On a recent road trip with his band, 24-year-old Al Dear reckons he consumed about 100 beers over three days.

That's a huge amount of alcohol, but it's not something that really worries him. In fact, he's proud of his ability to consume booze and his band's reputation for drinking.

"Our music is pretty synonymous with alcohol, it's pretty loose, and all the bars say they sell heaps more piss [when we play]," he says.

"It's gotten to the stage now where everyone expects us to get on the beers pretty hard."

Al's approach to alcohol is common among young men in regional Australia.

People living in regional and remote areas are more likely to drink at levels that are harmful to their health. This includes adolescents who are up to 80 per cent more likely to consume alcohol than their mates in the big cities.

Unfortunately the bold attitude doesn't reduce the risks. And the risks are great.

According to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, binge drinking significantly increases the likelihood of accidents and injuries, and long-term alcohol misuse can trigger depression.

It is also a risk factor for some cancers as well as end-stage liver disease, which is rising among young Australians. While alcohol consumption in Australia overall is trending down, the number of Australians who drink to get drunk has increased by almost one third in recent years.

So, what does it look like when you want to stop drinking but you live in a community where drinking hard is just part of life?

We grew up playing in the pub

Al Dear from rock band Boing Boing grew up in rural Queensland, loves beer and isn't too concerned right now about the long-term health impacts. ( Supplied )

Al grew up in Helensvale, south of Cooktown in far north Queensland.

He spent a lot of time in the local hotel as a kid.

"There's no shops or anything, just one pub. As kids we grew up playing there all the time."

Al has an economics degree and currently works as a landscape gardener and sings in his rock band Boing Boing.

Largely unaware of the risks of his drinking, he came back from a tour recently with shingles — a virus that can cause severe nerve pain.

"I got really weird chest pain and … a rash," says Al.

"When young people get it, the doctors reckon it's from physical abuse or from being really stressed and your immune system is run down."

Al says while there might be a time that he'll actively drink less, it's not something he's thinking about yet.

But Trent Harmer and Lachie Cameron, both in their 30s, knew it was time. Both recently pulled back from the booze and shared what it was like.

Has living in a regional or rural area had an impact on your relationship to alcohol? Email life@abc.net.au

'I wasn't the father I wanted to be'

Trent Harmer says his heavy drinking fuelled feelings of depression, anxiety and aggression. ( Supplied )

Trent, from Wagga Wagga, says the drinking culture in country Australia is "massive".

"I've got mates that play rugby. I refer to it as a drinking club that plays football," he says.

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His own heavy drinking fuelled feelings of depression, anxiety and aggression and left him with regular hangovers, but he was able to hide the impact it was having on his wellbeing.

"I grew up in an environment where you get up and get going, you've got to be all but dead to not go to work," he says.

In the end, though, booze landed him in serious trouble.

He faced assault charges and almost took his own life when his wife started packing up the children's things.

"I wasn't the father I wanted to be, I wasn't the husband, I wasn't the son, I wasn't the mate, I wasn't the brother I wanted to be. I was nothing," he says.

"I tried to change, to do everything right, but I couldn't."

Trent took six months off work to get on top of his alcohol addiction and spent $35,000 on treatment.

That included time in a mental health clinic, a rehabilitation clinic, under suicide watch at hospital and a month at a retreat in Byron Bay.

The 33-year-old has been sober for a couple of years now and says friends are supportive, but he still has to explain himself sometimes.

"People who don't know me, I just tell them, I don't drink … They ask why and I tell them I'm hopeless on the piss, once I start I can't stop."

Quitting harder in regional communities where heavy drinking is normalised

Shanna Whan has spent five years connecting with rural Australians through online platform Sober in the Country to talk about the cost of the bush alcohol culture. ( Supplied )

Quitting drinking is much trickier for people in regional areas, according to Shanna Whan.

The businesswoman and finalist in the NSW Rural Woman of the Year awards started a closed Facebook group, Sober in the Country, after having her own problems with alcohol.

"Almost everything we do socially in the bush is heavily punctuated by booze," she says.

''That's great if you're able to drink moderately, but if you can't you have to either isolate yourself or spend time with people who are non-stop drinking.

"I was a typical, naive bush kid who embraced binge drinking after a traumatic event at the age of 18."

Shanna has now become an advocate for people trying to drink less in rural Australia.

"A major part of the problem in the bush lies in outdated stereotypes about what problem drinking looks like," she says.

"Problem drinkers … actually look like … our most successful mates, but we just don't know how to recognise it or discuss it because heavy drinking is so normalised," she says.

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Saying 'no' to alcohol when everyone around you is drinking

As a teenager, Lachie moved to Sydney to join a rugby development squad. But his dream of playing elite football unravelled after injury left him on the sidelines and he began to binge drink.

"I went hard at it, enjoyed it, loved being out [drinking, but] I was unfit and unable to do what I should on the football field," he says.

Eventually he was dropped from the elite squad.

Gym owner Lachie Cameron experienced depression, anger and erratic behaviour as a result of binge drinking as a young man. ( Shanna Whan )

The 33-year-old Narrabri gym owner experienced depression, anger and erratic behaviour when he was drinking a lot.

He's now married and when he and his wife had children, he cut back because "I didn't want [my kids] to think they came second to a bender".

That's when he noticed a change.

"[My] mood swings happened less and less, I don't have those random episodes where I go into a manic state and pick fights with my wife," Lachie says.

While he didn't have trouble cutting back, he says he did avoid some social situations in the early days "to take peer pressure out of the equation".

"Finally I got to the point where I was comfortable enough not to worry about it," Lachie says.

He encourages other young men to stand up to peer pressure if they decide to stop drinking.

"You're not less of a man for not drinking. You're more of a man for standing up and saying you're not going to have a beer," he says.

The ABC acknowledges the support of Shanna Whan and the Sober in the Country network in producing this story.