Speaker 1: Apogee Production.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name's beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for Nurses.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to be, so I hid it and parked it for
Speaker 1: nearly four years.
Speaker 2: We always have free will, We always get to choose.
Speaker 2: We are autonomous. Thank you everyone for tuning back into
Speaker 2: tend Andnis for Nurses. Today we have doctor Chris Davis
Speaker 2: with us. He holds two hats, one being one of
Speaker 2: the directors of Clean Slate Clinics, which is what we're
Speaker 2: going to be chatting to him about, but also his
Speaker 2: works in ED at Saint Vincent's Hospital.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a GP by training, so I was a
Speaker 1: full time GP until a couple of years ago when
Speaker 1: I got a job at Saint Vincent's Hospital in addiction
Speaker 1: medicine really in an attempt to become well, hopefully a
Speaker 1: successful one, to become an addiction specialist in an addiction
Speaker 1: medicine at the hospital part time.
Speaker 2: Fantastic. Well, I, as you know, had your colleague Chris
Speaker 2: Kimpaul come in and have a chat with us here
Speaker 2: on the podcast, and it today has been one of
Speaker 2: our most popular podcasts. He was very raw and honest,
Speaker 2: and it made me really want to have a chat
Speaker 2: to you in relation to clean Slate Clinic, especially with
Speaker 2: Christmas literally a couple of weeks away. So how did
Speaker 2: clean slate Clinics start?
Speaker 1: Actually started? Probably about twelve years ago. I was working
Speaker 1: as a busy in a city GP in London. I'd
Speaker 1: only been a GP for a couple of years, and
Speaker 1: I got a partnership in a practice when I was
Speaker 1: way too young. To be honest, I'd only been a
Speaker 1: GP for about eighteen months. I didn't really know what
Speaker 1: I was doing as a junior GP, and but I
Speaker 1: was and I went for a partnership role and got
Speaker 1: the job, which was so flattering. I didn't even think
Speaker 1: to do any sort of due diligence around what this meant.
Speaker 1: But it did mean buying into a business and being
Speaker 1: a business owner and a manager. And the people that
Speaker 1: I went into business with were not the sort of
Speaker 1: people that you want to do that with. I mean,
Speaker 1: the two senior partners hated each other. One would say
Speaker 1: no just because the other had said yes. I remember
Speaker 1: being in one practice meeting where the senior partner was
Speaker 1: screaming at the other one to the point where he
Speaker 1: actually lost consciousness. He fainted. He was during Grammadam and
Speaker 1: he hadn't eaten and so he's now unconscious on the
Speaker 1: floor and Michelle, the senior partner, was still screaming at him,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, Michelle, help him. He's not breathing. So
Speaker 1: that was pretty awful. I was there for four years.
Speaker 1: But one thing that We're saved me during that horrendous
Speaker 1: job was the drug and alcohol work that I got
Speaker 1: interested in doing and the local PHN, which is like
Speaker 1: the primary health network. So the group of commissioners, we
Speaker 1: were really short of methodonne and buper and orphing prescribers
Speaker 1: in the area, so they offered us free training to
Speaker 1: any interested GPS. So this meant that once a month
Speaker 1: I got a day off to go and do this
Speaker 1: training and I could escape this toxic practice that I
Speaker 1: was in. And I became like a methodone prescriber and
Speaker 1: I love that work. And I got to work with
Speaker 1: a drug and out on these who would you know,
Speaker 1: do roll of the legwork. And but what what I
Speaker 1: really became interested in when I sort of developed this
Speaker 1: interest was well, it became a sort of journey of
Speaker 1: self improvement. To be honest, so I mean it to
Speaker 1: to sort of get get right into. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of special interest. I'd done palliative care,
Speaker 1: i was working in nursing homes, I was helping doing
Speaker 1: the diabetes management programs, and I loved working with kids.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of pediatrics in my training, and
Speaker 1: I always wanted to be a pediatrician. And so I
Speaker 1: had all these interests and every aspect of medicine it
Speaker 1: always held some fascination for me. And whatever I started
Speaker 1: to do, I really got my teeth into and loved it.
Speaker 1: But around this time I was gaining this interest in
Speaker 1: extra knowledge and drug and alcohol. What I really began
Speaker 1: to get insight into, you know, I was maturing and
Speaker 1: was that I needed help with my own drinking. I
Speaker 1: grew up in very I mean I had a great childhood.
Speaker 1: I really did. But when I grew up as a
Speaker 1: gay boy in a very homophobic town, the you know
Speaker 1: I do. I really did love my upbringing. I had
Speaker 1: incredible friends, I really had a loving family. It was
Speaker 1: very working class. We didn't have any of the trappings.
Speaker 1: But I loved the camping holidays and playing sport. And
Speaker 1: but I was I was very closeted and as much
Speaker 1: as I had these feelings that I knew weren't okay.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was one gay guy I was
Speaker 1: aware of in our town who was branded a pedophile,
Speaker 1: not because he was a pedophile, just because of his sexuality.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and not one kid in my school came
Speaker 1: out because of the fear of what that actually meant.
Speaker 1: And you know, and there was the HIV crisis. You know,
Speaker 1: I was born in the eighties. I was born in
Speaker 1: seventy seven, and so being game wasn't okay. It meant
Speaker 1: you were going to die and be be villified, you know.
