REGIONAL STORIES: THE TOP PUB

A safe space

Mental health issues in rural Australia don’t get the same sort of services that they do in major cities. Stuart O’Neill reckons he knows how to address the problem – through the pub.

STUART O’NEILL knows a thing or two about pubs, and about struggling with mental health issues. He grew up in pubs and worked behind the bar from age 10. He worked in pubs across the country as he travelled as a young man, and then became a consultant working with venues on their F&B offerings. After a while of helping other venues improve their offering, he and his partner Susie decided that they would open their own pub.

Meanwhile, O’Neill struggled with depression and suicidal ideation. To combat these mental health issues, he started writing out a toolkit of things that helped keep him alive. Two years ago, after having recovered from depression, he decided to turn that toolkit into a book in the hopes that it would help others. O’Neill self-published Just One Reason, and its success has blown him away.

The Top Pub, Deepwater

“I decided to document that, thinking maybe it might benefit someone else, and it’s gone nuts. It’s on its fifth or sixth reprint in two years.”

The book has been lauded by Lifeline, NSW Health, Victoria’s Department of Health, several psychologists and is used as a tool by the Australian Army. As we were chatting, O’Neill was looking at several cartons of book orders that he has been processing in between pouring beers.

In the introduction of the book, O’Neill decries the Federal Government’s effort to address mental health in rural and regional areas of Australia. He thought he could set an example of how the problem could be addressed by operating a ‘mental health pub’.

“I know what needs to happen in rural areas and it’s not happening unfortunately. So I thought then rather than whingeing and complaining, let’s go buy a pub and show the government what could be done by just two people, as a living example.”

Stuart and Suzie purchased the Deepwater Commercial Hotel – better known as The Top Pub – at the end of last year, and got to work on its renovation in June this year. Deepwater is a small village on the Northern Tablelands in New South Wales, located 40km west of Glen Innes. It has a population of 300.

They got to work on fulfilling their vision of creating a safe and welcoming space that looks more like someone’s living room than a modern public bar and bistro, filling the room with eclectic antique furniture. They also got to work on letting the community – who were initially suspicious of the city-slickers who’d taken over the pub – know what they were all about.

The idea is to encourage open and honest conversation within the pub, and to provide anyone who needs it with someone to listen to them. As the sole proprietors, Stuart and Susie, will chat with anyone in the pub who needs to talk. They’ve also both taken the half-day SafeTALK workshop by Living Works, that allows you to pick up on keywords that can indicate if a person has suicidal ideation. Where identified, those people can be referred to medical professionals. O’Neill says that thankfully that hasn’t been necessary as yet.

“So far, the customers have been approaching us on their own. They’re already finding that we’re a good set of ears. And ultimately we’re not counsellors, we just don’t judge, we just sit and listen. And sometimes for the person just getting the shit off their system is enough and they feel so much better. And we haven’t said anything, we just listened.”

Visitors to the pub have been talking to the couple about everything from deaths in the family to illness to feeling isolated and alone. While rewarding to see these people leave lighter when they visited, O’Neill admits that some boundaries do have to be set so as not to overwhelm them.

Stuart O’Neill is happy to chat to anyone who would like to at The Top Pub

There are other ways the couple are showing that they mean business as a mental health pub. They’ve set up a pay-it-forward system with their coffee offerings, so that people can choose to pay for another coffee when getting their own that gets ‘banked’, and then Stuart and Susie can offer up a free coffee to anyone they think needs it.

They’ve also got a yellow ribbon on the sign out the front of the pub, in support of Australia’s defense forces. Located on the New England Highway, convoys of military trucks go past the pub on a regular basis, and O’Neill wants the military community -which has a high suicide rate – to know that they can use the pub as a refuge whenever they like.

The Top Pub had only been reopened for a fortnight when Australian Hotelier spoke with O’Neill, but already the response to the idea of a mental health pub has been welcomed wholeheartedly by the Deepwater community.

“They love it. It’s happened faster than we thought with the locals here and its fantastic.”

I know at some point the Prime Minister is going to ring me. It’s getting closer by the day…

-Stuart O’Neill, The Top Pub

O’Neill has big plans for the pub. Somewhere down the line, he’d like to repurpose one of the pub’s motel rooms into a consulting room for a medical professional, whether that be a psychologist, counsellor or GP, who would visit the town on a regular basis. It just comes down to finding medical professionals that will travel out to Deepwater.

“Apart from not being able to get mental health professionals to come to country towns, often there’s nowhere for them to set up their shop. Or there’s not enough business so they don’t have someone to come for half a day. We’ll evolve into that at some point in time for sure, but it’s a matter of us coming across those people.”

O’Neill’s ultimate goal is to discuss addressing mental health at the highest levels – and is pretty confident that soon he will be speaking to the Prime Minister himself.

“My topline goal is that I know at some point the Prime Minister is going to ring me. It’s getting closer by the day, because of the phone calls I already get and the contacts from different people. So I see that’s going to happen.”

The yellow symbol on the pub’s sign indicates its support of Australia’s defence forces

What he’d like to see happen is a $10,000 grant offered by the Federal Government to any regional pub that wants to position themselves as a ‘mental health pub’. This would cover SafeTalk training for all staff, plus new branding/marketing for the venue to spread the word among its community.

“We’re trying to change pre-conceived ideas that mental health and alcohol don’t mix. You can’t blame someone’s poor mental health on alcohol. A pub is the town square. You can come here and have a sandwich and a bottle of coke, you don’t have to have alcohol or to just get drunk. So we want to try to challenge that perception of two blokes having a beer is no different than two ladies having a coffee and chatting through life problems,” states O’Neill.

The publican hopes more hotels in regional Australia take up the call to address mental health in their communities.

“Every pub in country Australia has the potential to be a mental health pub if you care enough and if you want to make a few subtle changes internally.”