Before you decide anything
Off the shelf rarely fits.
The standard pathway — admit it, go to a fellowship, work the steps — works well for some men and fails most. What tends to work is a combination built for the man: one part medical, one part structure, one part who he rings at six in the evening.
It is rarely one problem. If you suspect yours is connected to more than this, start at contented.guide, where the twenty guides join up.
Who this is for
The man who has been counting in private for a while. Who has worked out, roughly, what he drinks, and has not said it out loud. Who is functioning, mostly, and knows the trend line.
And the people who arrive here before he does — a wife, a partner, an adult child, a friend who has been managing it alone for longer than she says.
It is not a fellowship, a clinic, a helpline or a treatment provider. Nobody here is paid by anybody to point you anywhere.
The counting in private is the part that gets written about least and costs the most. The secrecy page sets out why that is, and why the next few years change it.
Before anything else
Alcohol withdrawal is one of the few withdrawals that can kill. If you drink heavily every day and you shake in the morning, sweat, retch, see or hear things that are not there, or become badly confused, do not stop suddenly on your own. That is a doctor today. The signs are set out here, plainly, and the safety page says what to do.
Where the honesty is needed most
The moment a man starts looking, he walks into a market. Some of it is medicine and some of it is marketing, and from the outside they look identical. A high weekly figure tells you about the building, the location and the advertising budget. It tells you very little about the clinical programme, and almost nothing about what happens after.
The encyclopedia is the free part of this site and will stay free.
Clinic or broker
How to tell a clinic from a broker earning commission.
Residential, or not
When it is worth it, and when it is not.
The medication routes
What they actually involve.
Doors that are not the fellowship
What else exists, and who it suits.
Why this reads differently
James went to residential rehab in June 2020 and has not drunk since. He then spent several years in Tenerife hosting people in recovery from a dozen different countries and systems, which is the second half of why this site is not written as though one national health service is the whole world. He has since looked hard at the British treatment market with his bias declared. No clinic pays for this site, no fellowship is endorsed, and no referral fee has ever been taken from anyone. The vantage point and the editorial rules are both set out.
Talk it through
There is an SI guide on this site. It is an SI, not James, and it says so. It will not diagnose you, will not tell you that you are an alcoholic, will not moralise, and will not count your days. It is there to help you work out who is actually in the room, what the realistic moves are, and which question to ask next.
It is not a crisis service and nothing here is monitored by a person. If tonight is bad, use the safety page.