Speaker 1: And then when I was about eighty, I remember my
Speaker 1: mom sitting us down. My mum was an amazing woman.
Speaker 1: She passed away last year, unfortunately, and she taught sex
Speaker 1: head and she told me and my brother and sister
Speaker 1: that if any of us were gay, that mom and
Speaker 1: dad would be fine about it. And we all laughed
Speaker 1: because none of us were. And of course I was, yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely not out at that point. But I remembered it
Speaker 1: really because I clopped it for later, you know, and
Speaker 1: went through UNI still in the closet, and you know,
Speaker 1: full of shame, you know, about that side of me.
Speaker 1: And then when I eventually did, I flew out. I
Speaker 1: did my house jobs in Stepping Hill and Stockport in Manchester,
Speaker 1: and it was horrendous. They monitored my hours, well all
Speaker 1: of the junior doctor's hours at the time, because I
Speaker 1: had been some deaths, like junior doctors had died because
Speaker 1: they were so tired and they crushed their car and
Speaker 1: there'd been a suicide. And my average hours per week
Speaker 1: was one hundred and eleven. Oh my god. And so
Speaker 1: I hated it because again, you're a junior doctor. You
Speaker 1: don't know what you're doing. You're flying by the seat
Speaker 1: of your pants. You're hoping that the nurses are going
Speaker 1: to be kind to you, and you know, and so
Speaker 1: it was awful. So I thought, I'm going to hate
Speaker 1: it this much, might as well go and hate it
Speaker 1: and live in Australia and be on the beach, you know.
Speaker 1: And around that time, you know, I was really coming
Speaker 1: to the terms with the fact that I wasn't that
Speaker 1: I did have these feelings towards men, and that you know,
Speaker 1: they weren't going to go away like I hoped that
Speaker 1: they would. So I arrived in Australia and then I
Speaker 1: met Luke, who's my now husband, and fell in love.
Speaker 1: And it was an amazing sort of way to come
Speaker 1: out in a way, because you know, I wasn't telling
Speaker 1: people that I was gay. I was telling people that
Speaker 1: I was in love. And I wasn't really scared about
Speaker 1: telling mom, you know, because she'd said this thing when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen, and she I was so close to her,
Speaker 1: and so then when I told her, my mom didn't
Speaker 1: react very well, you know, and in fact, she reacted
Speaker 1: pretty pretty awfully. It was very hard for her to understand.
Speaker 1: It was a surprise to her as it, yeah, as
Speaker 1: it had been to sort of me in a way,
Speaker 1: because I was coming out to myself at the same time,
Speaker 1: and I didn't identify as being gay. I knew I
Speaker 1: was in love with Luke, but gay had all of
Speaker 1: these horrible negative connotations, you know. I was going to
Speaker 1: be all of the things that you know that gay
Speaker 1: meant when I was growing up. And so I was
Speaker 1: coming to terms of my own sexuality and what that
Speaker 1: actually meant and who I was. And I was doing
Speaker 1: it without the support of my mom at the time, and.
Speaker 2: So I try, how about your siblings, did they support you?
Speaker 1: So Mom, didn't. I was in Australia at the time,
Speaker 1: and this is before social media, and you know, I
Speaker 1: had to pay a fortune to make a phone call home,
Speaker 1: and I was doing group emails once a week, you know,
Speaker 1: to all my friends and that's how I communicated. So
Speaker 1: Mom didn't want my siblings or my dad to know
Speaker 1: because she thought it would be a phase, and you know,
Speaker 1: she was protecting them, I guess in a way. So
Speaker 1: they didn't know for about a year and it got
Speaker 1: too much and Luke and I split up. He went
Speaker 1: back to England and it was horrendous for him, horrendous
Speaker 1: for me, but I, you know, I wasn't. I needed
Speaker 1: to sort my own head out. I didn't think I
Speaker 1: was doing anything wrong. But at the same time, my
Speaker 1: family was breaking up and was saying things like I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be welcome home, and so, yeah, so me and
Speaker 1: him split up and he was heartbroken. Anyway, I went
Speaker 1: home to England from Australia for a wedding and met
Speaker 1: up again with Luke and everything became clear. You know.
Speaker 1: It was amazing to see him again and for him
Speaker 1: to forgive me, and yeah, I knew that I had
Speaker 1: to be with him and I couldn't risk losing him again,
Speaker 1: and so told Mom and she wasn't okay about it.
Speaker 1: I went back to Australia, leaving Luke in England. But
Speaker 1: now I'm like, Mom, I've got to tell my family.
Speaker 1: I've got to tell Dad. I've got to heelp because
Speaker 1: I'm going to be with Luke for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. You know. Anyway, my brother was flying out.
Speaker 1: He's just about eighteen months younger than me. My with her,
Speaker 1: and he was flying out to come and stay with
Speaker 1: me for a few months because we were really close
Speaker 1: and we still are, and I owe him. I owe
Speaker 1: him a lot because when my brother was coming out
Speaker 1: and I had to tell him, and Luke had just
Speaker 1: come out to stay with me for two or three
Speaker 1: weeks and he wasn't. He missed his flight because we
Speaker 1: were partying so hard. He missed his flight and my
Speaker 1: brother arrived the next day and so he came to
Speaker 1: sleep in in this in the lounge and there was
Speaker 1: this man in my bedroom and anyway, got through his hangover,
Speaker 1: flew home. I did a night shift, came back and
Speaker 1: you know, all night I was like, I've got to
Speaker 1: tell my brother. This massive thing. You know, and so
Speaker 1: I sent my brother down and I was like, I've
Speaker 1: got something to tell you, and he goes, I think
Speaker 1: I know, bro, and I'm like, no, you don't know this.
