Apogee Production.

Apogee Production.

Hi, my name's beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for Nurses.

Hi, my name's beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for Nurses.

I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity to be, so I hid it and parked it for nearly four years.

I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity to be, so I hid it and parked it for nearly four years.

We always have free will, We always get to choose. We are autonomous. Thank you everyone for tuning back into tend Andnis for Nurses. Today we have doctor Chris Davis with us. He holds two hats, one being one of the directors of Clean Slate Clinics, which is what we're going to be chatting to him about, but also his works in ED at Saint Vincent's Hospital.

We always have free will, We always get to choose. We are autonomous. Thank you everyone for tuning back into tend Andnis for Nurses. Today we have doctor Chris Davis with us. He holds two hats, one being one of the directors of Clean Slate Clinics, which is what we're going to be chatting to him about, but also his works in ED at Saint Vincent's Hospital.

Yeah, I'm a GP by training, so I was a full time GP until a couple of years ago when I got a job at Saint Vincent's Hospital in addiction medicine really in an attempt to become well, hopefully a successful one, to become an addiction specialist in an addiction medicine at the hospital part time.

Yeah, I'm a GP by training, so I was a full time GP until a couple of years ago when I got a job at Saint Vincent's Hospital in addiction medicine really in an attempt to become well, hopefully a successful one, to become an addiction specialist in an addiction medicine at the hospital part time.

Fantastic. Well, I, as you know, had your colleague Chris Kimpaul come in and have a chat with us here on the podcast, and it today has been one of our most popular podcasts. He was very raw and honest, and it made me really want to have a chat to you in relation to clean Slate Clinic, especially with Christmas literally a couple of weeks away. So how did clean slate Clinics start?

Fantastic. Well, I, as you know, had your colleague Chris Kimpaul come in and have a chat with us here on the podcast, and it today has been one of our most popular podcasts. He was very raw and honest, and it made me really want to have a chat to you in relation to clean Slate Clinic, especially with Christmas literally a couple of weeks away. So how did clean slate Clinics start?

Actually started? Probably about twelve years ago. I was working as a busy in a city GP in London. I'd only been a GP for a couple of years, and I got a partnership in a practice when I was way too young. To be honest, I'd only been a GP for about eighteen months. I didn't really know what I was doing as a junior GP, and but I was and I went for a partnership role and got the job, which was so flattering. I didn't even think to do any sort of due diligence around what this meant. But it did mean buying into a business and being a business owner and a manager. And the people that I went into business with were not the sort of people that you want to do that with. I mean, the two senior partners hated each other. One would say no just because the other had said yes. I remember being in one practice meeting where the senior partner was screaming at the other one to the point where he actually lost consciousness. He fainted. He was during Grammadam and he hadn't eaten and so he's now unconscious on the floor and Michelle, the senior partner, was still screaming at him, and I'm like, Michelle, help him. He's not breathing. So that was pretty awful. I was there for four years. But one thing that We're saved me during that horrendous job was the drug and alcohol work that I got interested in doing and the local PHN, which is like the primary health network. So the group of commissioners, we were really short of methodonne and buper and orphing prescribers in the area, so they offered us free training to any interested GPS. So this meant that once a month I got a day off to go and do this training and I could escape this toxic practice that I was in. And I became like a methodone prescriber and I love that work. And I got to work with a drug and out on these who would you know, do roll of the legwork. And but what what I really became interested in when I sort of developed this interest was well, it became a sort of journey of self improvement. To be honest, so I mean it to to sort of get get right into. I mean, I've had a lot of special interest. I'd done palliative care, i was working in nursing homes, I was helping doing the diabetes management programs, and I loved working with kids. I've done a lot of pediatrics in my training, and I always wanted to be a pediatrician. And so I had all these interests and every aspect of medicine it always held some fascination for me. And whatever I started to do, I really got my teeth into and loved it. But around this time I was gaining this interest in extra knowledge and drug and alcohol. What I really began to get insight into, you know, I was maturing and was that I needed help with my own drinking. I grew up in very I mean I had a great childhood. I really did. But when I grew up as a gay boy in a very homophobic town, the you know I do. I really did love my upbringing. I had incredible friends, I really had a loving family. It was very working class. We didn't have any of the trappings. But I loved the camping holidays and playing sport. And but I was I was very closeted and as much as I had these feelings that I knew weren't okay. And you know, there was one gay guy I was aware of in our town who was branded a pedophile, not because he was a pedophile, just because of his sexuality. And yeah, and not one kid in my school came out because of the fear of what that actually meant. And you know, and there was the HIV crisis. You know, I was born in the eighties. I was born in seventy seven, and so being game wasn't okay. It meant you were going to die and be be villified, you know. And then when I was about eighty, I remember my mom sitting us down. My mum was an amazing woman. She passed away last year, unfortunately, and she taught sex head and she told me and my brother and sister that if any of us were gay, that mom and dad would be fine about it. And we all laughed because none of us were. And of course I was, yeah, definitely not out at that point. But I remembered it really because I clopped it for later, you know, and went through UNI still in the closet, and you know, full of shame, you know, about that side of me. And then when I eventually did, I flew out. I did my house jobs in Stepping Hill and Stockport in Manchester, and it was horrendous. They monitored my hours, well all of the junior doctor's hours at the time, because I had been some deaths, like junior doctors had died because they were so tired and they crushed their car and there'd been a suicide. And my average hours per week was one hundred and eleven. Oh my god. And so I hated it because again, you're a junior doctor. You don't know what you're doing. You're flying by the seat of your pants. You're hoping that the nurses are going to be kind to you, and you know, and so it was awful. So I thought, I'm going to hate it this much, might as well go and hate it and live in Australia and be on the beach, you know. And around that time, you know, I was really coming to the terms with the fact that I wasn't that I did have these feelings towards men, and that you know, they weren't going to go away like I hoped that they would. So I arrived in Australia and then I met Luke, who's my now husband, and fell in love. And it was an amazing sort of way to come out in a way, because you know, I wasn't telling people that I was gay. I was telling people that I was in love. And I wasn't really scared about telling mom, you know, because she'd said this thing when I was eighteen, and she I was so close to her, and so then when I told her, my mom didn't react very well, you know, and in fact, she reacted pretty pretty awfully. It was very hard for her to understand. It was a surprise to her as it, yeah, as it had been to sort of me in a way, because I was coming out to myself at the same time, and I didn't identify as being gay. I knew I was in love with Luke, but gay had all of these horrible negative connotations, you know. I was going to be all of the things that you know that gay meant when I was growing up. And so I was coming to terms of my own sexuality and what that actually meant and who I was. And I was doing it without the support of my mom at the time, and.

