The group, aged between 18 and 60, will claim that their lives have been ruined by addiction and that no warnings were given.

They are represented by Ross Harper, a Glasgow firm of solicitors that believes it can use arguments deployed in the successful prosecution of American tobacco firms.

It could be ready to launch Britain’s first legal challenge to the drink industry as early as next month. The first step would be to seek legal aid for its clients. Lawyers would then try to present a test case before the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

“Any litigation would have to be based on whether or not the product causes harm and whether or not the producer has a duty of care to customers,” said Jim Price, the solicitor preparing the case.

The alcoholics intend to show that drinking led to ill health, loss of jobs and the breakdown of relationships, damaging their quality of life.They will argue that drink manufacturers owed them a duty of care to warn of the dangers of addiction.

In America, laws requiring health warnings on alcoholic drinks came in more than a decade ago. Similar rules are being proposed in Ireland. The British Medical Association has made repeated calls for health warnings on alcoholic beverages in Britain.

“Alcohol is promoted now in the same way that cigarettes were in the 1950s,” Price said. “Manufacturers want us to believe that drinking alcohol is sexy and trendy.”

Stephen Tillery, a lawyer who successfully sued Philip Morris, the tobacco firm, winning more than $10 billion for his clients, said the absence of warnings on bottles in Britain made a successful case more likely than in America.

“They would have to establish that there is some inherent characteristic of alcohol that causes it to be unreasonably dangerous when used in the ordinary way in which a product is used.

“I think there is no question from a public policy standpoint this sort of thing should proceed. There is some logic to the extent that manufacturers of alcoholic beverages are aware of the abuse.”

A spokesman for the Portman Group, the alcohol industry watchdog, said: “Health warnings would have to contain too much information to be fair and accurate.”

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