Speaker 1: He goes, I think I do, and I'm like what,
Speaker 1: and he goes, are you gay? So no, no, no
Speaker 1: I'm not gay because I wasn't in my own head
Speaker 1: at this time, you know, I was just in love
Speaker 1: with Luke, which obviously I now know is the same thing.
Speaker 1: And he goes, he goes, but Luke's your boyfriend, right,
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, Luke's my boyfriend. And I'm like, how
Speaker 1: did you know? And he goes, well, I found this poem,
Speaker 1: found his poem in the kitchen, and Luke had written
Speaker 1: me a love rap and had left it there. My
Speaker 1: brother found it. It was quite an interesting way for him.
Speaker 1: I won't tell you what was in what and decent.
Speaker 1: And I was so petrified that my brother was gonna
Speaker 1: act in the same way that my mom had, you know.
Speaker 1: And then I told my dad. My dad mom had
Speaker 1: just told him before I got on the phone to him,
Speaker 1: and he just said all the same sort of things
Speaker 1: momma was saying. And I'm like, Dad, they're not your words,
Speaker 1: then Mom's words, and I'm like, all you've ever said
Speaker 1: to me, Dad is that you want me to be happy.
Speaker 1: And what I'm telling you is that this is the
Speaker 1: happiest I've ever been, and I've met the person I'm
Speaker 1: going to spend the rest of my life with him.
Speaker 1: This is incredible news. And he goes, oh, but you're
Speaker 1: happy as any heads that I'm really happy. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: that's good news then, isn't it. So I'm like, Dad,
Speaker 1: it's the best news. And he's never looked back from that,
Speaker 1: you know, he's but it was really hard because you
Speaker 1: go up with this shame and fear of rejection, and
Speaker 1: when you're rejected by the person who means the most
Speaker 1: to you in the world, which is eventually which is
Speaker 1: why I finished with Luke. Initially, it was because I
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine not, you know, losing my mum or losing
Speaker 1: my relationship with my mum, because it was so important
Speaker 1: at that time, and you know, and Luke understands that
Speaker 1: of course. Anyway, I'm sort of I'm digressing, but you know, drinking,
Speaker 1: and certainly when me and Luke split up for that
Speaker 1: six months, I just I drank every weekend when I
Speaker 1: wasn't working, I drink and I'd escape, and you know,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to worry, and you know, I'd drink
Speaker 1: to black out a lot of the time because I
Speaker 1: don't know. So then well, you know, Luke and I.
Speaker 1: I moved back to England and Luke and I were
Speaker 1: great and life was good. I was working as this GP,
Speaker 1: and but the bin drinking sort of stayed with me
Speaker 1: and it was full part of the pattern. When I
Speaker 1: was doing there was one hundred and eleven hours a
Speaker 1: week as well. It's like we had the doctor's mess
Speaker 1: in the hospital which always had free alcohol in and
Speaker 1: we lived in the hospital, worked in the hospital, and
Speaker 1: obviously when you're working, you're working, but that on that
Speaker 1: one day off or that weekend off, you know, you're
Speaker 1: and even when you're in the mess when you are working,
Speaker 1: there's one of your mates drunk, you know, in there.
Speaker 1: Because so we were bings. We were party hard. We'd
Speaker 1: work hard with party hard as a release from the
Speaker 1: stress from work and everything else that was going on.
Speaker 1: And then when I got this job in London where
Speaker 1: Clean State started, and it was awful. It was really
Speaker 1: really toxic, and so yeah, so the binge drinking just happened,
Speaker 1: and that didn't happen. It just didn't stop happening. And
Speaker 1: whilst it was fun, the Mondays and the Tuesdays and
Speaker 1: this workplace were so bad that I was suffering with
Speaker 1: anxiety for sure. But I remember being at a friend's
Speaker 1: wedding and I got a phone call from what I
Speaker 1: thought was the landlord and it wasn't, and I got
Speaker 1: that tightness in the chest, sweating, and I had the palpitations,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, I knew what it was. I'd
Speaker 1: had a panic attack when I was younger, but I
Speaker 1: knew what it was because I was a doctor and
Speaker 1: I dealt with people suffering with panic. But I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see why people go to hospital with this feeling.