Actually started? Probably about twelve years ago. I was working as a busy in a city GP in London. I'd only been a GP for a couple of years, and I got a partnership in a practice when I was way too young. To be honest, I'd only been a GP for about eighteen months. I didn't really know what I was doing as a junior GP, and but I was and I went for a partnership role and got the job, which was so flattering. I didn't even think to do any sort of due diligence around what this meant. But it did mean buying into a business and being a business owner and a manager. And the people that I went into business with were not the sort of people that you want to do that with. I mean, the two senior partners hated each other. One would say no just because the other had said yes. I remember being in one practice meeting where the senior partner was screaming at the other one to the point where he actually lost consciousness. He fainted. He was during Grammadam and he hadn't eaten and so he's now unconscious on the floor and Michelle, the senior partner, was still screaming at him, and I'm like, Michelle, help him. He's not breathing. So that was pretty awful. I was there for four years. But one thing that We're saved me during that horrendous job was the drug and alcohol work that I got interested in doing and the local PHN, which is like the primary health network. So the group of commissioners, we were really short of methodonne and buper and orphing prescribers in the area, so they offered us free training to any interested GPS. So this meant that once a month I got a day off to go and do this training and I could escape this toxic practice that I was in. And I became like a methodone prescriber and I love that work. And I got to work with a drug and out on these who would you know, do roll of the legwork. And but what what I really became interested in when I sort of developed this interest was well, it became a sort of journey of self improvement. To be honest, so I mean it to to sort of get get right into. I mean, I've had a lot of special interest. I'd done palliative care, i was working in nursing homes, I was helping doing the diabetes management programs, and I loved working with kids. I've done a lot of pediatrics in my training, and I always wanted to be a pediatrician. And so I had all these interests and every aspect of medicine it always held some fascination for me. And whatever I started to do, I really got my teeth into and loved it. But around this time I was gaining this interest in extra knowledge and drug and alcohol. What I really began to get insight into, you know, I was maturing and was that I needed help with my own drinking. I grew up in very I mean I had a great childhood. I really did. But when I grew up as a gay boy in a very homophobic town, the you know I do. I really did love my upbringing. I had incredible friends, I really had a loving family. It was very working class. We didn't have any of the trappings. But I loved the camping holidays and playing sport. And but I was I was very closeted and as much as I had these feelings that I knew weren't okay. And you know, there was one gay guy I was aware of in our town who was branded a pedophile, not because he was a pedophile, just because of his sexuality. And yeah, and not one kid in my school came out because of the fear of what that actually meant. And you know, and there was the HIV crisis. You know, I was born in the eighties. I was born in seventy seven, and so being game wasn't okay. It meant you were going to die and be be villified, you know. And then when I was about eighty, I remember my mom sitting us down. My mum was an amazing woman. She passed away last year, unfortunately, and she taught sex head and she told me and my brother and sister that if any of us were gay, that mom and dad would be fine about it. And we all laughed because none of us were. And of course I was, yeah, definitely not out at that point. But I remembered it really because I clopped it for later, you know, and went through UNI still in the closet, and you know, full of shame, you know, about that side of me. And then when I eventually did, I flew out. I did my house jobs in Stepping Hill and Stockport in Manchester, and it was horrendous. They monitored my hours, well all of the junior doctor's hours at the time, because I had been some deaths, like junior doctors had died because they were so tired and they crushed their car and there'd been a suicide. And my average hours per week was one hundred and eleven. Oh my god. And so I hated it because again, you're a junior doctor. You don't know what you're doing. You're flying by the seat of your pants. You're hoping that the nurses are going to be kind to you, and you know, and so it was awful. So I thought, I'm going to hate it this much, might as well go and hate it and live in Australia and be on the beach, you know. And around that time, you know, I was really coming to the terms with the fact that I wasn't that I did have these feelings towards men, and that you know, they weren't going to go away like I hoped that they would. So I arrived in Australia and then I met Luke, who's my now husband, and fell in love. And it was an amazing sort of way to come out in a way, because you know, I wasn't telling people that I was gay. I was telling people that I was in love. And I wasn't really scared about telling mom, you know, because she'd said this thing when I was eighteen, and she I was so close to her, and so then when I told her, my mom didn't react very well, you know, and in fact, she reacted pretty pretty awfully. It was very hard for her to understand. It was a surprise to her as it, yeah, as it had been to sort of me in a way, because I was coming out to myself at the same time, and I didn't identify as being gay. I knew I was in love with Luke, but gay had all of these horrible negative connotations, you know. I was going to be all of the things that you know that gay meant when I was growing up. And so I was coming to terms of my own sexuality and what that actually meant and who I was. And I was doing it without the support of my mom at the time, and.

So I try, how about your siblings, did they support you?

So I try, how about your siblings, did they support you?

