Strong relationships act as a protective buffer against mental health struggles. When you feel safe, supported and valued, your brain and body is better equipped to handle stress. People with emotionally supportive partners recover from stressful life events faster and with fewer long-term psychological scars (Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2021) . A toxic relationship is worse for your health than no relationship. The opposite of healthy love, a toxic relationship can double your risk of depressi...
Jun 30, 2025•2 min•Ep. 233
Doing your best to show up every day and juggle everything you have to juggle, can feel like a lot. And even if life’s on track, the urge to break free of routine and blow off steam can still hit. In seeking freedom, we often choose things that keep us trapped. Opting for the quickest, easiest dopamine hits can feel good in the moment, but they always over promise and under deliver. It’s not the feeling you get from drinking, drugs, gambling, porn or any other vice, that you’re really chasing — ...
Jun 23, 2025•3 min•Ep. 232
Alex Kalliris is a clinical psychotherapist and Program Director at Foundation House, a residential rehab service in New South Wales supporting men from the construction industry to take back control from alcohol, drugs and gambling. He’s spent the past eight years working with men at rock bottom — helping them break destructive cycles, rebuild trust and rediscover meaning. In this episode, we talk about mental health in construction, how substance use spirals out of control, and what recovery r...
Jun 18, 2025•56 min•Ep. 232
I’ve stuck with this podcast for 301 weeks — 2,107 days and 230 episodes. But outside of the interviews, I still hesitate to share my thoughts and feelings... The show’s always been about the guests, and that’s the way it should be — but sometimes it feels like I fade into the background and hide behind the role of host. I’m afraid of making it about me. I’m so conscious of coming across as cringe and self-centred, that I avoid sharing my personal views. I think that limits people who follow thi...
Jun 16, 2025•4 min•Ep. 231
Brayden Ainsworth grew up chasing the footy dream and he caught it. From small town W.A, to the big stage of the AFL, he made it, but behind the scenes, the pressure to perform, the need for validation and the obsession with being in peak condition, were quietly eating away at him. When Brayden was delisted by the West Coast Eagles, after a short rollercoaster career, the identity he'd built his life around was suddenly gone, and so was his sense of purpose with no structure and no direction, he...
Jun 11, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 183
Some moments are so impactful they can split your life in two — there's before it happens, and everything that comes after... For skydivers Lucch and Ben, that moment came in mid-air over Byron Bay, when a routine jump went catastrophically wrong. A shocking collision in freefall obliterated Ben's leg, and knocked Lucch unconscious, sending him cartwheeling thousands of feet toward the ground and almost certain death... Miraculously, Lucch survived, but what followed was the hardest chapter of B...
Jun 04, 2025•54 min•Ep. 182
Teenage boys are growing up in a world where manhood is being put under the microscope and redefined in real time. The mixed messages are everywhere — be strong, but vulnerable; speak up, but don’t say the wrong thing; just be yourself, but only if you fit the mould... And while adult voices dominate the conversation on how young men should behave, very few are actually asking boys what they think and feel. 18-year-old Jesse has been doing just that...As a member of White Ribbon Australia's yout...
May 28, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 182
In Australia, around 1.5 million men report lifting weights regularly, with countless young guys in their teens, twenties and beyond structuring their lifestyle around building their body in the gym. For many, the gym is a safe haven providing structure, growth and community providing huge physical and mental health benefits. But there is a dark side… with research showing one in ten gym-going men may experience muscle dysmorphia, a body image disorder based on an obsession with not being muscul...
May 22, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 181
Research shows around 30% of male suicides are linked to separation, and men who are separated or divorced are up to 3 times more likely to die by suicide compared to those in stable relationships. Scott knows this pain all too well. Enduring a brutal six-year divorce, he was dragged through the family court, given limited access to his children, and found himself stuck in a storm of depression and pressure that threatened to consume him. Exhausted, with suicidal thoughts running rampant, Scott ...
May 15, 2025•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 180
Before his chest was cracked open on the operating table, Nick Hudson was already battling something less visible — depression. He refused to talk about it, pushed people away who tried to be there for him, and wouldn't admit the truth to himself... Then came the life-saving open-heart surgery that forced everything to stop. Recovery was brutal. The silence got louder. And the darkness got darker before it got better. Years earlier, Nick had kicked off a casual push-up challenge with his mates —...
