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Mental health activist and BGS Old Boy Chris Raine ’03 is one of the driving forces behind a new healthcare start-up assisting those who struggle with alcohol dependence.

Clean Slate Clinic is an innovative telehealth service that helps people detox from alcohol from the comfort of their own home.

Raine teamed up with Chief Medical Officer Dr Chris Davis and CEO Pia Clinton-Tarestad to kick-start the alcohol withdrawal service.

“Our mission is to make alcohol withdrawal and recovery services accessible to every Australian who needs them, irrespective of postcode or socio-economic status,” Raine told The Australian.

It is not the first time Raine, a former BGS Foundation Day speaker, has worked in the drug and alcohol sector.

Twelve years ago, he founded Hello Sunday Morning while working at an advertising agency by day and as a nightclub promoter by night.

The not-for-profit health company provides free access to support for Australians seeking to change their relationship with alcohol.

The name Hello Sunday Morning was taken from the weekly blog he wrote in 2009 detailing the ups and downs of his year off the booze and, as he put it, ‘life without the hangovers’.

In the decade that followed, Raine was named Queensland Young Australian of the Year, received a Skoll Scholarship in Social Entrepreneurship to complete his MBA from Oxford University, and won the GQ Social Force Award.

Clean Slate Clinic, he said, will provide a low-cost alternative for people to undergo alcohol or drug detox.

The start-up has already completed a successful pilot with its first 50 patients and has ambitions to support 10,000 patients over the next five years.

“Detoxing from alcohol is hard enough, but our system makes it even harder by requiring people to go to hospital or rehab to do it safely,” Raine said.

“Not everyone needs to do that, so it’s exciting to help build a service which allows them to detox from home, when they are ready, at a fraction of the usual price.”