So Mom, didn't. I was in Australia at the time, and this is before social media, and you know, I had to pay a fortune to make a phone call home, and I was doing group emails once a week, you know, to all my friends and that's how I communicated. So Mom didn't want my siblings or my dad to know because she thought it would be a phase, and you know, she was protecting them, I guess in a way. So they didn't know for about a year and it got too much and Luke and I split up. He went back to England and it was horrendous for him, horrendous for me, but I, you know, I wasn't. I needed to sort my own head out. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. But at the same time, my family was breaking up and was saying things like I wouldn't be welcome home, and so, yeah, so me and him split up and he was heartbroken. Anyway, I went home to England from Australia for a wedding and met up again with Luke and everything became clear. You know. It was amazing to see him again and for him to forgive me, and yeah, I knew that I had to be with him and I couldn't risk losing him again, and so told Mom and she wasn't okay about it. I went back to Australia, leaving Luke in England. But now I'm like, Mom, I've got to tell my family. I've got to tell Dad. I've got to heelp because I'm going to be with Luke for the rest of my life. You know. Anyway, my brother was flying out. He's just about eighteen months younger than me. My with her, and he was flying out to come and stay with me for a few months because we were really close and we still are, and I owe him. I owe him a lot because when my brother was coming out and I had to tell him, and Luke had just come out to stay with me for two or three weeks and he wasn't. He missed his flight because we were partying so hard. He missed his flight and my brother arrived the next day and so he came to sleep in in this in the lounge and there was this man in my bedroom and anyway, got through his hangover, flew home. I did a night shift, came back and you know, all night I was like, I've got to tell my brother. This massive thing. You know, and so I sent my brother down and I was like, I've got something to tell you, and he goes, I think I know, bro, and I'm like, no, you don't know this. He goes, I think I do, and I'm like what, and he goes, are you gay? So no, no, no I'm not gay because I wasn't in my own head at this time, you know, I was just in love with Luke, which obviously I now know is the same thing. And he goes, he goes, but Luke's your boyfriend, right, I said, yeah, Luke's my boyfriend. And I'm like, how did you know? And he goes, well, I found this poem, found his poem in the kitchen, and Luke had written me a love rap and had left it there. My brother found it. It was quite an interesting way for him. I won't tell you what was in what and decent. And I was so petrified that my brother was gonna act in the same way that my mom had, you know. And then I told my dad. My dad mom had just told him before I got on the phone to him, and he just said all the same sort of things momma was saying. And I'm like, Dad, they're not your words, then Mom's words, and I'm like, all you've ever said to me, Dad is that you want me to be happy. And what I'm telling you is that this is the happiest I've ever been, and I've met the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him. This is incredible news. And he goes, oh, but you're happy as any heads that I'm really happy. He goes, well, that's good news then, isn't it. So I'm like, Dad, it's the best news. And he's never looked back from that, you know, he's but it was really hard because you go up with this shame and fear of rejection, and when you're rejected by the person who means the most to you in the world, which is eventually which is why I finished with Luke. Initially, it was because I couldn't imagine not, you know, losing my mum or losing my relationship with my mum, because it was so important at that time, and you know, and Luke understands that of course. Anyway, I'm sort of I'm digressing, but you know, drinking, and certainly when me and Luke split up for that six months, I just I drank every weekend when I wasn't working, I drink and I'd escape, and you know, you didn't have to worry, and you know, I'd drink to black out a lot of the time because I don't know. So then well, you know, Luke and I. I moved back to England and Luke and I were great and life was good. I was working as this GP, and but the bin drinking sort of stayed with me and it was full part of the pattern. When I was doing there was one hundred and eleven hours a week as well. It's like we had the doctor's mess in the hospital which always had free alcohol in and we lived in the hospital, worked in the hospital, and obviously when you're working, you're working, but that on that one day off or that weekend off, you know, you're and even when you're in the mess when you are working, there's one of your mates drunk, you know, in there. Because so we were bings. We were party hard. We'd work hard with party hard as a release from the stress from work and everything else that was going on. And then when I got this job in London where Clean State started, and it was awful. It was really really toxic, and so yeah, so the binge drinking just happened, and that didn't happen. It just didn't stop happening. And whilst it was fun, the Mondays and the Tuesdays and this workplace were so bad that I was suffering with anxiety for sure. But I remember being at a friend's wedding and I got a phone call from what I thought was the landlord and it wasn't, and I got that tightness in the chest, sweating, and I had the palpitations, and I'm like, okay, I knew what it was. I'd had a panic attack when I was younger, but I knew what it was because I was a doctor and I dealt with people suffering with panic. But I'm like, yeah, I can see why people go to hospital with this feeling. It was that bad, you know. And then I was doing this extra work with drug and alcohol and I'm like, okay, right, alcohol is really part of the problem here. It's really not helping me. And so there was a group of of GPS helped doing these home alcohol detox clinics. There was three, well, there was two GPS, and then I joined the ranks because I really wanted to get involved a to help myself. It's like, how do you start the habit of a lifetime. This is how my friends meet up, but you know, we go out, we drink, and we get drunk. How do you change that? And also because I'd noticed it, which it seems like a crazy thing, particularly for a doctor to say and to see, but I started asking my patients about their drinking. And that's not really part You think that would just be part of every history, and absolutely it should be, but drug and alcohol, you know, unless someone volunteered that they were drinking too much, it wasn't part of your normal questioning smoking. Yes, but I didn't used to ask people until I've done this extra training about their drug. U saw they're drinking. But now I was saying that what an incredible effect it had had on my mental health and my physical health. And I started asking people about it, and you know, it just brought brought up so many, so many things, And so I started helping people detox from alcohol at home. And because I was going through my own sort of shame and guilt and all of these emotions, when patients opened up to me and said, yeah, I'm drinking too much, it's affected me in this way and I want to change, and then taking them through a withdrawal and seeing the incredible change that it made, and seeing the bravery in my patients, you know, the courage that it takes to say I've got a problem with alcohol in this society and I'm going to do something about it, and I'm going to tell these people this is It really resonated with my own sort of coming out story and also my own sort of struggles with alcohol, and so it was such a privilege. You know, I was so in awe of my patients who who were brave enough to put that hand up and make this change, and to be the one that could help them do that, and to see the incredible difference it made to their physical health, their mental health, to the relationships to their working lives. It was the most rewarding thing that I'd ever done in medicine. And so then really to escape the horrible job that I was in. You know, Luke and I we knew we needed to change our lifestyle, our drinking patterns, our you know, our work life balance, and our friends had started to have kids and Luke never wanted kids, and we knew that we knew that something had to change, and so we started talking about moving out of London and I was like, well, you know, for giving up on abroad and he's like, well no, and I'm like, why don't we go back to Sydney which is where we met. But I was desperate when to bring this model of care with me because I hated being a GP in that practice, but I loved my alcohol whole work. And when I got to Australia, I joined this practice called Killed their Road and they were super supportive in allowing me to bring this model of alcohol detox with me and I was no longer a practice owner, you know. I remember on the first day, the receptionist came in as I was being trained by the practice manager and she goes, oh so and so is called off sick. We've got no one behind the desk, and I said, oh, well, have you got an on call wrote for a reception And they just looked at me like, Chris, this is really not your problem. And it was like, oh my god, this is amazing. I can just be a doctor again, like this is that's not my worry. Reception is not my worry anymore. And for two years I was just a GP and not a manager and I could set I set up the Clean State Clinic, and I just loved being a doctor again. You know, I'd really burnt out in London and I've found a joy of general practice and Clean Slate was just my passion project. Then I brought it to Darlinghurst eas Sydney Doctors and then COVID hit and all of a sudden, you know, there's not that many gps that put their hand up and say they've got a special interest in alcohol. In fact, if you googled it, I was the only name that came up. And because of that, I when COVID hit and all the detox services had closed, including where I were now the Gorman unit that was a COVID ward for a while. So you know, people were drinking twenty to twenty five percent more through COVID, but try and get help was virtually impossible. So I'm getting phone calls and emails from Alice Springs. I did a detox over the phone to someone on the Gold Coast. I had two people from Adelaide. They didn't know each other, and I didn't know this before it happened, but they flew from Adelaide for a GP appointment with me because they were that desperate for help with their drinking. And I'm like, okay, well this isn't this isn't working. There was no there's bits and obs of Medicare funding, but it just didn't feel safe for me to be prescribing die as a paraps people I had not met before, but at the same time, I was desperate to help them. So that's when Chris Rain, who was the founder of Hello Sunday Morning, which I'm sure you've heard of, is really not for profit charity. And I've met Chris at a conference and we've done a bit of work together through Hello Sunday Morning, and I loved Hello Sunday Morning. I recommended it to all my patients, and we'd be we'd been keeping in touch to see how we could work together, and he was like, what were we going to do about COVID And I'm like, well, I don't know, and he says, why don't we just put your model of face to face care entirely onto telehealth and then everybody can access it no matter where they are and it's completely COVID safe. And as soon as he said it, I'm like, yeah, that is a brilliant idea and at the same time, serendipitously, my best friend Pierre had just left her role as a national Partner for Health in Deloitte and along the way had developed alcohol use disorder, which I wasn't aware of. I mean, she was one of my drinking buddies in London, one of my binge drinking buddies, you know, for many years, and we've been through a lot together and had known each other a very long time. And she's an incredible she's now our leader, our CEO.

