One in four people will experience a mental health issue in the next 12 months. Around 5,140 people took their own lives in England and Wales in 2013 alone. Mental health services have come on incredibly over the last few years, but there is still much more that needs to be done, and still, unfortunately, a stigma exists around talking about mental illness.

Drinks industry charity The Benevolent is doing its part in raising awareness of mental health with its #NotAlone campaign, which hopes to encourage members of the trade to speak openly about health problems. The Benevolent helps workers across the entire drinks industry with physical and mental health problems, as well as matters of debt, crisis and emotional support.

The Benevolent CEO Chris Porter sheds some light on the #NotAlone campaign, the charity’s mental health survey, and just how the organisation aids members of the industry.

Elliot Gardner: Tell me more about the #NotAlone campaign and how it got started

Chris Porter: In the last 18 months or so we’ve been aware of an increasing number of people coming to us with issues related to mental health. There was a national campaign on mental health, and I think people have become more aware of it in the last year or so, which is of course a great thing.

But there wasn’t any centralised focus for the drinks industry. The Benevolent is the charity for the drinks industry, so it seemed natural that we think about putting a campaign together that would help people with a need for ‘mental first aid’.

Last September we had the tragic news that Ben Campbell Johnston, who was a full-on figure in the trade and a very affable guy, someone who you would never even consider was suffering from any kind of stress, committed suicide. That’s when it really drove home to us that if we can prevent people feeling this way and help them feel as if they have support and aren’t alone, then we need to do something.

EG: What goals do you hope to achieve from the campaign? How long will it last?

CP: I don’t think it’s going to be anything that goes away very soon. Mental health issues have been around forever, not just in this industry but for everyone. It is part of our role now to get the conversation out in the open, so people who might feel as though they’re suffering, who might not have felt that they were able to talk about it, they can now work towards having stigma-free conversations, and remove the taboo there’s always been around it.

It’s not restricted to class, race, gender, or sexual or religious orientation. It can affect anyone. Hopefully it will be talked about for a very long time and if that happens then our campaign will have been a success, and an ongoing success.

EG: You launched a survey at the same time – what are the goals of that?

CP: The survey takes about 25 minutes to complete, so it is quite in-depth. It’s a crucial topic, and since we decided to become part of the social movement aimed at changing the perception, we felt it was worth our time and money investing in commissioning a survey to all the members of the current UK drinks industry outlining current mental health difficulties experienced by members of the UK industry.

It’s not for me to comment on other companies’ HR policies, but it is for me to say that if The Benevolent can be an extension of those HR policies and if HR teams can see us as the go-to helpline for the drinks industry then that is what we want to become. If companies feel as though they’ve done all they can for their employees and individuals, then we’d like to work with them hand-in-hand with their approach to helping that particular person.

We want to be a safety net and a support network. So HR or employers can say ‘why don’t you go talk to The Benevolent, because they know about this in a bit more detail.’ We can point people in the right direction and give them, when it’s needed, financial, emotional and practical support. As a result of the survey, we will have much more of an understanding as to what kind of support we might be talking about giving, and what specifically the issues are that we need to consider going forward.

EG: How does The Benevolent help its members and the industry with mental health issues?

CP: We’re developing all the time. In the last quarter of last year we set up a 100% confidential helpline and an email service, which are manned by professional counsellors and are available to anyone in the UK drinks industry facing difficulties.

The helpline is available seven days a week, from 8am to 8pm. We’ve already had a significant amount of calls, so it’s a proof-of-concept really.

Like everybody else, we’re learning, but the response that we’ve had so far, both to the helpline and to the survey, has been overwhelming. The Benevolent will be at the forefront of mental health facilities and services, whether it’s someone coming to us directly, or a company approaching us to improve their services.

EG: You say more people than ever before are approaching you for help surrounding mental health issues – is this a sign that the stigma is fading?

CP: Most definitely. As an ongoing commitment to this trade, we want to create a stigma-free environment to discuss this issue within our community.

It’s a big old community, and while we might not all know each other personally, we all know why we work in the drinks industry, and it’s generally very close-knit.

I’ve been in it for 35 years, and I want to help the people that I’ve had conversations with. One particular moment stands out just before Christmas, where it was heart-warming to just be able to say, ‘we can help you’.

To access The Benevolent’s mental health helpline, call: 0800 915 4610