daily cap on alcohol purchases through apps, time restrictions on when orders can be placed, and a self-exclusion register similar to those used in the gambling industry. Alcohol Change UK is backing the campaign, with its director arguing that the 2003 Licensing Act — which predates smartphones entirely — has simply failed to keep pace with how alcohol now moves through society.
Those who have lived inside addiction recognise what the apps represent. Hattie Underwood, a recovering alcoholic from London, describes them as removing every psychological barrier between a craving and a drink. She once ordered alcohol to her door while suffering a stomach ulcer, having promised herself she would not drink before ten in the morning — a promise she never kept.
Delivery companies say they operate within existing law and offer voluntary account-blocking tools, but none of these protections are mandatory. The government says it is reviewing how licensing rules apply to rapid delivery services. For Alex Hughes, the distance between reviewing and acting is the space where the next family's loss is waiting.
Alex Hughes keeps a petition on her phone. It has thousands of signatures now, all gathered in the name of her sister Zoe, who died in 2023 after falling down the stairs in her home in Lincoln while drunk. What began as a family tragedy has become a campaign to reshape how alcohol moves through the country—not through liquor stores or pubs, but through the same apps that deliver dinner.
Zoe was 35 when she died. According to an inquest, she fell while under the influence of alcohol, and the coroner ruled her death accidental. But the numbers surrounding her final years tell a different story about how easily addiction can take hold when a phone and a credit card are all that stand between a person and a bottle. In the months before her death, Zoe was spending between £1,000 and £1,500 each month on alcohol ordered through Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Uber Eats. She was drinking five to seven bottles of wine, gin, or vodka daily. The apps made it frictionless. A few taps on a screen, and alcohol arrived at her door in twenty minutes.
Alex remembers her sister differently. "She was full of life," Alex says. "She lived and breathed for her children." The shift came when Zoe moved from her parents' rural home in Lincolnshire—where getting a drink meant walking to a shop—to her own place in the city. The geography changed everything. What had been a barrier became invisible. "All she had to do was go on her phone, click a few buttons and it would be delivered," Alex explains. Sometimes Zoe ordered at six in the morning.
Now Alex is pushing for safeguards that don't yet exist. She wants a daily cap on alcohol purchases through delivery apps, time windows that prevent orders at certain hours, and a self-exclusion register—something like the systems gambling companies use to block people who have asked to be kept out. The Licensing Act of 2003 already makes it illegal to sell alcohol to someone who is visibly drunk, and delivery firms say their drivers are trained to refuse service to intoxicated customers. But the law was written before apps existed, before alcohol could arrive faster than a pizza.
Alcohol Change UK, the charity behind Dry January, is backing the campaign. Joe Marley, the organization's director, argues that the regulations have simply not kept pace with reality. "We have the licensing act. It was created quite a long time ago and it hasn't kept up with the reality on the ground," he says. The charity is calling on the government to reconsider delivery hours and to make it simpler for people to block their own access to alcohol through these platforms.
Hattie Underwood, a 35-year-old recovering alcoholic from London, knows the pull of those apps from the inside. When she was drinking, she used them constantly. "Psychologically they took all the barriers out of the way," she says. She remembers ordering alcohol to her door while suffering from a stomach ulcer so severe she had been signed off work. She had promised herself she would not drink before 10 a.m. She never made it to that hour. Daniel Dobbs, a recovering alcoholic and coach with the Lincolnshire Recovery Partnership, has watched addiction destroy lives. He supports safeguards—as long as they don't strip away people's right to choose—because he knows what the alternative looks like.
The delivery companies say they operate within the law. Deliveroo requires retailers to follow the same licensing rules as physical stores and says it suspends accounts when welfare concerns arise. Just Eat says it has robust processes and can block accounts or addresses. Uber Eats notes that customers can exclude themselves from alcohol deliveries and has dedicated processes for account blocks. But none of these measures are mandatory, and none address the core problem: how easy it has become to feed an addiction without ever leaving home.
The government is watching. A spokesperson said it understands the concerns and is reviewing how licensing rules apply to rapid alcohol delivery services. But understanding and acting are different things. For Alex, the question is whether the law will change before another family has to learn what she has learned—that sometimes the most dangerous thing is convenience.
Citações Notáveis
Psychologically they took all the barriers out of the way— Hattie Underwood, recovering alcoholic and Alcohol Change UK champion
We have the licensing act. It was created quite a long time ago and it hasn't kept up with the reality on the ground— Joe Marley, director of Alcohol Change UK
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Zoe's situation get worse when she moved to the city?
Because the friction disappeared. In a rural area, you have to physically walk somewhere to buy alcohol. In a city, with an app, you don't have to leave your house. You don't have to face a shopkeeper. You don't have to think about it for more than thirty seconds.
The delivery companies say they check if someone is drunk before leaving alcohol. Doesn't that work?
It's a human check at the moment of delivery. But if someone is ordering at six in the morning, they might not be visibly drunk yet. And there's no system preventing the same person from ordering again at noon, and again at six in the evening. The apps don't know what's happening between deliveries.
What would a self-exclusion register actually do?
It would let someone voluntarily ban themselves from ordering alcohol through these apps, the way gambling companies let people self-exclude. Once you're on the list, the apps won't let you order. You'd have to go through a process to get off it. It's a friction you choose.
But couldn't someone just use a different account or a family member's phone?
Yes. No safeguard is perfect. But the point isn't perfection. It's making it harder. Right now, it's too easy. Making it slightly harder might save someone's life.
Do you think the government will actually change the licensing laws?
They're reviewing it. But the law is from 2003. It took decades to get here. Change moves slowly, and by then, more people will have ordered alcohol at six in the morning.