So Mom, didn't. I was in Australia at the time, and this is before social media, and you know, I had to pay a fortune to make a phone call home, and I was doing group emails once a week, you know, to all my friends and that's how I communicated. So Mom didn't want my siblings or my dad to know because she thought it would be a phase, and you know, she was protecting them, I guess in a way. So they didn't know for about a year and it got too much and Luke and I split up. He went back to England and it was horrendous for him, horrendous for me, but I, you know, I wasn't. I needed to sort my own head out. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. But at the same time, my family was breaking up and was saying things like I wouldn't be welcome home, and so, yeah, so me and him split up and he was heartbroken. Anyway, I went home to England from Australia for a wedding and met up again with Luke and everything became clear. You know. It was amazing to see him again and for him to forgive me, and yeah, I knew that I had to be with him and I couldn't risk losing him again, and so told Mom and she wasn't okay about it. I went back to Australia, leaving Luke in England. But now I'm like, Mom, I've got to tell my family. I've got to tell Dad. I've got to heelp because I'm going to be with Luke for the rest of my life. You know. Anyway, my brother was flying out. He's just about eighteen months younger than me. My with her, and he was flying out to come and stay with me for a few months because we were really close and we still are, and I owe him. I owe him a lot because when my brother was coming out and I had to tell him, and Luke had just come out to stay with me for two or three weeks and he wasn't. He missed his flight because we were partying so hard. He missed his flight and my brother arrived the next day and so he came to sleep in in this in the lounge and there was this man in my bedroom and anyway, got through his hangover, flew home. I did a night shift, came back and you know, all night I was like, I've got to tell my brother. This massive thing. You know, and so I sent my brother down and I was like, I've got something to tell you, and he goes, I think I know, bro, and I'm like, no, you don't know this. He goes, I think I do, and I'm like what, and he goes, are you gay? So no, no, no I'm not gay because I wasn't in my own head at this time, you know, I was just in love with Luke, which obviously I now know is the same thing. And he goes, he goes, but Luke's your boyfriend, right, I said, yeah, Luke's my boyfriend. And I'm like, how did you know? And he goes, well, I found this poem, found his poem in the kitchen, and Luke had written me a love rap and had left it there. My brother found it. It was quite an interesting way for him. I won't tell you what was in what and decent. And I was so petrified that my brother was gonna act in the same way that my mom had, you know. And then I told my dad. My dad mom had just told him before I got on the phone to him, and he just said all the same sort of things momma was saying. And I'm like, Dad, they're not your words, then Mom's words, and I'm like, all you've ever said to me, Dad is that you want me to be happy. And what I'm telling you is that this is the happiest I've ever been, and I've met the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him. This is incredible news. And he goes, oh, but you're happy as any heads that I'm really happy. He goes, well, that's good news then, isn't it. So I'm like, Dad, it's the best news. And he's never looked back from that, you know, he's but it was really hard because you go up with this shame and fear of rejection, and when you're rejected by the person who means the most to you in the world, which is eventually which is why I finished with Luke. Initially, it was because I couldn't imagine not, you know, losing my mum or losing my relationship with my mum, because it was so important at that time, and you know, and Luke understands that of course. Anyway, I'm sort of I'm digressing, but you know, drinking, and certainly when me and Luke split up for that six months, I just I drank every weekend when I wasn't working, I drink and I'd escape, and you know, you didn't have to worry, and you know, I'd drink to black out a lot of the time because I don't know. So then well, you know, Luke and I. I moved back to England and Luke and I were great and life was good. I was working as this GP, and but the bin drinking sort of stayed with me and it was full part of the pattern. When I was doing there was one hundred and eleven hours a week as well. It's like we had the doctor's mess in the hospital which always had free alcohol in and we lived in the hospital, worked in the hospital, and obviously when you're working, you're working, but that on that one day off or that weekend off, you know, you're and even when you're in the mess when you are working, there's one of your mates drunk, you know, in there. Because so we were bings. We were party hard. We'd work hard with party hard as a release from the stress from work and everything else that was going on. And then when I got this job in London where Clean State started, and it was awful. It was really really toxic, and so yeah, so the binge drinking just happened, and that didn't happen. It just didn't stop happening. And whilst it was fun, the Mondays and the Tuesdays and this workplace were so bad that I was suffering with anxiety for sure. But I remember being at a friend's wedding and I got a phone call from what I thought was the landlord and it wasn't, and I got that tightness in the chest, sweating, and I had the palpitations, and I'm like, okay, I knew what it was. I'd had a panic attack when I was younger, but I knew what it was because I was a doctor and I dealt with people suffering with panic. But I'm like, yeah, I can see why people go to hospital with this feeling. It was that bad, you know. And then I was doing this extra work with drug and alcohol and I'm like, okay, right, alcohol is really part of the problem here. It's really not helping me. And so there was a group of of GPS helped doing these home alcohol detox clinics. There was three, well, there was two GPS, and then I joined the ranks because I really wanted to get involved a to help myself. It's like, how do you start the habit of a lifetime. This is how my friends meet up, but you know, we go out, we drink, and we get drunk. How do you change that? And also because I'd noticed it, which it seems like a crazy thing, particularly for a doctor to say and to see, but I started asking my patients about their drinking. And that's not really part You think that would just be part of every history, and absolutely it should be, but drug and alcohol, you know, unless someone volunteered that they were drinking too much, it wasn't part of your normal questioning smoking. Yes, but I didn't used to ask people until I've done this extra training about their drug. U saw they're drinking. But now I was saying that what an incredible effect it had had on my mental health and my physical health. And I started asking people about it, and you know, it just brought brought up so many, so many things, And so I started helping people detox from alcohol at home. And because I was going through my own sort of shame and guilt and all of these emotions, when patients opened up to me and said, yeah, I'm drinking too much, it's affected me in this way and I want to change, and then taking them through a withdrawal and seeing the incredible change that it made, and seeing the bravery in my patients, you know, the courage that it takes to say I've got a problem with alcohol in this society and I'm going to do something about it, and I'm going to tell these people this is It really resonated with my own sort of coming out story and also my own sort of struggles with alcohol, and so it was such a privilege. You know, I was so in awe of my patients who who were brave enough to put that hand up and make this change, and to be the one that could help them do that, and to see the incredible difference it made to their physical health, their mental health, to the relationships to their working lives. It was the most rewarding thing that I'd ever done in medicine. And so then really to escape the horrible job that I was in. You know, Luke and I we knew we needed to change our lifestyle, our drinking patterns, our you know, our work life balance, and our friends had started to have kids and Luke never wanted kids, and we knew that we knew that something had to change, and so we started talking about moving out of London and I was like, well, you know, for giving up on abroad and he's like, well no, and I'm like, why don't we go back to Sydney which is where we met. But I was desperate when to bring this model of care with me because I hated being a GP in that practice, but I loved my alcohol whole work. And when I got to Australia, I joined this practice called Killed their Road and they were super supportive in allowing me to bring this model of alcohol detox with me and I was no longer a practice owner, you know. I remember on the first day, the receptionist came in as I was being trained by the practice manager and she goes, oh so and so is called off sick. We've got no one behind the desk, and I said, oh, well, have you got an on call wrote for a reception And they just looked at me like, Chris, this is really not your problem. And it was like, oh my god, this is amazing. I can just be a doctor again, like this is that's not my worry. Reception is not my worry anymore. And for two years I was just a GP and not a manager and I could set I set up the Clean State Clinic, and I just loved being a doctor again. You know, I'd really burnt out in London and I've found a joy of general practice and Clean Slate was just my passion project. Then I brought it to Darlinghurst eas Sydney Doctors and then COVID hit and all of a sudden, you know, there's not that many gps that put their hand up and say they've got a special interest in alcohol. In fact, if you googled it, I was the only name that came up. And because of that, I when COVID hit and all the detox services had closed, including where I were now the Gorman unit that was a COVID ward for a while. So you know, people were drinking twenty to twenty five percent more through COVID, but try and get help was virtually impossible. So I'm getting phone calls and emails from Alice Springs. I did a detox over the phone to someone on the Gold Coast. I had two people from Adelaide. They didn't know each other, and I didn't know this before it happened, but they flew from Adelaide for a GP appointment with me because they were that desperate for help with their drinking. And I'm like, okay, well this isn't this isn't working. There was no there's bits and obs of Medicare funding, but it just didn't feel safe for me to be prescribing die as a paraps people I had not met before, but at the same time, I was desperate to help them. So that's when Chris Rain, who was the founder of Hello Sunday Morning, which I'm sure you've heard of, is really not for profit charity. And I've met Chris at a conference and we've done a bit of work together through Hello Sunday Morning, and I loved Hello Sunday Morning. I recommended it to all my patients, and we'd be we'd been keeping in touch to see how we could work together, and he was like, what were we going to do about COVID And I'm like, well, I don't know, and he says, why don't we just put your model of face to face care entirely onto telehealth and then everybody can access it no matter where they are and it's completely COVID safe. And as soon as he said it, I'm like, yeah, that is a brilliant idea and at the same time, serendipitously, my best friend Pierre had just left her role as a national Partner for Health in Deloitte and along the way had developed alcohol use disorder, which I wasn't aware of. I mean, she was one of my drinking buddies in London, one of my binge drinking buddies, you know, for many years, and we've been through a lot together and had known each other a very long time. And she's an incredible she's now our leader, our CEO.