May 07, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 180
In his early twenties Brodie felt invincible, approaching life like the world revolved around him as he chased one high to the next. It wasn’t long till Brodie had his first child unplanned, at a time he was far from ready to accept responsibility, refusing to change his party lifestyle. His recklessness carried on, and before long he fathered a second child with another woman, and then a third. Still, it wasn’t the wake up call he needed to grow up and settle down and the tumultuous relationshi...
Apr 24, 2025•55 min•Ep. 179
He was labelled the best in the world at 12 years old — a tennis prodigy bound for greatness, striving alongside a father who was obsessed with his success. Todd describes his younger years as Groundhog Day, an endless 24 hour cycle hell bent on high performance, in which every tiny detail was put under constant scrutiny. After many years of knowing no other way to live, Todd hit a wall and had the realisation he was done with the sport that had made him a machine. He soon spiralled into self de...
Apr 17, 2025•55 min•Ep. 178
In Australia, 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, 1 in 100 are ectopic, and thousands of babies are born still each year. Child loss during pregnancy is utterly devastating for the people who experience it—and despite being so common, the grief that follows often remains hidden. This is especially true for men, who can feel obligated to suppress their own distress in order to stay strong for their partner, unintentionally sidelining the magnitude of their own loss. Through her work as a clini...
Apr 10, 2025•48 min•Ep. 177
Zach Green was going to be a dad, Three times... Each time, he imagined life as a father and each time his hopes were shattered. In just 18 months, he and his ex-partner lost three babies during pregnancy. The world around him kept moving, but inside, he was stuck— grieving in silence, burying himself in work, and trying to pretend he was all good. In reality, he was living in a cycle of manic depressive episodes he couldn't escape, causing him to push people away and isolate himself, very nearl...
Apr 03, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 174
Life has thrown everything at Adam—crippling financial hardship, devastating loss, and more than his fair share of personal demons; heartbreakingly losing both his mum AND his brother to suicide. Adam's struggles began in childhood, living on the poverty line after his mum lost her house and never got it back, leading to her death. That tragedy was repeated by his brother years later when the stress of divorce overwhelmed him. Through grief, legal trouble and immense pressure, Adam's found a way...
Mar 20, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 173
Sammy wanted to be a comedian ever since he saw the greats on TV; but the journey so far hasn't been all laughs... Born with facial palsy, he stood out for his crooked smile and had a hard time learning to love himself. Growing up around a drug addicted brother, Sammy learned early on how unpredictable life can be. And although he's never fallen prey to addiction himself, it's still loomed around him, with multiple friends and mentors swept up in its grip. After seven years in the game, it all c...
Mar 15, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 172
Jasper spent years throwing punches in the cage, but his toughest fight has always been against himself. Through a childhood marked by instability. Jasper was constantly moving and having to start over, causing frustration and anger that had nowhere to go until he found martial arts. MMA gave him identity and purpose, so much so that he's struggled to define himself as more than a fighter. Now, he’s building a life around his personal training business, teaching others how to defend themselves a...
Mar 08, 2025•43 min•Ep. 171
The suicide rate for people living with bipolar is between 10 and 30 times higher than the general population, accounting for up to a quarter of all suicides in Australia. Research shows up to 60% of those with the condition will make at least one attempt on their life. Father of three, Chris Fraser is one of them. He experienced multiple extended bi-polar episodes in his early and mid-thirties, when months of mania were followed by even longer periods of severe depression – throwing his life in...
Jan 29, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 180
Mark suspected he was gay from the time he was a young boy and had it confirmed by the time he made it to high school. Raised in a conservative, religious household, he was conditioned to believe that being gay was wrong and that belief, coupled with fear of his parents’ reaction kept him in the closet till he was 28. When he did come out, those fears were realised. His parents weren’t supportive and the most difficult time in his life followed; but he was finally free to be himself. A successfu...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 178
Imagine if your psychologist was that rough looking bloke you met down the pub who gave surprisingly solid advice - that's the kind of vibe you get from Simon Tyler. Simo's a clinical psych and a mentally healthy workplace consultant, he also cuts his own hair and does an awful job of it... His therapy style's shaped by his early career in construction and a lifetime of his own mental health struggles. He's straight up, pragmatic and stands right alongside his clients as someone who's been there...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 5 min
When we think of a typical drug addict, we think of someone who turned to drugs in an attempt to cope with trauma and often childhood abuse. That wasn't the case for Culley. He describes having the perfect childhood, growing up with great parents who gave him all the love he could've asked for; but that didn't stop him getting on the ice and every other drug you can think of - choosing a life of chaos. Dealing to feed his addiction and his ego, believing himself untouchable, Culley lived that li...
