If today is dangerous: crisis routes — never paywalled.
A navigation system for the moment you are asking.
sober.guide

The drinker. The family. The friend. The doctor. The boss. Anyone trying to work out what to do.

I am James. I went to rehab in June 2020 and have been sober since. Before I went, nobody around me — me, my family, my doctor, my employer — knew what good looked like. We were all guessing, and most of the guesses were being sold to us by people taking a cut. This site is what I wish we had all had.

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Sober since June 2020 Independent of every rehab One person, no team Crisis routes never paywalled

James, 50, Tenerife. The bot is me, with the patience to be there at three in the morning.

The lane

Talk to the bot about any addiction. The lived experience underneath it is alcohol and work.

The bot will chat anything — drugs, gambling, sex, food, gaming, shopping, the lot. A great deal of what is on this site applies across the board: the maths, the discharge cliff, the months you cannot staff, the way a family rearranges itself around the person who is still drinking, using, working, hiding. Take what fits.

What I will not do is pretend I have lived what I have not. My two are alcohol and work. Sober since June 2020. Still working out the second one in real time — that part is current, not finished. For everything outside those two, the encyclopedia points you to people who have actually been there, and the bot will say so plainly when you have come to a door I cannot answer for.

I am James. Fifty. I do not run a rehab, a fellowship, a coaching business, or a charity. I have no commercial interest in which path you take. The site is here because I went looking for this kind of resource in 2020 and found a thin, evangelical, mostly American mess.

The maths nobody puts on the page

The fee is not the question. The match is.

If you have the money for a residential, the question is which one. Being sent to the wrong place is the risk. The bill is not.

Prices vary widely — across regions, across providers, across what is and is not bundled. Cheaper does not mean worse; expensive does not mean better. The price tag is not a reliable signal of quality. The bot walks through the variables that actually matter for the drinker in front of you.

  • The matchSome places are clinical‑led. Some are twelve‑step heavy. Some are blended. Some have a labyrinth. Wrong match, wasted month.
  • The lost incomeA senior person not working at full capacity for a year — and most of us were not, long before we admitted it — is the bigger cost. By a long way.
  • The relationshipsMarriages, children, parents, friends, colleagues. The ledger that does not show up on a bank statement and the one that matters most.
  • The yearsMine were forty-six to forty-nine. I do not get those back. Nobody does.

I had the money. It was not a concern for me. I understand that for some it is — I know people who took a loan from family, who put it on a card. As long as you are alive, you can recoup it. And as time passes it becomes more and more valuable — you reap the benefits of sobriety.

Incredible. Truly.

The thing nobody sells

The best help I could honestly have asked for, when I was in it, was love. Nobody sells that. So this is the next best thing.
James — Tenerife

How the site works

Everything Google already knows is here, in one place, free. The bot is the bit Google can't do.

The encyclopedia — free

Everything Google already knows, sorted. No referral fees, ever.

  • FellowshipsAA, SMART, LifeRing, Refuge, Recovery Dharma, secular routes.
  • Medications*Naltrexone, acamprosate, disulfiram, the Sinclair Method.
  • Therapy & coachesModalities plainly explained. Coaches, named, with track records.
  • Sober livingWhere the houses exist, what they cost, who they suit.
  • For the people around itAl‑Anon, Adfam, NACOA, CRAFT. Harm reduction. Workplace EAPs.

* Medications are named for awareness, not as recommendations. Talk to your doctor.

The bot — one‑time, forty‑nine pounds

What the encyclopedia cannot do is sit with you on a bad Tuesday.

That is the bot. My voice, my bias, my standards. It asks the questions a friend who has been there asks. It holds context across months. It tells you the truth when you ask it for the truth. It stays available through every quarter of the first year, and every year after.

Forty‑nine pounds, paid once, and you talk to me. I match the drinker to the right rehab, the right medication, the right next phone call — matched to the residential rehabs, outpatient routes, medication options, and fellowship paths that fit the drinker — UK‑sourced, internationally applicable. No subscription. No account. No login. No cookies. The unlock lives in your browser. No rehab pays me. None of them get a cut. That is the whole point. Crisis routes are never paywalled.

One‑time fee. Paid once, used for as long as you need it. No subscription. No upsell. No chasing. Continued private access to one person who has been there.

  • Built aroundMy voice, my bias, my standards, the evidence under it all.
  • Holds contextRemembers who you are across weeks. Picks up where you left off.
  • Speaks plainlyNo jargon. Plain English. Spanish if you write in Spanish.
  • Knows its limitsA companion, not a clinician. Crisis routes are never paywalled.
  • Stays with youAvailable through every quarter of the first year, and after.