And well, I actually just preferred someone who reached out to me last week to you guys. And it's funny, you know, I haven't had a drink now, it'll be coming up to six years and amazing. I wish there had have been. I was very lucky in the fact that I was able to see an amazing you know psychiatrist and he guided me through those initial stages. But I just wonder if there had been something like what you offer, you know, things, I might have done something sooner. But I think what you're offering is wonderful. And as I have my own practice in dermatology and asthetics, of which if I'm truly honest. My passion is dying and is certainly going in different directions, probably more this pathway helping people more. And I'm not saying what I do now doesn't help people. And you know, I've got beautiful clients, but I can't tell you since I tell people that I don't drink, and I didn't, well, I stop drinking because I had a problem. I get asked. I would get asked at least twice a week how I did it, or probably the biggest question is what was the impact it had on you? How did you go out? How did you navigate Christmas? It is so terrifying the other side for so many people. I think what you guys offer with that support is wonderful. It's not just you know, let's help you, see you later, it's let's support you through a period of time, which I think is so you know, it's not when you stop drinking, it's it's the stuff that goes on in here after you stop.

And well, I actually just preferred someone who reached out to me last week to you guys. And it's funny, you know, I haven't had a drink now, it'll be coming up to six years and amazing. I wish there had have been. I was very lucky in the fact that I was able to see an amazing you know psychiatrist and he guided me through those initial stages. But I just wonder if there had been something like what you offer, you know, things, I might have done something sooner. But I think what you're offering is wonderful. And as I have my own practice in dermatology and asthetics, of which if I'm truly honest. My passion is dying and is certainly going in different directions, probably more this pathway helping people more. And I'm not saying what I do now doesn't help people. And you know, I've got beautiful clients, but I can't tell you since I tell people that I don't drink, and I didn't, well, I stop drinking because I had a problem. I get asked. I would get asked at least twice a week how I did it, or probably the biggest question is what was the impact it had on you? How did you go out? How did you navigate Christmas? It is so terrifying the other side for so many people. I think what you guys offer with that support is wonderful. It's not just you know, let's help you, see you later, it's let's support you through a period of time, which I think is so you know, it's not when you stop drinking, it's it's the stuff that goes on in here after you stop.

Drinking and telling your story is I think it is so difficult. And you know, ideally, I think you know, when I was doing this as a GP, I think that's that's great because people could come and see me as their GP. No one had to know they were just going through a GP appointment and I could I would, you know, do the assessment. I would see them daily through DETOS and I could follow them up from cradle to grave. You know, I could do the mental health care plan well, stating their blood pressure. But gps don't have the capacity to do that. And I campaigned for a long time before we set up this social enterprise during COVID for incentives, finding some incentives to do this work, which is what was working in the NHS. And you don't have to give GPS much money, but they're inundated with things which their best place to do. Everyone says, well, it's better, you know, go and see your GP. There's a new vaccine, see your GP. There's a new weight los drugs, see your GP. You know, and gps are overwhelmed. They're overworked, and they are the lowest paid doctors in the whole healthcare. Now I'm not working as a GP, I reflect on how hard working my colleagues are and how much work we do with no payment. You know, everything that happens when the if the patient's in the room, there's a Medicare billing, for that if the patient's not in the room, there's no pay. So the phone calls a specialists, the letters, the you know, the work covers, work covers paid, but the centerling. I mean, you just do so much stuff that isn't paid. And you know, I'd really like to just pay my respects to GPS. In Australia, they do such.

Drinking and telling your story is I think it is so difficult. And you know, ideally, I think you know, when I was doing this as a GP, I think that's that's great because people could come and see me as their GP. No one had to know they were just going through a GP appointment and I could I would, you know, do the assessment. I would see them daily through DETOS and I could follow them up from cradle to grave. You know, I could do the mental health care plan well, stating their blood pressure. But gps don't have the capacity to do that. And I campaigned for a long time before we set up this social enterprise during COVID for incentives, finding some incentives to do this work, which is what was working in the NHS. And you don't have to give GPS much money, but they're inundated with things which their best place to do. Everyone says, well, it's better, you know, go and see your GP. There's a new vaccine, see your GP. There's a new weight los drugs, see your GP. You know, and gps are overwhelmed. They're overworked, and they are the lowest paid doctors in the whole healthcare. Now I'm not working as a GP, I reflect on how hard working my colleagues are and how much work we do with no payment. You know, everything that happens when the if the patient's in the room, there's a Medicare billing, for that if the patient's not in the room, there's no pay. So the phone calls a specialists, the letters, the you know, the work covers, work covers paid, but the centerling. I mean, you just do so much stuff that isn't paid. And you know, I'd really like to just pay my respects to GPS. In Australia, they do such.

You should try being a nurse practice.

You should try being a nurse practice.

That's even worse. There's even less remuneration for that. In the American building is even less. And so when I when I started out doing doing this, I thought, well, we'll just do the tricky detox bit and then we'll hand the patients back to their local services and their local GP. Actually, what we find is it takes the hardest bit. And I've always said this, when a patient comes to see me for the first time to talk about their drinking, I just I'm so excited for them. I'm like and I'm in awe. I'm like, what you've just done is so brave, and I thank you for giving me the privilege of being the one to hear this story and to help you with this. And I absolutely am here to help you. And it takes so much trust to do that, and often you've told someone else already and you've faced stigma, or you've told a healthcare professional and you've not been listened to. It's like need help with them are drinking. I'm drinking in a bottle of wine to night. And people get told, oh, is that all You're fine? Just cook down, you'll be all right, or just stop, you know, and it's like, as if I haven't tried that myself, you know, as if i'd come to you asking about help, if I hadn't, if it was easy enough to just stop or to just cut down. And so then people they're like, okay, well I've tried. I've told one person it didn't go. Well, I'm not going to do that again. I'll just struggle on on my own. So to come and when someone's told you that it's such a beautiful nugget, precious bit of information, that you've got to really respect it. And what that also means is they've told they've enlisted you or for clean Slate, they've told clean Slate their story. So now it's our responsibility to help them. And by saying yes, we'll detox you, but now go back to your GP and ask for your nowtrexone or now go to your local smart Recovery meeting. What that means is it means that you're sort of you're asking that person to tell their story again, and they might not do that, and a lot of the times they won't do that. And so once they have trusted us with that bit of information, we try and offer the same doctor and the same nurse, which, as I say, we can do ninety five percent of the time for the full twelve months, so that you've got that continuity of care which is so vital. And we communicate with the local GPS every step of the way and were educating GPS and supporting GPS to continue that holistic care of the rest of the patient is really important. But it's one of the big barriers.