Speaker 1: It was that bad, you know. And then I was
Speaker 1: doing this extra work with drug and alcohol and I'm like, okay, right,
Speaker 1: alcohol is really part of the problem here. It's really
Speaker 1: not helping me. And so there was a group of
Speaker 1: of GPS helped doing these home alcohol detox clinics. There
Speaker 1: was three, well, there was two GPS, and then I
Speaker 1: joined the ranks because I really wanted to get involved
Speaker 1: a to help myself. It's like, how do you start
Speaker 1: the habit of a lifetime. This is how my friends
Speaker 1: meet up, but you know, we go out, we drink,
Speaker 1: and we get drunk. How do you change that? And
Speaker 1: also because I'd noticed it, which it seems like a
Speaker 1: crazy thing, particularly for a doctor to say and to see,
Speaker 1: but I started asking my patients about their drinking. And
Speaker 1: that's not really part You think that would just be
Speaker 1: part of every history, and absolutely it should be, but
Speaker 1: drug and alcohol, you know, unless someone volunteered that they
Speaker 1: were drinking too much, it wasn't part of your normal
Speaker 1: questioning smoking. Yes, but I didn't used to ask people
Speaker 1: until I've done this extra training about their drug. U
Speaker 1: saw they're drinking. But now I was saying that what
Speaker 1: an incredible effect it had had on my mental health
Speaker 1: and my physical health. And I started asking people about it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it just brought brought up so many,
Speaker 1: so many things, And so I started helping people detox
Speaker 1: from alcohol at home. And because I was going through
Speaker 1: my own sort of shame and guilt and all of
Speaker 1: these emotions, when patients opened up to me and said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm drinking too much, it's affected me in this way
Speaker 1: and I want to change, and then taking them through
Speaker 1: a withdrawal and seeing the incredible change that it made,
Speaker 1: and seeing the bravery in my patients, you know, the
Speaker 1: courage that it takes to say I've got a problem
Speaker 1: with alcohol in this society and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: something about it, and I'm going to tell these people
Speaker 1: this is It really resonated with my own sort of
Speaker 1: coming out story and also my own sort of struggles
Speaker 1: with alcohol, and so it was such a privilege. You know,
Speaker 1: I was so in awe of my patients who who
Speaker 1: were brave enough to put that hand up and make
Speaker 1: this change, and to be the one that could help
Speaker 1: them do that, and to see the incredible difference it
Speaker 1: made to their physical health, their mental health, to the
Speaker 1: relationships to their working lives. It was the most rewarding
Speaker 1: thing that I'd ever done in medicine. And so then
Speaker 1: really to escape the horrible job that I was in.
Speaker 1: You know, Luke and I we knew we needed to
Speaker 1: change our lifestyle, our drinking patterns, our you know, our
Speaker 1: work life balance, and our friends had started to have
Speaker 1: kids and Luke never wanted kids, and we knew that
Speaker 1: we knew that something had to change, and so we
Speaker 1: started talking about moving out of London and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, for giving up on abroad and he's like,
Speaker 1: well no, and I'm like, why don't we go back
Speaker 1: to Sydney which is where we met. But I was
Speaker 1: desperate when to bring this model of care with me
Speaker 1: because I hated being a GP in that practice, but
Speaker 1: I loved my alcohol whole work. And when I got
Speaker 1: to Australia, I joined this practice called Killed their Road
Speaker 1: and they were super supportive in allowing me to bring
Speaker 1: this model of alcohol detox with me and I was
Speaker 1: no longer a practice owner, you know. I remember on
Speaker 1: the first day, the receptionist came in as I was
Speaker 1: being trained by the practice manager and she goes, oh
Speaker 1: so and so is called off sick. We've got no
Speaker 1: one behind the desk, and I said, oh, well, have
Speaker 1: you got an on call wrote for a reception And
Speaker 1: they just looked at me like, Chris, this is really
Speaker 1: not your problem. And it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is amazing. I can just be a doctor again,
Speaker 1: like this is that's not my worry. Reception is not
Speaker 1: my worry anymore. And for two years I was just
Speaker 1: a GP and not a manager and I could set
Speaker 1: I set up the Clean State Clinic, and I just
Speaker 1: loved being a doctor again. You know, I'd really burnt
Speaker 1: out in London and I've found a joy of general
Speaker 1: practice and Clean Slate was just my passion project. Then
Speaker 1: I brought it to Darlinghurst eas Sydney Doctors and then
Speaker 1: COVID hit and all of a sudden, you know, there's
Speaker 1: not that many gps that put their hand up and
Speaker 1: say they've got a special interest in alcohol. In fact,
Speaker 1: if you googled it, I was the only name that
Speaker 1: came up. And because of that, I when COVID hit
Speaker 1: and all the detox services had closed, including where I
Speaker 1: were now the Gorman unit that was a COVID ward
Speaker 1: for a while. So you know, people were drinking twenty
Speaker 1: to twenty five percent more through COVID, but try and
Speaker 1: get help was virtually impossible. So I'm getting phone calls
Speaker 1: and emails from Alice Springs. I did a detox over
Speaker 1: the phone to someone on the Gold Coast. I had
Speaker 1: two people from Adelaide. They didn't know each other, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know this before it happened, but they flew
Speaker 1: from Adelaide for a GP appointment with me because they
Speaker 1: were that desperate for help with their drinking. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: well this isn't this isn't working. There was no there's
Speaker 1: bits and obs of Medicare funding, but it just didn't
Speaker 1: feel safe for me to be prescribing die as a
Speaker 1: paraps people I had not met before, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, I was desperate to help them. So that's
Speaker 1: when Chris Rain, who was the founder of Hello Sunday Morning,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure you've heard of, is really not for
Speaker 1: profit charity. And I've met Chris at a conference and
Speaker 1: we've done a bit of work together through Hello Sunday Morning,
Speaker 1: and I loved Hello Sunday Morning. I recommended it to
Speaker 1: all my patients, and we'd be we'd been keeping in
Speaker 1: touch to see how we could work together, and he
Speaker 1: was like, what were we going to do about COVID And
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I don't know, and he says, why
Speaker 1: don't we just put your model of face to face
Speaker 1: care entirely onto telehealth and then everybody can access it
Speaker 1: no matter where they are and it's completely COVID safe.
