The drinker. The family. The friend. The GP. 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 GP, 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.
The encyclopedia is free. Twenty‑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 — out of the twenty‑one residential rehabs in the UK and the routes around them. No subscription. No account. No rehab pays me. None of them get a cut. That is the whole point. Crisis routes are never paywalled.
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 the cheapest part.
The income you are losing while you decide is the expensive part. The time you are losing is the part you cannot buy back.
Money you can earn back. Time you cannot.
For some of us, only a big enough shock works. The cost is part of the shock. That is how it worked for me. It is not the only way it works, but it is the way most readers of this site will recognise.
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
The fellowships, named and sorted: AA, SMART Recovery UK, LifeRing, Refuge Recovery, Recovery Dharma, secular options. The medications that keep working after rehab — naltrexone, acamprosate, disulfiram, the Sinclair Method.* The apps. The books that helped me and the ones I have watched help others. Sober coaches, named, with track records. Sober living houses, where they exist and where they don't. Therapy modalities, plainly explained. Family resources: Al‑Anon, Adfam, NACOA, CRAFT. Peer recovery workers. Workplace EAPs. Pain and addiction. Trauma‑first thinking. Harm reduction for the people in your life who have not stopped yet.
All sourced. All dated. All free. No referral fees, ever.
* Medications are named for awareness, not as recommendations. Talk to your GP.
A note on antidepressants, from the writer. I was on two hundred milligrams of sertraline a day from the day I left Delamere in June 2020 until autumn 2025. Five and a half years. It did its job. Six months ago I came off it. Not in the recommended way — I will not pretend otherwise. There was a fortnight of feeling unwell. There has been, since, a presence I had not had in years.
Some readers of this site are on antidepressants. Some are deciding whether to start. Some are working out how to come off them. I have done all three. I am not a clinician and this is not advice. It is a quiet way of saying: I have been in that chair. The encyclopedia treats SSRIs the same way it treats fellowships and rehabs — named, sourced, and without judgement either way.
The bot — one‑time, twenty‑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.
One‑time fee. Paid once, used for as long as you need it. No subscription. No upsell. No chasing.
No subscription. No account. No login. 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, twenty-nine pounds once.
What sobriety actually looks like
Most rehab marketing stops at day twenty‑eight. The interesting questions start on day twenty‑nine.
Month one to three
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 four to twelve
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 one to three
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 three 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.
I will not run a pop‑up, a chat widget, a sticky bar, a daily affirmation, or an app that gamifies your sobriety. I will not pretend that one path works for everyone. I will not pretend that twelve‑step is the only path, or that it is a cult. I will not pretend that medication is a moral failure, or that 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 who has been carrying it for ten years. The husband who does not know how to start the conversation. The friend who is being lied to and pretending not to notice. The GP who has eight minutes and three options. The boss who can see the slide. The HR person trying to do the right thing. The sister-in-law who lives a hundred miles away and rings 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. Three 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.
Twenty‑nine pounds, paid once, gets you James across all 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 you have just stoppedThe first ninety days →
- If you don't want AAEvery other route, named →
- If you want to know about medicationNaltrexone, plainly →
- If you are choosing rehabRehab vs outpatient →
- If the addiction is workThe signs nobody calls out →
- If a person you love is drinkingFor the people around it →
- If today is hardTalk to the bot →
- If you are in crisis right nowCrisis routes — never paywalled →
If today is dangerous.
UK: 999 for immediate danger. Samaritans: 116 123 — free, twenty‑four hours, they pick up.
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