There is so much to love about living in regional South Australia, but with it comes challenges of isolation and access to support services. That’s when the work of local initiatives like Mentally Fit EP can be life-saving. Part of their work to ‘flip mental illness on its head’ has been putting together a series of documentaries featuring local people who have experienced mental health challenges.
Over 70 years of living and working in regional towns, it’s something many of the Ramsey Bros family has had some experience with — either personally or through someone we care about. For this week’s yarn, we spoke to Shaine Dupree from our Wudinna dealership about his involvement with this inspiring initiative.
In a short video that’s been shared on social media, Shaine speaks candidly about the journey he’s been on — recognising his unhealthy relationship with alcohol and the challenges around kicking his dependency, as well as confronting the issues behind it all. It’s a short video that packs a powerful punch.
“I was an alcoholic and I thought that once I kicked alcohol, my problems would be solved…. but six years of sobriety hadn’t actually fixed me, it had actually made me worse,”
Shaine tells us in the video.
Shaine went on to suffer panic attacks and struggled socially for many years without alcohol, which had been his crutch until then. It took a lot of support and trained professionals to help him track it back to an issue from when he was just 13 or 14 years old. Confronting the cause and recognising the pattern he’d developed to suppress it over the years has been life changing and has led him to sharing his story with others.
“Mental health is a hard thing for people to discuss, especially men. I’d been telling my story to anyone who’d listen for a long time. A few years ago, an opportunity came up with Mentally Fit EP to do some public speaking and it went really well. Then a couple of years ago, they asked me to be part of this series of short films and I said I’d have a crack. I had no idea how involved it would all be — it was an intensive eight or nine-month process for them to get the footage they needed for a seven-minute video.
“I did the interview back in March last year, which took around three hours of talking, but hours of shifting around to get a quiet spot with no background noise. We started at the footy oval club house, then home, before heading about 12km out of town to the recreation area at Polda Rock which was perfect. I’m fairly used to talking about my story, but Jason Ramp who was interviewing me got deeper than I’d done before, simply by asking me the right questions.
“Then in November, the videographer came up and filmed at several different locations around town. We started at about 3pm and didn’t finish until about 10pm that night. It was long and emotional, but it’s all worth it if it helps even one person who watches it,” Shaine says.
“I hope people see it and think ‘that’s a bloke I know in the community and he’s recognised he’s got a problem and maybe I drink too much also. Not everybody is an alcoholic, but any recognition that corrects an imbalance in their life has got to be a good thing.”
As for the response to the film, Shaine has been overwhelmed saying, “It’s been absolutely amazing. I’ve been invited to speak at other mens’ wellness groups and friends, family and people at the local footy and cricket club have all said they’re so glad someone has put it out there. And that’s what I hope — that it’s starting conversations. It doesn’t matter who people are talking to, as long as it’s someone, even in private.
“And I have to say that the support from Ramsey Bros along the way has also made a huge difference to me and my family. Without an employer who supports you going through this sort of journey, you could end up losing everything. There are plenty of people who have gone down that path, but with the right support, I’ve managed to keep earning money and building my career and supporting my family. That’s helped my recovery greatly also.”
Please take a moment to watch this video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SpU8kwOcWBbydvKLLGLm_78gHI9iCawL/view
We admire Shaine for being so open — the strength he’s shown in tackling his demons is not only inspiring to each of us, but we know it will help so many others. We’re proud of you, mate.