That's even worse. There's even less remuneration for that. In the American building is even less. And so when I when I started out doing doing this, I thought, well, we'll just do the tricky detox bit and then we'll hand the patients back to their local services and their local GP. Actually, what we find is it takes the hardest bit. And I've always said this, when a patient comes to see me for the first time to talk about their drinking, I just I'm so excited for them. I'm like and I'm in awe. I'm like, what you've just done is so brave, and I thank you for giving me the privilege of being the one to hear this story and to help you with this. And I absolutely am here to help you. And it takes so much trust to do that, and often you've told someone else already and you've faced stigma, or you've told a healthcare professional and you've not been listened to. It's like need help with them are drinking. I'm drinking in a bottle of wine to night. And people get told, oh, is that all You're fine? Just cook down, you'll be all right, or just stop, you know, and it's like, as if I haven't tried that myself, you know, as if i'd come to you asking about help, if I hadn't, if it was easy enough to just stop or to just cut down. And so then people they're like, okay, well I've tried. I've told one person it didn't go. Well, I'm not going to do that again. I'll just struggle on on my own. So to come and when someone's told you that it's such a beautiful nugget, precious bit of information, that you've got to really respect it. And what that also means is they've told they've enlisted you or for clean Slate, they've told clean Slate their story. So now it's our responsibility to help them. And by saying yes, we'll detox you, but now go back to your GP and ask for your nowtrexone or now go to your local smart Recovery meeting. What that means is it means that you're sort of you're asking that person to tell their story again, and they might not do that, and a lot of the times they won't do that. And so once they have trusted us with that bit of information, we try and offer the same doctor and the same nurse, which, as I say, we can do ninety five percent of the time for the full twelve months, so that you've got that continuity of care which is so vital. And we communicate with the local GPS every step of the way and were educating GPS and supporting GPS to continue that holistic care of the rest of the patient is really important. But it's one of the big barriers.

No, I think there's a lot of GPS, don't. I mean, I know I went to see GP and was totally nutterly shamed initially, and she just said, oh, this is just and I respect the fact she said, this is completely outside of my scope practice. You're fine anyway. I remember going out of there and sitting in the car crying, going, what am I going to do? I know I've got a problem, and it's you know how they're that tipping point and it starts to get really out of control. And I was at that point and just being a healthcare professional, and you know, I just happened to know a psychiatrist who I reached out to. He saved my life because I didn't know who else to turn to.

No, I think there's a lot of GPS, don't. I mean, I know I went to see GP and was totally nutterly shamed initially, and she just said, oh, this is just and I respect the fact she said, this is completely outside of my scope practice. You're fine anyway. I remember going out of there and sitting in the car crying, going, what am I going to do? I know I've got a problem, and it's you know how they're that tipping point and it starts to get really out of control. And I was at that point and just being a healthcare professional, and you know, I just happened to know a psychiatrist who I reached out to. He saved my life because I didn't know who else to turn to.

Peer thought she had to do to rehab. Pea's been in health her whole career since she was eighteen, and she honestly thought her only way out was to go into impatient rehab, which she couldn't do because she had work and she had dogs, and so she didn't know that there was an alternative either. But there is, I mean, and so we set this up to break down as many barriers to accessing care as we could. You know, it takes on average eighteen years for people with alcohol use disorder, you know, for want of a better term, to access the health, the health support that they need, the treatment they need, and the main and that's because of the many barriers to access and care, and stigma is probably the biggest one. And by being able to offer someone with lived experience of the program on the end of a phone to enroll you onto the program once you've decided you want help, and then to offer specialist doctor and nurse to give you treatment in your own home, you know, so you don't have to tell your story to more than one person that you know, unless you choose to. Is really helping to break down that stigma barrier. But then there's geographical barriers. We know. The further the further away from a capital city you live, the greater the chance you have of having a substance use issues, and the harder it is to access treatment. I was sort of horrendous story when I went to visit Armagen Aboriginal Health Service that the current model of care was to take people into an impatient detops unit, which wasn't that far away, but it was off country and within this community and in lots of Aboriginal communities. To move on to someone else's country, you need to be invited. And because people weren't being invited onto country into this detox unit, they were having these psychotic experiences because they felt unwelcome and that were there were spirits and ancestors who were not didn't want them in that detox unit, and they were being diagnosed with delia and tremens and psychosis, when really it was just the cultural insensitivity of what had happened.

Peer thought she had to do to rehab. Pea's been in health her whole career since she was eighteen, and she honestly thought her only way out was to go into impatient rehab, which she couldn't do because she had work and she had dogs, and so she didn't know that there was an alternative either. But there is, I mean, and so we set this up to break down as many barriers to accessing care as we could. You know, it takes on average eighteen years for people with alcohol use disorder, you know, for want of a better term, to access the health, the health support that they need, the treatment they need, and the main and that's because of the many barriers to access and care, and stigma is probably the biggest one. And by being able to offer someone with lived experience of the program on the end of a phone to enroll you onto the program once you've decided you want help, and then to offer specialist doctor and nurse to give you treatment in your own home, you know, so you don't have to tell your story to more than one person that you know, unless you choose to. Is really helping to break down that stigma barrier. But then there's geographical barriers. We know. The further the further away from a capital city you live, the greater the chance you have of having a substance use issues, and the harder it is to access treatment. I was sort of horrendous story when I went to visit Armagen Aboriginal Health Service that the current model of care was to take people into an impatient detops unit, which wasn't that far away, but it was off country and within this community and in lots of Aboriginal communities. To move on to someone else's country, you need to be invited. And because people weren't being invited onto country into this detox unit, they were having these psychotic experiences because they felt unwelcome and that were there were spirits and ancestors who were not didn't want them in that detox unit, and they were being diagnosed with delia and tremens and psychosis, when really it was just the cultural insensitivity of what had happened.

There's so much to consider, isn't there.

There's so much to consider, isn't there.

