Why Alcohol is the Only Drug we have to justify NOT taking
A conversation with Dr. Nicole Lee about motherhood, addiction, and why alcohol is the only drug we have to justify NOT taking
Editor's Note: This conversation was recorded in late 2024 for my podcast, Altered States of Human. When my laptop died a few months ago, I lost the video files but the transcript survived. And honestly? The words matter more than the footage ever could. This discussion about alcohol culture, stigma, and the paradoxes we navigate around drinking is too important not to share, even if it's arriving in a different format than originally planned. And so please enjoy this chat between Dr Nicole Lee of Hello, Sunday Morning.
Dr. Nicole Lee was on a plane a few weeks before we sat down to chat when she declined the complimentary alcohol. What happened next reveals everything about our society’s relationship with drinking.
The flight attendant couldn't accept it. "Are you sure? We've got a really nice white here, or would you prefer a red?" They were genuinely worried that she wasn't going to have a drink- as if declining free alcohol on a Tuesday afternoon required an explanation, an apology, or at the very least, a better excuse.
This wasn't about hospitality. It was about something deeper: the fact that alcohol is the only drug we have to defend ourselves against when we choose not to use it.
You've got to drink a lot, but you can't have a problem?
Dr. Nicole Lee has spent 35 years working in addiction treatment and public health policy in Australia. She led research across several academic centres and now holds an adjunct appointment at Curtin University. She's the CEO of Hello Sunday Morning, an organisation with more than 160,000 members, supporting over 16,500 new people each year to change their relationship with alcohol. That's nearly 10 times the size of Alcoholics Anonymous in Australia.
And in all those years, she's identified something most of us feel but rarely articulate: "It's a really weird drug because on one hand, people get laughed at and teased for not being able to drink or not drinking enough. And then on the other hand, there's a huge amount of stigma if you have a problem with it. You can't really win with alcohol. You've got to drink a lot, but you can't have a problem with it."
This paradox isn't just uncomfortable- sometimes it’s quite dangerous. It keeps people trapped in harmful patterns, unable to admit they're struggling because the culture simultaneously demands participation and punishes their dependence.
Many women with alcohol dependence also have PTSD
Dr. Lee confirmed what I'd suspected: this story isn't uncommon. Dr Lee estimates that 60-80% of women with alcohol dependence also have PTSD.
"Women often just slowly drink more and more to help them get through difficult times or difficult emotions or thoughts," she explains. "And then it kind of creeps up on them and suddenly they're drinking a bottle a day without even noticing it", states Dr Lee.
I understand that reality well, I was one of these women, unable to make dinner without my glass, or 4. I left that habit behind when I finally couldnt cope with the dependency anymore. I had to find something to break the cycle.
The shame attached to this reality creates defensive walls-in our families, our friend groups, ourselves. We can't talk honestly about how much we're drinking because admitting it would mean admitting we've crossed an invisible line from "fun wine mum" to "problem drinker." But where is that line? And who decides when we've crossed it?
So when does drinking become a problem?
Dr. Lee's answer is straightforward: "The question is whether it's having an impact on your life, whether you're in control of your drinking or your drinking is in control of you."
She points to signs people often don't recognise as alcohol problems:
Having a hangover and missing work on Monday mornings regularly
Being unable to function all day Sunday because of Saturday night, and doing this repeatedly
Drinking every day, even small amounts- this increases the likelihood of dependence
Finding that alcohol is affecting relationships, work, or health in any negative way
But here's what makes recognition of these issues with alcohol so difficult: "You naturally gravitate towards people who do the same thing as you," Dr. Lee says. "So it further reinforces that that's what you do. I often hear people say 'but I don't drink as much as most of my friends.' but because they've surrounded themselves with big drinkers."
We create these little social bubbles where our drinking is among others “normal”. We don't see the bigger picture until we step outside—and by then, our entire social life might be structured around alcohol. We don’t notice at all and we cannot see until we step out of it.
When I quit drinking eight years ago after experiences with psychedelics shifted my perspective, I stopped getting invited to things. The social exclusion was immediate and stark. Apparently, my sobriety made people uncomfortable, even people who wouldn't be drinking with me.
The myths we tell ourselves about "Hard" drugs
““One of the biggest harms to do with illicit drugs is contact with the criminal justice system. So it’s an absolute no-brainer to me to decriminalise all drugs right now.””
I'd originally asked Dr Lee to join me because of her work around Alcohol and in my research I'd realised she had authored 'Beyond the tip of the iceberg: A practitioners guide to ice' with Linda Jenner, Paula Ross, this had me curious. While we underestimate alcohol's harms because of its legality and ubiquity, according to Dr Lee, we wildly overestimate the dangers of drugs like methamphetamine.
Dr. Lee was one of the first researchers working in the methamphetamine area in Australia, which meant she was constantly in front of media during what she calls "the ice epidemic"- except there was seemingly, no epidemic.