Jan 08, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 177
Over the Christmas holiday period we're taking you back to some of our most memorable moments from our most popular episodes. Kian Rafie is a junior lawyer who got what he thought was the dream start to the career he'd always wanted, when a mental health crisis threatened to derail it. Scroll back in our podcast library for the full episode: Legal Battle: A Junior Lawyer's Mental Health Recovery | Kian Rafie ___ We’re grateful to be producing our latest series in partnership with Credit Union SA...
Jan 01, 2025•13 min•Ep. 176
Over the Christmas holiday period we're taking you back to some of our most memorable moments from our most popular episodes. For many years, Nathan hated the man staring back at him in the mirror. Deeply sad and angry, with no clue what was at the core of his distress, it took doing the hardest thing he'd ever done to start making progress - asking for help. Scroll back in our podcast library for the full episode: The Tornado Within | Nathan Schulz ___ We’re grateful to be producing our latest ...
Dec 18, 2024•13 min•Ep. 175
Over the Christmas holiday period we're taking you back to some of our most memorable moments from our most popular episodes. Addicted to drugs and gambling in his late teens and early twenties, Angus eventually came to a fork in the road that was life or death... Scroll back in our podcast library for the full episode: The Trifecta: Quitting Drinking, Cocaine & the Punt | Angus Wood ___ We’re grateful to be producing our latest series in partnership with Credit Union SA – a proudly local te...
Dec 11, 2024•15 min•Ep. 176
It’s an unstable time to be a young man right now… The world is rapidly evolving around us, job markets are changing, traditional gender roles are shifting; polarising content served by our algorithms is pushing us ever deeper into echo chambers of opinion and the social discourse that men are the problem looms in the background. With me today to chat about various trending topics that intersect with men’s mental health are not one but two clinical psychologists, Dr Ian Zajac and Dr Michael Bill...
Dec 04, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 173
Raised by a mother with Borderline Personality Disorder, Brad was always walking on eggshells, living in fear of the next violent outburst and unable to count on anything except the future being unpredictable… Growing up with all that instability and unmet need had a major impact on Brad’s emotional development: permeating his adult relationships and looming in the background of his own marriage breakdown. Just 28, Brad speaks like a man who’s been around a lot longer, the result of a tough life...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 172
The past few years have been a tumultuous time for masculinity… We’ve witnessed the furore whipped up by the manosphere, and the fear that we’re raising a generation of Andrew Tate clones… We’ve had Primary prevention programs brought in to schools, spurred by the will to reduce Australia’s appalling rates of domestic violence. Men under 30 just played a major role voting Donald Trump back into power, influenced by his appearances on the world’s most popular male-led podcasts. And swirling aroun...
Nov 20, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 172
Sometimes going through the worst pain you’ve ever experienced sets you on a path to becoming something greater than you ever imagined. A decade ago, Jed’s leg was crushed in a brutal workplace accident; and now he’s a 2024 Paralympic gold medalist… Now 38, Jed’s life experience extends far beyond being an elite athlete, he’s a family man, a leader and a dude who just keeps on learning. This is Jed Altschwager… ___ We’re grateful to be producing our latest series in partnership with Credit Union...
Nov 13, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 171
Imagine if your world suddenly went dark and you had to learn to live without the ability to see; That’s what happened to Ian when he was shot at the age of 21… Having lived half his life without his eyesight, Ian’s had to adapt in every way and has dedicated himself to becoming a mentor to young men through his youth work role at Top Blokes Foundation. This is Ian Clements… ----- We’re grateful to have produced this episode in partnership with Credit Union SA – a proudly local team who love sup...
Nov 07, 2024•39 min•Ep. 171
Grief can take you to a dark place you never imagined, especially when it's wrapped in guilt. Drew spent a long time believing if he'd done more, his brother Mat might still be alive...As a teenager and an adult, Mat was often teetering on the edge, dealing with his inner turmoil by shutting down and keeping everyone out. For more than a decade Drew knew something wasn't right with his brother, but couldn't penetrate the walls he put up. Drew self-destructed after Mat's death, using drinking and...
Oct 31, 2024•58 min
