Under The Influence

Australian women are drinking themselves into an early grave, cheered on by their mates, an alcohol-riddled culture, and a lack of information and support. Genevieve Gannon investigates the liquid epidemic.

Shanna Whan has the type of warm, country smile that makes you think of blue skies and wheat. She laughs easily and often, and as she tells her story, it is almost impossible to believe that five years ago she was convinced her life was over. The successful, well-dressed professional was fresh out of hope, and believed that, whether by accident or design, death would find her.

“I’d go to the bottle shop and get two bottles of wine and think, I’ll stock up for the weekend. But then I would drink them in one hit,” Shanna, now 45, says. “I knew I was in trouble but I hadn’t yet accepted I was an alcoholic. I still thought that, to be an alcoholic, you had to be a homeless person who drank out of a brown paper bag in themorning. I did not know an alcoholic could be successful and well dressed. I didn’t even drink every day. So I thought, how could I be an alcoholic? How offensive.”

In 2014, Shanna woke up in hospital in her rural NSW hometown with a huge gash across her forehead and no memory of how she got there. Her husband, Tim, was by her side, looking scared and wrung out. She was a high-functioning woman teetering on the edge of death.

“Tim went from being so frightened that he would get a call that I had died, to wondering if that was literally the only course of action left for someone in such a state,” Shanna says.

Shanna had tried to get sober before, but could never get a foothold on a clean and stable life.

“Not once along the way could I find a place, person or organisation to turn to that could make sense of my mental health or struggles,” Shanna says. “At no point did a single soul raise the discussion that my drinking was a concern. In fact, alcohol was basically encouraged.”