"I really hate this term ice epidemic because there was no epidemic," she says firmly. "When the ice epidemic happened, there was about 3% of the population that had used methamphetamine in the last year. And it's consistently come down for the last 20 years, despite the worry about it increasing."
The biggest misconception?
"I hear so often that it's the most addictive drug ever, and actually the dependence rate is probably the same as most other drugs. It's around 10-15%. So at least 85% of people who use it don't have problems with it. They use it very occasionally in a social situation, party situation. This isn't to minimise the very real harms that methamphetamine can cause for that 10-15%, Says Dr Lee.
This isn't to minimise the very real harms that methamphetamine can cause for that 10-15% who do develop problems. But Dr. Lee points out we've confused increasing harms (as people moved from speed to ice, a more potent form) with increasing use. Our policies focused on the wrong target. Meanwhile, cocaine use is increasing in Australia with virtually no increase in harms - less than 1% of treatment episodes involve cocaine.
But you wouldn't know that from the panic and fear mongering you see online and in the media.
But what would actually reduce harm?
Dr. Lee doesn't hesitate on her words about what evidence shows would reduce drug-related harms: "One of the biggest harms to do with illicit drugs is contact with the criminal justice system. So it's an absolute no-brainer to me to decriminalise all drugs right now."
Beyond decriminalisation, she advocates for regulation and safe supply. "A lot of the harms associated with illicit drugs is because they're made in backyard labs or they've been cut a million times before they get to the consumer and people don't know what's in them. The only reason we need pill testing, for example, is because drugs are illegal. If they were legal, well controlled and produced cleanly, we wouldn't need those other harm reduction measures."
Ten years ago, she said this wouldn't happen in her lifetime. Now she's not so sure. Things are moving slowly, but moving.
When she started in the sector in the 1980s, Australia was pretty progressive and ahead of the rest of the world. Three states had already decriminalised cannabis by then without anyone batting much of an eyelid, and I have realised that many people aren't even aware it has been decriminalised- yet the stigmas remain. But over time, we've become more conservative, more risk-averse, waiting for all the evidence before implementing logical, sensible harm reduction measures.
The parenting dilemma: How do you model what you don't do?
This brings me to a question that keeps me up at night: How do I model responsible drinking and drug use to my younger children when I practice abstinence and perhaps dabble in others considered big no no’s? Such a psychedelics?
My oldest son, now almost 21, grew up watching me drink daily until he was 10. My younger two, now 13 and 14, don't remember me drinking at all. I'm not modeling moderation. I'm pretty much modeling abstinence and anything else is secret, how is that good parenting? Its like lying, for good causes?
Dr. Lee's 21-year-old son has never had a drink in his life, which she finds interesting given her work. But she credits open communication more than just modeling.
"Parental modeling is not the only modeling they get," she points out. "They see stuff on TV, they see it in movies, they see other people drinking. So all of those bits of information are going to form their ideas and their attitudes to drinking. To counter that, I think you need to talk to them about it a lot."
She talked to her son constantly about alcohol, about how it works, why some people drink and others don't, the spectrum of use and the choices people make along it. He also heard her on the radio and saw her on TV discussing these issues professionally.
"I feel like I've instilled my moderate drinking values in him, but he's still not particularly interested in alcohol," she says.
The key isn't perfect modeling. It’s in those honest, ongoing conversations that acknowledge the complexity of being a human in our society and gives young people the information they need to make informed choices.
The Education we're getting wrong
Speaking of giving young people information: we're still doing it badly.
Dr. Lee's son once had a policeman come to school for drug education. The officer cracked an egg in water (it floated normally) and then in alcohol (it curdled), declaring "that's your brain on alcohol."
"My son was like, excuse me, that's not how it works," Dr. Lee laughs. "Because I talk to him a lot about how alcohol actually works."
This kind of scare tactic education backfires. When young people see the reality doesn't match the dire warnings, they assume all the warnings were ridiculous and "just go for it," leading to binge drinking and risky behaviour.
The same thing happens with lies about other drugs - like telling kids LSD makes you see purple elephants and if you use Meth once thats it, you’re hooked, I can tell you I did try it once when I was 18 and I have a world of trauma and I never went back, back then because of the stigmatisation, I just assumed I was an anomaly.
When they learn the truth, they lose trust in all drug education. When we lie to our youth about anything, even Santa, they loose a little bit of that trust they had in what you say.
We're still treating teenagers like they can't handle the truth, like we're protecting them by maintaining the Santa Claus version of drug effects.. But they're about to go to universities where they'll study neuroscience, psychology, pharmacology. They deserve and can handle accurate information now. Age appropriate of of course.
For parents looking for reliable resources, Dr. Lee recommends the Alcohol and Drug Foundation and Health Direct, both of which provide evidence-based information for families.