Speaker 1: And as soon as he said it, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a brilliant idea and at the same time, serendipitously,
Speaker 1: my best friend Pierre had just left her role as
Speaker 1: a national Partner for Health in Deloitte and along the
Speaker 1: way had developed alcohol use disorder, which I wasn't aware of.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was one of my drinking buddies in London,
Speaker 1: one of my binge drinking buddies, you know, for many years,
Speaker 1: and we've been through a lot together and had known
Speaker 1: each other a very long time. And she's an incredible
Speaker 1: she's now our leader, our CEO.
Speaker 2: And well, I actually just preferred someone who reached out
Speaker 2: to me last week to you guys. And it's funny,
Speaker 2: you know, I haven't had a drink now, it'll be
Speaker 2: coming up to six years and amazing. I wish there
Speaker 2: had have been. I was very lucky in the fact
Speaker 2: that I was able to see an amazing you know
Speaker 2: psychiatrist and he guided me through those initial stages. But
Speaker 2: I just wonder if there had been something like what
Speaker 2: you offer, you know, things, I might have done something sooner.
Speaker 2: But I think what you're offering is wonderful. And as
Speaker 2: I have my own practice in dermatology and asthetics, of
Speaker 2: which if I'm truly honest. My passion is dying and
Speaker 2: is certainly going in different directions, probably more this pathway
Speaker 2: helping people more. And I'm not saying what I do
Speaker 2: now doesn't help people. And you know, I've got beautiful clients,
Speaker 2: but I can't tell you since I tell people that
Speaker 2: I don't drink, and I didn't, well, I stop drinking
Speaker 2: because I had a problem. I get asked. I would
Speaker 2: get asked at least twice a week how I did it,
Speaker 2: or probably the biggest question is what was the impact
Speaker 2: it had on you? How did you go out? How
Speaker 2: did you navigate Christmas? It is so terrifying the other
Speaker 2: side for so many people. I think what you guys
Speaker 2: offer with that support is wonderful. It's not just you know,
Speaker 2: let's help you, see you later, it's let's support you
Speaker 2: through a period of time, which I think is so
Speaker 2: you know, it's not when you stop drinking, it's it's
Speaker 2: the stuff that goes on in here after you stop.
Speaker 1: Drinking and telling your story is I think it is
Speaker 1: so difficult. And you know, ideally, I think you know,
Speaker 1: when I was doing this as a GP, I think
Speaker 1: that's that's great because people could come and see me
Speaker 1: as their GP. No one had to know they were
Speaker 1: just going through a GP appointment and I could I would,
Speaker 1: you know, do the assessment. I would see them daily
Speaker 1: through DETOS and I could follow them up from cradle
Speaker 1: to grave. You know, I could do the mental health
Speaker 1: care plan well, stating their blood pressure. But gps don't
Speaker 1: have the capacity to do that. And I campaigned for
Speaker 1: a long time before we set up this social enterprise
Speaker 1: during COVID for incentives, finding some incentives to do this work,
Speaker 1: which is what was working in the NHS. And you
Speaker 1: don't have to give GPS much money, but they're inundated
Speaker 1: with things which their best place to do. Everyone says, well,
Speaker 1: it's better, you know, go and see your GP. There's
Speaker 1: a new vaccine, see your GP. There's a new weight
Speaker 1: los drugs, see your GP. You know, and gps are overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: They're overworked, and they are the lowest paid doctors in
Speaker 1: the whole healthcare. Now I'm not working as a GP,
Speaker 1: I reflect on how hard working my colleagues are and
Speaker 1: how much work we do with no payment. You know,
Speaker 1: everything that happens when the if the patient's in the room,
Speaker 1: there's a Medicare billing, for that if the patient's not
Speaker 1: in the room, there's no pay. So the phone calls
Speaker 1: a specialists, the letters, the you know, the work covers,
Speaker 1: work covers paid, but the centerling. I mean, you just
Speaker 1: do so much stuff that isn't paid. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'd really like to just pay my respects to GPS.
Speaker 1: In Australia, they do such.
Speaker 2: You should try being a nurse practice.
Speaker 1: That's even worse. There's even less remuneration for that. In
Speaker 1: the American building is even less. And so when I
Speaker 1: when I started out doing doing this, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: we'll just do the tricky detox bit and then we'll
Speaker 1: hand the patients back to their local services and their
Speaker 1: local GP. Actually, what we find is it takes the
Speaker 1: hardest bit. And I've always said this, when a patient
Speaker 1: comes to see me for the first time to talk
Speaker 1: about their drinking, I just I'm so excited for them.
