Geoff Gibson wants to help people struggling with alcohol in his new book about his year without beer

Weight gain, struggles with alcohol and a broken family were the turning points for author Geoff Gibson to turn his life around and challenge the “booze filled lifestyle” of fly-in fly-out work in the resources industry. For three years Mr Gibson lived in Karratha where he worked at the North West Shelf operations. It was here that his relationship with booze was heightened, marking the start of mental health struggles that would lead him to a facility in Perth. “That was when I really started drinking. That’s when I learnt to drink. It’s the way of life in the Pilbara — it is a work hard play hard mentality,” he said. “Everything that we do, especially in the Pilbara, revolves around drinking. Whenever you go up to the Pilbara for work you’ve always got a can in your hand. “It’s engrained in everyone — when you go to someone’s house you get handed a beer, it’s the culture.” Now Mr Gibson has released his first book, A Year Without Beer, sharing his experiences with alcohol addiction. Several years sober, Mr Gibson wants to offer hope and support to people, especially men, to speak out about their struggles. It is a “journey of a man standing at a crossroads” who decided to change habits learnt in the “rough” Pilbara to become a better man and father. Mr Gibson said many factors, including the FIFO lifestyle, contributed to his drinking and wanted to offer advice and an positive example to those who want to change their relationship to booze. “The drinking lifestyle becomes, as I found, an addiction. But people don’t want to talk about that to their mates but that hard living in the Pilbara you just punch through it and get on with it,” he said. Mr Gibson said it was important for people to have support networks around them and wanted the book to be a source of hope for those going through similar situations.