Debris discs have often been described as gas-poor discs as the gas-to-dust ratio is expected to be considerably lower than in primordial, protoplanetary discs. However, recent observations have confirmed the presence of a non-negligible amount of cold gas in the circumstellar (CS) debris discs around young main-sequence stars. This cold gas has been suggested to be related to the outgassing of planetesimals and cometary-like objects. The goal of this paper is to investigate the presence of hot gas in the immediate surroundings of the cold-gas-bearing debris-disc central stars. High-resolution optical spectra of all currently known cold-gas-bearing debris-disc systems, with the exception of beta Pic and Fomalhaut, have been obtained from La Palma (Spain), La Silla (Chile), and La Luz (Mexico) observatories. To verify the presence of hot gas around the sample of stars, we have analysed the CaII H&K and the NaI D lines searching for non-photospheric absorptions of CS origin, usually attributed to cometary-like activity.