Speaker 1: I'm like and I'm in awe. I'm like, what you've
Speaker 1: just done is so brave, and I thank you for
Speaker 1: giving me the privilege of being the one to hear
Speaker 1: this story and to help you with this. And I
Speaker 1: absolutely am here to help you. And it takes so
Speaker 1: much trust to do that, and often you've told someone
Speaker 1: else already and you've faced stigma, or you've told a
Speaker 1: healthcare professional and you've not been listened to. It's like
Speaker 1: need help with them are drinking. I'm drinking in a
Speaker 1: bottle of wine to night. And people get told, oh,
Speaker 1: is that all You're fine? Just cook down, you'll be
Speaker 1: all right, or just stop, you know, and it's like,
Speaker 1: as if I haven't tried that myself, you know, as
Speaker 1: if i'd come to you asking about help, if I hadn't,
Speaker 1: if it was easy enough to just stop or to
Speaker 1: just cut down. And so then people they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: well I've tried. I've told one person it didn't go. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that again. I'll just struggle
Speaker 1: on on my own. So to come and when someone's
Speaker 1: told you that it's such a beautiful nugget, precious bit
Speaker 1: of information, that you've got to really respect it. And
Speaker 1: what that also means is they've told they've enlisted you
Speaker 1: or for clean Slate, they've told clean Slate their story.
Speaker 1: So now it's our responsibility to help them. And by
Speaker 1: saying yes, we'll detox you, but now go back to
Speaker 1: your GP and ask for your nowtrexone or now go
Speaker 1: to your local smart Recovery meeting. What that means is
Speaker 1: it means that you're sort of you're asking that person
Speaker 1: to tell their story again, and they might not do that,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the times they won't do that.
Speaker 1: And so once they have trusted us with that bit
Speaker 1: of information, we try and offer the same doctor and
Speaker 1: the same nurse, which, as I say, we can do
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of the time for the full twelve months,
Speaker 1: so that you've got that continuity of care which is
Speaker 1: so vital. And we communicate with the local GPS every
Speaker 1: step of the way and were educating GPS and supporting
Speaker 1: GPS to continue that holistic care of the rest of
Speaker 1: the patient is really important. But it's one of the
Speaker 1: big barriers.
Speaker 2: No, I think there's a lot of GPS, don't. I mean,
Speaker 2: I know I went to see GP and was totally
Speaker 2: nutterly shamed initially, and she just said, oh, this is
Speaker 2: just and I respect the fact she said, this is
Speaker 2: completely outside of my scope practice. You're fine anyway. I
Speaker 2: remember going out of there and sitting in the car crying, going,
Speaker 2: what am I going to do? I know I've got
Speaker 2: a problem, and it's you know how they're that tipping
Speaker 2: point and it starts to get really out of control.
Speaker 2: And I was at that point and just being a
Speaker 2: healthcare professional, and you know, I just happened to know
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist who I reached out to. He saved my
Speaker 2: life because I didn't know who else to turn to.
Speaker 1: Peer thought she had to do to rehab. Pea's been
Speaker 1: in health her whole career since she was eighteen, and
Speaker 1: she honestly thought her only way out was to go
Speaker 1: into impatient rehab, which she couldn't do because she had
Speaker 1: work and she had dogs, and so she didn't know
Speaker 1: that there was an alternative either. But there is, I mean,
Speaker 1: and so we set this up to break down as
Speaker 1: many barriers to accessing care as we could. You know,
Speaker 1: it takes on average eighteen years for people with alcohol
Speaker 1: use disorder, you know, for want of a better term,
Speaker 1: to access the health, the health support that they need,
Speaker 1: the treatment they need, and the main and that's because
Speaker 1: of the many barriers to access and care, and stigma
Speaker 1: is probably the biggest one. And by being able to
Speaker 1: offer someone with lived experience of the program on the
Speaker 1: end of a phone to enroll you onto the program
Speaker 1: once you've decided you want help, and then to offer
Speaker 1: specialist doctor and nurse to give you treatment in your
Speaker 1: own home, you know, so you don't have to tell
Speaker 1: your story to more than one person that you know,
Speaker 1: unless you choose to. Is really helping to break down
Speaker 1: that stigma barrier. But then there's geographical barriers. We know.
Speaker 1: The further the further away from a capital city you live,
Speaker 1: the greater the chance you have of having a substance
Speaker 1: use issues, and the harder it is to access treatment.
Speaker 1: I was sort of horrendous story when I went to
Speaker 1: visit Armagen Aboriginal Health Service that the current model of
Speaker 1: care was to take people into an impatient detops unit,
Speaker 1: which wasn't that far away, but it was off country
Speaker 1: and within this community and in lots of Aboriginal communities.
Speaker 1: To move on to someone else's country, you need to
Speaker 1: be invited. And because people weren't being invited onto country
Speaker 1: into this detox unit, they were having these psychotic experiences
Speaker 1: because they felt unwelcome and that were there were spirits
Speaker 1: and ancestors who were not didn't want them in that
Speaker 1: detox unit, and they were being diagnosed with delia and
Speaker 1: tremens and psychosis, when really it was just the cultural
Speaker 1: insensitivity of what had happened.
Speaker 2: There's so much to consider, isn't there.
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't know that. I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, it's great, you've got this brand new
Speaker 1: detox unit. That's a fantastic service. But actually, if it's
Speaker 1: not done with cultural sensitivity, and it's not codesigned with
Speaker 1: the people who are going to be using that service,
Speaker 1: then you can actually do harm or Another sort of
Speaker 1: broken part of our system is that if you're a
Speaker 1: victim of domestic or family violence, and if you drink
Speaker 1: or use drugs, you're at much greater risk of being
Speaker 1: a victim of thema sit violence and being coerced because
Speaker 1: of your drug or alcohol use. You can't escape that
Speaker 1: relationship easily because all of the women's refugees and shelters
Speaker 1: are dry because they have to be for safety. So
Speaker 1: if you're drinking and being physically abused, you can't go
Speaker 1: to a refuge because you're drinking. So now we're working
Speaker 1: with women's community shelters and doing inReach detoxes to finally
Speaker 1: break that cycle, and that's been a really exciting project.
