In Memoriam - Paul Wallace and Nick Heather

Paul Wallace 1952 - 2024	Nick Heather 1938 - 2025

February 2025

In the last year we have lost two outstanding researchers who did much to take forward the treatment of alcohol use disorders.  They both played crucial roles in the development of Down Your Drink which was the precursor to Drinkbreak.

I first met Paul (in 2002) when I went to see him with the idea of translating a self-help alcohol treatment manual for use on the world wide web as we called it then.  He was immediately enthusiastic.  Paul was already a pioneer and researcher in the new field of telehealth and an advocate for the role of primary care physicians in offering interventions to reduce hazardous drinking.

The programme was called “Down Your Drink” and demonstrated that a fully interactive web- based treatment programme was possible and widely used and could reach large numbers of people who would not otherwise have access to a brief and evidence-based intervention. A busy schedule of research followed with Paul leading on grant applications, trial management and publication of results. He brought together a research team that conducted possibly first ever fully online randomised controlled trial. He then took the work abroad and collaborated with colleagues across Europe in a series of inventive projects to find the best way to make the intervention available in GP surgeries.  This included the routine screening of patient populations and persuading doctors to make videos of themselves recommending the programme in a format he named “Download Your Doctor.”

In some ways Nick was the grandfather of online interventions.  He is well known for his book (with Ian Robertson) on controlled drinking which provided a realistic, valuable and effective alternative to the abstinence approach (for those who wanted it); but he also created an at distance self-help approach which later became the self-guided treatment manual “Lets drink to your health” (again with Ian Robertson).  The innovation was to send it out in weekly parts by post and it was this idea that Paul and I adapted for use on the internet.  I will not forget when he called me out of the blue and invited me to present our ideas and data at an international scientific meeting.

Paul and Nick were both supporters and mentors for me and I am immensely sad to lose them, but also grateful for their guidance over the years.

Stuart Linke