No subscription. No account. No login. No cookies. The unlock lives in your browser. The unlock lives in your browser. Family pages, crisis routes, and the full encyclopedia are always free.

If you have already discharged from rehab, or you are working through a relapse, the same James is also at discharge.guide and relapse.guide — written for those moments specifically. Same person, three doors, fifty pounds once.

What sobriety actually looks like

Most rehab marketing stops at day twenty‑eight. The interesting questions start on day twenty‑nine.

Month 1 – 3

Sleep is wrong. Food is wrong. The pink cloud is real and it is also a trap. People you used to drink with stop calling. The ones who do call are testing.

Month 4 – 12

The novelty of being sober wears off and you have to find a reason that is not novelty. Most relapses sit in this window. The site has a page for each quarter.

Year 1 – 3

Identity rebuild. Work, money, sex, family, the parts of your life you put on hold. This is where most public stories end and where the actual life begins.

Year 3 onwards

Maintenance. Boredom is the enemy. Health becomes the foreground. Other people's drinking stops being a threat and starts being a curiosity.

I will write each of these honestly, including the parts that are not flattering to me.

What this site will not do

I will not sell you a programme.

  • No pop-up. No chat widget. No sticky bar.
  • No daily affirmation. No app that gamifies your sobriety.
  • No pretending one path works for everyone.
  • No pretending twelve-step is the only path, or that it is a cult.
  • No pretending medication is a moral failure.
  • No pretending abstinence is the only success.

I am not religious. I am science and fact based.

If a thing helps and the evidence is honest, it goes on. If a thing is faith‑based and helps people, it goes on, labelled as such, so you can choose with your eyes open.

Who this site is for

Anyone in the room. Whether you have stopped, are about to, are deciding where to go, or are watching someone else.

  • The drinker who is wondering
  • The drinker who has decided
  • The mother carrying ten years
  • The husband who can't start it
  • The friend being lied to
  • The doctor with eight minutes
  • The boss who can see the slide
  • The sister-in-law on a Sunday

Whether the question today is should I stop, how do I stop, do I need rehab, which rehab, can I stop without one, or how do I help the person I live with — there is a door here for it. The encyclopedia does not care where you are starting. The bot does not either.

If the addiction in your life is something other than alcohol or work, the bot will say so plainly and route you to people who write about it with the authority I do not have. That is the kindest thing I can do.

Family page

The exhausted person in the kitchen.

If you live with someone who has stopped, or someone who has not, there is a page for you. Free. The CRAFT method, Al‑Anon, Adfam, NACOA, the readiness pair, what to say in the morning, what not to say at the dinner. Written for the person who has been told for years that the addict is the only one who matters.

You matter too.

Three doors

Same James. Five doors. Pick the one that fits today.

Sobriety has different shapes at different moments. The site you are reading now is for the moment before — should I stop, how do I stop, do I need rehab, which one. The other two doors are for the moments after.

discharge.guide

For the day you walk out of a four-week residential, and the months that follow. The discharge cliff. The first ninety days. The quarter where most relapses sit.

relapse.guide

For the moment you have started again, or you can feel it coming. Plain, kind, useful. No lecture. The climb back, with someone who has stood at the same window.

Forty‑nine pounds, paid once, gets you James on this site. The same fee on each of the three. Same person. Same standards. Independent of every rehab, in both directions. No referral fees, ever.

Start here

Pick the door that fits today.

If today is dangerous.

UK: 999 for immediate danger. Samaritans: 116 123 — free, twenty‑four hours, they pick up.

Ireland: 112 or 999 for immediate danger. Samaritans Ireland: 116 123 — free, twenty‑four hours.

US: 911 for immediate danger. 988 — Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, free, twenty‑four hours. SAMHSA: 1‑800‑662‑4357 — free, twenty‑four hours, treatment referral.

Canada: 911 for immediate danger. 988 — Suicide Crisis Helpline, free, twenty‑four hours.

Australia: 000 for immediate danger. Lifeline: 13 11 14 — free, twenty‑four hours.

New Zealand: 111 for immediate danger. 1737 — free, twenty‑four hours, call or text.

Spain: 112 for immediate danger. 024 — national suicide and emotional‑distress helpline, free, twenty‑four hours, Spanish and English. Teléfono de la Esperanza: 717 003 717 — free, twenty‑four hours.

EU (other): 112 for immediate danger anywhere in the EU. Find A Helpline (findahelpline.com) lists vetted crisis lines by country.

The bot will surface these plainly when needed and stop being clever. Crisis routing is never paywalled.

“When you are ready to stop, you are ready. The fee is irrelevant. I was scared. I left scared. I became stronger and stronger very very fast.” — James, Tenerife, April 2026