I mean I didn't know that. I had no idea. I thought, oh, it's great, you've got this brand new detox unit. That's a fantastic service. But actually, if it's not done with cultural sensitivity, and it's not codesigned with the people who are going to be using that service, then you can actually do harm or Another sort of broken part of our system is that if you're a victim of domestic or family violence, and if you drink or use drugs, you're at much greater risk of being a victim of thema sit violence and being coerced because of your drug or alcohol use. You can't escape that relationship easily because all of the women's refugees and shelters are dry because they have to be for safety. So if you're drinking and being physically abused, you can't go to a refuge because you're drinking. So now we're working with women's community shelters and doing inReach detoxes to finally break that cycle, and that's been a really exciting project. We're working with veterans you get a free place if you've got a DBA card. There's some public rehabs in regional and rural Australia where they struggle to get prescribers. We've been able to offer sort of in reach prescribing to keep some detoxes open. But the big plan is to make this free for everybody because we get no government funding other than the PHN contracts we've got in Western Queensland and western New South Wales. We've got some phn's in Sydney, but if you don't live in those postcodes then you have to pay. And we're a social enterprise. This is a super cheap service. It's as cheap as we can possibly make it. We don't have any bricks and water, but it's still three hundred and fifty dollars a month, and you know for the detox and the doctors and the nurses to cover their wages, and three hundred and fifty dollars a month is half of what people are spending on alcohol on average. But you know, if you're not drinking, then you and you don't have means, you're not employed, and then that money needs to go on childcare and you're built so we've set up a digital alcohol alliance with Turning Point Sober in the country, Alcohol Jog Foundation, Hello Sunday Morning, Smart Recovery to really lobby government to fund this, and I mean, if you consider that where I work at Saint Vincent's and it obviously we need our impatient withdrawal units absolutely for people with complexity, with homelessness with significant physical or mental health home. But they need to come into the unit like I work in at Saint Vincent's and they do fantastic work. But you know, it's about seven thousand dollars for a five day stay in a public hospital and that's just for your detox, you know, and then you've got those problems of accessing after care, where again you've got to go to either a different service or a different building, meet a different person, tell your story again. I turn up in person. We do the full assessment, drawal and recovery for three hundred and fifty dollars a month. So it's cheap, but I want it to be free for everyone, and I'm hoping that government will come to the table.

I mean I didn't know that. I had no idea. I thought, oh, it's great, you've got this brand new detox unit. That's a fantastic service. But actually, if it's not done with cultural sensitivity, and it's not codesigned with the people who are going to be using that service, then you can actually do harm or Another sort of broken part of our system is that if you're a victim of domestic or family violence, and if you drink or use drugs, you're at much greater risk of being a victim of thema sit violence and being coerced because of your drug or alcohol use. You can't escape that relationship easily because all of the women's refugees and shelters are dry because they have to be for safety. So if you're drinking and being physically abused, you can't go to a refuge because you're drinking. So now we're working with women's community shelters and doing inReach detoxes to finally break that cycle, and that's been a really exciting project. We're working with veterans you get a free place if you've got a DBA card. There's some public rehabs in regional and rural Australia where they struggle to get prescribers. We've been able to offer sort of in reach prescribing to keep some detoxes open. But the big plan is to make this free for everybody because we get no government funding other than the PHN contracts we've got in Western Queensland and western New South Wales. We've got some phn's in Sydney, but if you don't live in those postcodes then you have to pay. And we're a social enterprise. This is a super cheap service. It's as cheap as we can possibly make it. We don't have any bricks and water, but it's still three hundred and fifty dollars a month, and you know for the detox and the doctors and the nurses to cover their wages, and three hundred and fifty dollars a month is half of what people are spending on alcohol on average. But you know, if you're not drinking, then you and you don't have means, you're not employed, and then that money needs to go on childcare and you're built so we've set up a digital alcohol alliance with Turning Point Sober in the country, Alcohol Jog Foundation, Hello Sunday Morning, Smart Recovery to really lobby government to fund this, and I mean, if you consider that where I work at Saint Vincent's and it obviously we need our impatient withdrawal units absolutely for people with complexity, with homelessness with significant physical or mental health home. But they need to come into the unit like I work in at Saint Vincent's and they do fantastic work. But you know, it's about seven thousand dollars for a five day stay in a public hospital and that's just for your detox, you know, and then you've got those problems of accessing after care, where again you've got to go to either a different service or a different building, meet a different person, tell your story again. I turn up in person. We do the full assessment, drawal and recovery for three hundred and fifty dollars a month. So it's cheap, but I want it to be free for everyone, and I'm hoping that government will come to the table.

Have you been lobbying them for long?

Have you been lobbying them for long?

Yes? Peer is amazing. Peer and Chris are well connected, and they've been speaking. We've been speaking to anybody that will listen to us, because we know this is a great service. I mean, the results we're getting are incredible, and it's because we've got motivated people who have come to us for help, who want to make a change. You know, there's no sort of coersion. Well that might be from their family and friends, but to reach out to us means people want help. So we have got this motivated group of people. But if you stay with us for the full twelve months, everyone who fills in their twelve month outcome measure, out of all of those people, eighty five percent of people are meeting their goals at twelve months.

Yes? Peer is amazing. Peer and Chris are well connected, and they've been speaking. We've been speaking to anybody that will listen to us, because we know this is a great service. I mean, the results we're getting are incredible, and it's because we've got motivated people who have come to us for help, who want to make a change. You know, there's no sort of coersion. Well that might be from their family and friends, but to reach out to us means people want help. So we have got this motivated group of people. But if you stay with us for the full twelve months, everyone who fills in their twelve month outcome measure, out of all of those people, eighty five percent of people are meeting their goals at twelve months.

That's phenomenal. So if there were MPs that did want to do further study in this area, like I'm not a you know, AOD specialist, certainly something I'm interested in, where would you go to advance your skills in that space?

That's phenomenal. So if there were MPs that did want to do further study in this area, like I'm not a you know, AOD specialist, certainly something I'm interested in, where would you go to advance your skills in that space?

I'd probably start with DANA, the Drug and Alcohol Nurse Association. Okay, that'd be where i'd go. If you google DINA. The ANA a fantastic organization. They have conferences and a network of nps and it's quite a small, small net group. There's not that many aod nps in Australia, and I hope I've sort of impressed on how rewarding and satisfying this work is. I mean, as I say, I had so many interests, and as soon as I got into diction medicine, I mean I was hooked.

I'd probably start with DANA, the Drug and Alcohol Nurse Association. Okay, that'd be where i'd go. If you google DINA. The ANA a fantastic organization. They have conferences and a network of nps and it's quite a small, small net group. There's not that many aod nps in Australia, and I hope I've sort of impressed on how rewarding and satisfying this work is. I mean, as I say, I had so many interests, and as soon as I got into diction medicine, I mean I was hooked.

It's look, I know, just from me talking and following up with my own clients to come in and supporting as much as I can, how great that feels. And I also love the fact that they feel like they can talk to me without any judgment, because who might the judge. I've been there, you know, I'm not judging anybody, but I now it's wonderful for me to be able to go. Look, Smart Recovery Australia was a god send for me. I loved it, and I loved the fact I could get on. At first, I never had the screen on. It's running all the time. It's fantastic. And then you know, now that I know about clean Slate, I've been telling so many people I think it is such a brilliant organization and unfortunately, with so much funding going to the government from the alcohol manufacturers in space, I hope they see financially, how viable it is to support organizations like yours because health wise, what alcohol does to the body is horrendous, you know, and they would be saving money if they supported organizations like yours.

It's look, I know, just from me talking and following up with my own clients to come in and supporting as much as I can, how great that feels. And I also love the fact that they feel like they can talk to me without any judgment, because who might the judge. I've been there, you know, I'm not judging anybody, but I now it's wonderful for me to be able to go. Look, Smart Recovery Australia was a god send for me. I loved it, and I loved the fact I could get on. At first, I never had the screen on. It's running all the time. It's fantastic. And then you know, now that I know about clean Slate, I've been telling so many people I think it is such a brilliant organization and unfortunately, with so much funding going to the government from the alcohol manufacturers in space, I hope they see financially, how viable it is to support organizations like yours because health wise, what alcohol does to the body is horrendous, you know, and they would be saving money if they supported organizations like yours.