A new model: Hello Sunday Morning
The organisation Dr. Lee now leads represents a different approach to alcohol problems. One that meets people wherever they are on the spectrum.
Hello Sunday Morning started in 2009 when 23-year-old nightclub promoter Chris Raine decided to take a year off alcohol and blog about it. Other people wanted to try their own experiments, maybe not a full year, but something. The community grew.
Today, the Daybreak program is a peer-driven digital health service with 140,000 members, this is nearly 10 times the size of AA in Australia. It's free for Australians and operates like a massive forum where 3,000-4,000 people might be online at any given time.
"Someone will say 'Four days alcohol free, I'm not feeling really great, I'm really wanting a drink,'" Dr. Lee describes. "And then there'll be like 50 people hop on and say 'I felt the same way. You can do it. We're here if you need anything.' It's really very affirming."
The platform also offers assessment tools, drink tracking, and a six-session self-paced CBT program launched in January 2025.
The philosophy: "We help people change their relationship with alcohol, whatever that is - that might be quitting or cutting back or taking a break or just reducing harms."
No shame, no judgment, no requirement to label yourself an alcoholic or commit to lifelong abstinence. Just support for any change you want to make.
Meeting people where they are
This brings us back to the central challenge: recovery from any substance, whether legal or not, requires meeting people where they actually are.
"You can't force yourself to be somewhere where you're not," Dr. Lee emphasises.
This applies to education (you can't scare teenagers into abstinence with egg demonstrations), policy (you can't arrest people into recovery), and personal relationships (you can't nag someone into changing their drinking).
What does work? Compassionate honesty. "I think for me, a compassionate approach is to raise your concern," Dr. Lee says. "'I'm really worried about you, you seem to be drinking a lot more, you seem to not be yourself lately.' And kind of see where it goes from there."
What doesn't work? "Nagging, criticising, saying 'you always do this' or 'you're drinking too much'. Those kinds of things are really unhelpful."
Then you provide support when the person is ready to make changes, if that's what they want to do. Because ultimately, it has to be their choice.
A permission slip
Here's what I wish someone had told me when I was that daily-drinking mum, ashamed and defensive and trapped: You don't need to hit rock bottom to deserve help. You don't need to lose everything or anything at all to admit something isn't working. You don't need a dramatic crisis or a clinical diagnosis to say "I want to change this."
We're so quick to say "I need to stop eating so many donuts" but we hesitate to say the same about alcohol, even when we know it's affecting our sleep, our health, our presence with our children, our mental clarity.
As Dr. Lee points out, there's no shame in admitting that. The shame exists because of the paradox because we're supposed to drink, but not too much, and definitely not have a problem, and navigate that invisible line perfectly while the flight attendant pressures us to accept that free wine.
What if we just... opted out of the paradox entirely?
What if we decided that whether we drink or not, how much, how often, and why are simply personal choices that don't require justification to flight attendants, friends, or even ourselves?
What if we measured our relationship with alcohol not by societal norms or peer comparisons, but by the simple question: Is this serving me?
Dr Lee plays the long game. So should we.
Dr. Lee has been in this field for 35 years. She's seen policy changes that seemed impossible become reality. She's watched stigma slowly decrease, although not nearly fast enough for her liking. She's built a consulting company (360 Edge) with a team of 10 that helps organisations improve their responses to alcohol and drug issues which is something she never thought she'd be capable of doing.
"I am very driven by that sense of cutting edge and doing something different and contributing something new," she reflects. "But also kind of coupled with a very strong social justice driver. The alcohol drug field is a perfect match for me."
That dual drive- the innovation plus justice—is what keeps her going through the frustratingly slow pace of research and policy change, persistent stigma, and the "layer of ideology that sits on top of alcohol and drug approaches like an anchor around its neck."
She's cautiously optimistic. Ten years ago she said meaningful drug law reform wouldn't happen in her lifetime. Now she's not so sure. Things are moving.
And maybe that's the real story: not dramatic transformations, but persistent, patient work to shift culture one conversation, one policy, one person at a time. One org. One business. One person.
Starting with conversations like this one- where we can finally talk honestly about the alcohol paradox and why we can't win at a game with contradictory rules.
Where are you at with your drinking?
There is no better time to review your relationship with alcohol, check your on the Hello, Sunday morning website below.
Resources
For support with alcohol:
Hello Sunday Morning / Daybreak - Free peer support community for Australians
My Drink Check: Self-assessment and drink tracking tools available on the platform
For education and information:
Health Direct (Australian government health website)
To follow Dr. Nicole Lee's work:
Connect with her on LinkedIn for ongoing discussion about alcohol culture and drug policy
360 Edge - Her consulting company working on drug and alcohol policy and services
About the Author:
If you're struggling with alcohol or other substances, please know: you don't need to wait for rock bottom. You don't need to earn the right to change. You can reach out for support today, whatever that looks like for you.