Speaker 1: We're working with veterans you get a free place if
Speaker 1: you've got a DBA card. There's some public rehabs in
Speaker 1: regional and rural Australia where they struggle to get prescribers.
Speaker 1: We've been able to offer sort of in reach prescribing
Speaker 1: to keep some detoxes open. But the big plan is
Speaker 1: to make this free for everybody because we get no
Speaker 1: government funding other than the PHN contracts we've got in
Speaker 1: Western Queensland and western New South Wales. We've got some
Speaker 1: phn's in Sydney, but if you don't live in those
Speaker 1: postcodes then you have to pay. And we're a social enterprise.
Speaker 1: This is a super cheap service. It's as cheap as
Speaker 1: we can possibly make it. We don't have any bricks
Speaker 1: and water, but it's still three hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a month, and you know for the detox and the
Speaker 1: doctors and the nurses to cover their wages, and three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars a month is half of what
Speaker 1: people are spending on alcohol on average. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you're not drinking, then you and you don't have means,
Speaker 1: you're not employed, and then that money needs to go
Speaker 1: on childcare and you're built so we've set up a
Speaker 1: digital alcohol alliance with Turning Point Sober in the country,
Speaker 1: Alcohol Jog Foundation, Hello Sunday Morning, Smart Recovery to really
Speaker 1: lobby government to fund this, and I mean, if you
Speaker 1: consider that where I work at Saint Vincent's and it
Speaker 1: obviously we need our impatient withdrawal units absolutely for people
Speaker 1: with complexity, with homelessness with significant physical or mental health home.
Speaker 1: But they need to come into the unit like I
Speaker 1: work in at Saint Vincent's and they do fantastic work.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's about seven thousand dollars for a
Speaker 1: five day stay in a public hospital and that's just
Speaker 1: for your detox, you know, and then you've got those
Speaker 1: problems of accessing after care, where again you've got to
Speaker 1: go to either a different service or a different building,
Speaker 1: meet a different person, tell your story again. I turn
Speaker 1: up in person. We do the full assessment, drawal and
Speaker 1: recovery for three hundred and fifty dollars a month. So
Speaker 1: it's cheap, but I want it to be free for everyone,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping that government will come to the table.
Speaker 2: Have you been lobbying them for long?
Speaker 1: Yes? Peer is amazing. Peer and Chris are well connected,
Speaker 1: and they've been speaking. We've been speaking to anybody that
Speaker 1: will listen to us, because we know this is a
Speaker 1: great service. I mean, the results we're getting are incredible,
Speaker 1: and it's because we've got motivated people who have come
Speaker 1: to us for help, who want to make a change.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no sort of coersion. Well that might
Speaker 1: be from their family and friends, but to reach out
Speaker 1: to us means people want help. So we have got
Speaker 1: this motivated group of people. But if you stay with
Speaker 1: us for the full twelve months, everyone who fills in
Speaker 1: their twelve month outcome measure, out of all of those people,
Speaker 1: eighty five percent of people are meeting their goals at
Speaker 1: twelve months.
Speaker 2: That's phenomenal. So if there were MPs that did want
Speaker 2: to do further study in this area, like I'm not
Speaker 2: a you know, AOD specialist, certainly something I'm interested in,
Speaker 2: where would you go to advance your skills in that space?
Speaker 1: I'd probably start with DANA, the Drug and Alcohol Nurse Association. Okay,
Speaker 1: that'd be where i'd go. If you google DINA. The
Speaker 1: ANA a fantastic organization. They have conferences and a network
Speaker 1: of nps and it's quite a small, small net group.
Speaker 1: There's not that many aod nps in Australia, and I
Speaker 1: hope I've sort of impressed on how rewarding and satisfying
Speaker 1: this work is. I mean, as I say, I had
Speaker 1: so many interests, and as soon as I got into
Speaker 1: diction medicine, I mean I was hooked.
Speaker 2: It's look, I know, just from me talking and following
Speaker 2: up with my own clients to come in and supporting
Speaker 2: as much as I can, how great that feels. And
Speaker 2: I also love the fact that they feel like they
Speaker 2: can talk to me without any judgment, because who might
Speaker 2: the judge. I've been there, you know, I'm not judging anybody,
Speaker 2: but I now it's wonderful for me to be able
Speaker 2: to go. Look, Smart Recovery Australia was a god send
Speaker 2: for me. I loved it, and I loved the fact
Speaker 2: I could get on. At first, I never had the
Speaker 2: screen on. It's running all the time. It's fantastic. And
Speaker 2: then you know, now that I know about clean Slate,
Speaker 2: I've been telling so many people I think it is
Speaker 2: such a brilliant organization and unfortunately, with so much funding
Speaker 2: going to the government from the alcohol manufacturers in space,
Speaker 2: I hope they see financially, how viable it is to
Speaker 2: support organizations like yours because health wise, what alcohol does
Speaker 2: to the body is horrendous, you know, and they would
Speaker 2: be saving money if they supported organizations like yours.