So how economics are very clear and have been We've known them for thirty four years that for every dollar you spend on drug and alcohol treatment, you see seven dollars right the public. So it's a real no brainer put you know, and I mean it's why we've got we've got eighteen private health insurance on board now because the current model is to send people to the three week private detoxes. And again some of these clinics are fantastic and life changing clinics, but they're very expensive. You know, you're looking at fifteen to twenty thousand dollars for three weeks and that's it. You get the three weeks with limited aftercare. So for you know, a fraction of that cost get you get twelve months of support in your own home. So to me, it's a no brainer.

So how economics are very clear and have been We've known them for thirty four years that for every dollar you spend on drug and alcohol treatment, you see seven dollars right the public. So it's a real no brainer put you know, and I mean it's why we've got we've got eighteen private health insurance on board now because the current model is to send people to the three week private detoxes. And again some of these clinics are fantastic and life changing clinics, but they're very expensive. You know, you're looking at fifteen to twenty thousand dollars for three weeks and that's it. You get the three weeks with limited aftercare. So for you know, a fraction of that cost get you get twelve months of support in your own home. So to me, it's a no brainer.

So Chris, coming into Christmas, is there anything you can recommend for? You know, people know when they've got a problem. We innately know whether and we mask it or we pretend it's not happening, or we go and hang out with enablers or what you know, we know? Is there any one thing you would recommend to help people get through this Christmas phase? And nurses are like doctors where some of the worst when it comes to partying at Christmas time. No work hard, play hard. I mean, that's how it was when I did my nursing drinking and we did. But you know, it's a tough time of year. There's, you know, an increase in DV there's an increase in drinking, there's an increase in breakdown of the family, there's increase in isolation, loneliness, and then people drink to mask all that. So is there anything you would recommend?

So Chris, coming into Christmas, is there anything you can recommend for? You know, people know when they've got a problem. We innately know whether and we mask it or we pretend it's not happening, or we go and hang out with enablers or what you know, we know? Is there any one thing you would recommend to help people get through this Christmas phase? And nurses are like doctors where some of the worst when it comes to partying at Christmas time. No work hard, play hard. I mean, that's how it was when I did my nursing drinking and we did. But you know, it's a tough time of year. There's, you know, an increase in DV there's an increase in drinking, there's an increase in breakdown of the family, there's increase in isolation, loneliness, and then people drink to mask all that. So is there anything you would recommend?

It's about being mindful, and that's a hard thing to do, especially after you've had that first drink and your your brain is already craving. The next one is really about when we talk about mindful drinking, it's trying not to have that drink before you go out, arrive at your destination already knowing what you want the night to look like. What is a good night going to look like here? And if it's a work do then it's you know, I don't want to embarrass myself. And so it's really finding your people who you feel safe with in that crowd. Because if your boss is in the room, or that person that you fell out with last week, or someone you just don't like is in the room, you're already in your fight or flight and you're anxious and you want to drink, and that's when things sort of go out of hand. So try and make your first drink a soft drink. That's really powerful thing to do. To turn up at the bar or the restaurant and just say, oh, look, i'm feeling Thursday. I'll have a diet coke or or whatever. I'll have a soft drink to start with, and just see the lay of the land. So find out where you want to sit, where you're going to feel safe, and then really take your time with that drink and say, okay, well, I really I want to be home by this time because for this reason, I'm going to have this is my exit plan. I've got to do this in the morning. How do I want to feel tomorrow? So a good night is going to be a night where I've spent it with these people that I like, where I don't get too drunk. I get home on time and feel good in the morning. How am I going to achieve that? And have a plan, have a plan for your evening. You know, we plan our workday, but we don't always plan our parties, you know, and drink water, slow down, you know, try and enjoy the moment. And you can say no, you know, if you're not feeling up for it, if you're feeling sick, you're feeling tired, if you're worried that no matter what plan you put in place, you're not going to be able to hold that sort And you can say no, you cannot go, or you can go really early and leave really early. You know, you can be the first one Friday. Yeah, be the first one that people have to come and say hello to you then, because when you turn up to a room sometimes I'm like, oh, I need to go and say I have to say load to everyone in the room or they'll think I'm rude. They haven't said a load to me. But if you're one of the first people there, then it's not that's their job to come and say loo to you. Yeah. So have you have your exit plan and speaking it out makes it less scary, you.

It's about being mindful, and that's a hard thing to do, especially after you've had that first drink and your your brain is already craving. The next one is really about when we talk about mindful drinking, it's trying not to have that drink before you go out, arrive at your destination already knowing what you want the night to look like. What is a good night going to look like here? And if it's a work do then it's you know, I don't want to embarrass myself. And so it's really finding your people who you feel safe with in that crowd. Because if your boss is in the room, or that person that you fell out with last week, or someone you just don't like is in the room, you're already in your fight or flight and you're anxious and you want to drink, and that's when things sort of go out of hand. So try and make your first drink a soft drink. That's really powerful thing to do. To turn up at the bar or the restaurant and just say, oh, look, i'm feeling Thursday. I'll have a diet coke or or whatever. I'll have a soft drink to start with, and just see the lay of the land. So find out where you want to sit, where you're going to feel safe, and then really take your time with that drink and say, okay, well, I really I want to be home by this time because for this reason, I'm going to have this is my exit plan. I've got to do this in the morning. How do I want to feel tomorrow? So a good night is going to be a night where I've spent it with these people that I like, where I don't get too drunk. I get home on time and feel good in the morning. How am I going to achieve that? And have a plan, have a plan for your evening. You know, we plan our workday, but we don't always plan our parties, you know, and drink water, slow down, you know, try and enjoy the moment. And you can say no, you know, if you're not feeling up for it, if you're feeling sick, you're feeling tired, if you're worried that no matter what plan you put in place, you're not going to be able to hold that sort And you can say no, you cannot go, or you can go really early and leave really early. You know, you can be the first one Friday. Yeah, be the first one that people have to come and say hello to you then, because when you turn up to a room sometimes I'm like, oh, I need to go and say I have to say load to everyone in the room or they'll think I'm rude. They haven't said a load to me. But if you're one of the first people there, then it's not that's their job to come and say loo to you. Yeah. So have you have your exit plan and speaking it out makes it less scary, you.

Know, it does.

Know, it does.

It does.

It does.

My feedback is that this is a really needed service. I get asked all the time, and I think you have some really valuable information to share. So I certainly would love you to come back on at some stage next year. But thank you so much. I just appreciate you taking the time out of your very very busy schedule and have a merry Christmas. And thanks for the Christmas tips. I think that was really good advice.

My feedback is that this is a really needed service. I get asked all the time, and I think you have some really valuable information to share. So I certainly would love you to come back on at some stage next year. But thank you so much. I just appreciate you taking the time out of your very very busy schedule and have a merry Christmas. And thanks for the Christmas tips. I think that was really good advice.

No problem, and you've saved me an hour this week so I can cancel my psychologists now I've done my therapy. Oh my pleasure.

No problem, and you've saved me an hour this week so I can cancel my psychologists now I've done my therapy. Oh my pleasure.

I do that for free all the time.

I do that for free all the time.