Speaker 1: So how economics are very clear and have been We've
Speaker 1: known them for thirty four years that for every dollar
Speaker 1: you spend on drug and alcohol treatment, you see seven
Speaker 1: dollars right the public. So it's a real no brainer
Speaker 1: put you know, and I mean it's why we've got
Speaker 1: we've got eighteen private health insurance on board now because
Speaker 1: the current model is to send people to the three
Speaker 1: week private detoxes. And again some of these clinics are
Speaker 1: fantastic and life changing clinics, but they're very expensive. You know,
Speaker 1: you're looking at fifteen to twenty thousand dollars for three
Speaker 1: weeks and that's it. You get the three weeks with
Speaker 1: limited aftercare. So for you know, a fraction of that
Speaker 1: cost get you get twelve months of support in your
Speaker 1: own home. So to me, it's a no brainer.
Speaker 2: So Chris, coming into Christmas, is there anything you can
Speaker 2: recommend for? You know, people know when they've got a problem.
Speaker 2: We innately know whether and we mask it or we
Speaker 2: pretend it's not happening, or we go and hang out
Speaker 2: with enablers or what you know, we know? Is there
Speaker 2: any one thing you would recommend to help people get
Speaker 2: through this Christmas phase? And nurses are like doctors where
Speaker 2: some of the worst when it comes to partying at
Speaker 2: Christmas time. No work hard, play hard. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: how it was when I did my nursing drinking and
Speaker 2: we did. But you know, it's a tough time of year. There's,
Speaker 2: you know, an increase in DV there's an increase in drinking,
Speaker 2: there's an increase in breakdown of the family, there's increase
Speaker 2: in isolation, loneliness, and then people drink to mask all that.
Speaker 2: So is there anything you would recommend?
Speaker 1: It's about being mindful, and that's a hard thing to do,
Speaker 1: especially after you've had that first drink and your your
Speaker 1: brain is already craving. The next one is really about
Speaker 1: when we talk about mindful drinking, it's trying not to
Speaker 1: have that drink before you go out, arrive at your
Speaker 1: destination already knowing what you want the night to look like.
Speaker 1: What is a good night going to look like here?
Speaker 1: And if it's a work do then it's you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to embarrass myself. And so it's really
Speaker 1: finding your people who you feel safe with in that crowd.
Speaker 1: Because if your boss is in the room, or that
Speaker 1: person that you fell out with last week, or someone
Speaker 1: you just don't like is in the room, you're already
Speaker 1: in your fight or flight and you're anxious and you
Speaker 1: want to drink, and that's when things sort of go
Speaker 1: out of hand. So try and make your first drink
Speaker 1: a soft drink. That's really powerful thing to do. To
Speaker 1: turn up at the bar or the restaurant and just say, oh, look,
Speaker 1: i'm feeling Thursday. I'll have a diet coke or or whatever.
Speaker 1: I'll have a soft drink to start with, and just
Speaker 1: see the lay of the land. So find out where
Speaker 1: you want to sit, where you're going to feel safe,
Speaker 1: and then really take your time with that drink and say, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I really I want to be home by this time
Speaker 1: because for this reason, I'm going to have this is
Speaker 1: my exit plan. I've got to do this in the morning.
Speaker 1: How do I want to feel tomorrow? So a good
Speaker 1: night is going to be a night where I've spent
Speaker 1: it with these people that I like, where I don't
Speaker 1: get too drunk. I get home on time and feel
Speaker 1: good in the morning. How am I going to achieve that?
Speaker 1: And have a plan, have a plan for your evening.
Speaker 1: You know, we plan our workday, but we don't always
Speaker 1: plan our parties, you know, and drink water, slow down,
Speaker 1: you know, try and enjoy the moment. And you can
Speaker 1: say no, you know, if you're not feeling up for it,
Speaker 1: if you're feeling sick, you're feeling tired, if you're worried
Speaker 1: that no matter what plan you put in place, you're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to hold that sort And
Speaker 1: you can say no, you cannot go, or you can
Speaker 1: go really early and leave really early. You know, you
Speaker 1: can be the first one Friday. Yeah, be the first
Speaker 1: one that people have to come and say hello to
Speaker 1: you then, because when you turn up to a room
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm like, oh, I need to go and say
Speaker 1: I have to say load to everyone in the room
Speaker 1: or they'll think I'm rude. They haven't said a load
Speaker 1: to me. But if you're one of the first people there,
Speaker 1: then it's not that's their job to come and say
Speaker 1: loo to you. Yeah. So have you have your exit
Speaker 1: plan and speaking it out makes it less scary, you.
Speaker 2: Know, it does.
Speaker 1: It does.
Speaker 2: My feedback is that this is a really needed service.
Speaker 2: I get asked all the time, and I think you
Speaker 2: have some really valuable information to share. So I certainly
Speaker 2: would love you to come back on at some stage
Speaker 2: next year. But thank you so much. I just appreciate
Speaker 2: you taking the time out of your very very busy
Speaker 2: schedule and have a merry Christmas. And thanks for the
Speaker 2: Christmas tips. I think that was really good advice.
Speaker 1: No problem, and you've saved me an hour this week
Speaker 1: so I can cancel my psychologists now I've done my therapy.
Speaker 1: Oh my pleasure.
Speaker 2: I do that for free all the time.