What the four weeks actually look like, from the inside, said plainly.

The lane

What this site is for, and what it is not.

This site is for the person who has decided to go, or is being sent, or is paying for someone else to go, or is the family member trying to imagine where their person actually is for the next twenty-eight days. It is the lived account of the inside.

This site is not a clinic comparison. The clinic comparison — cost, CQC ratings, contracts, refund terms, what to ask before you sign — lives on theirdrinking.guide. That is the procurement page. This is the experience page. They are deliberately separate doors.

This site is not medical advice. Withdrawal from alcohol can kill, and any decision about detox, medication, or admission belongs with a clinician who knows your case. The bot will say so plainly. So will I.

This site is not legal advice. Anything about consent, capacity, employment, or family law that the four weeks raises lives on legalities.guide.

What the site can do:

• Tell you, hour by hour and week by week, what the four weeks looked like for one person who did them
• Name the things nobody puts on the brochure — the money in the room, the medical handover, the night of week one, the phone-call rule, the group that goes wrong, the person who leaves on day three
• Describe the types of clinic without naming names — the country estate, the city clinic, the medicalised unit, the boutique — so a reader can recognise what they are walking into
• Carry the bot for the question that does not fit a general page — "I am going in on Sunday and I do not know what to pack." "I have never been in a group. What do they do?" "My partner goes in tomorrow. What happens to her phone?"

What the site will not do:

• Tell you which clinic to choose (theirdrinking.guide is the procurement page)
• Tell you whether you should go (sober.guide is for that)
• Replace your clinical assessment, your detox plan, or your aftercare
• Pretend my four weeks were everyone's four weeks

The maths nobody puts on the page

Four weeks. Twenty-eight days. Roughly four hundred hours awake.

Of those four hundred hours awake, a working estimate from one person's experience:

• Roughly eighty hours in structured group sessions
• Roughly twenty hours in one-to-one therapy
• Roughly fifty hours in lectures, workshops, or psychoeducation
• Roughly forty hours in meals, taken communally
• Roughly thirty hours in clinical contact — doctor, nurse, medication rounds, blood draws
• Roughly twenty hours in twelve-step or equivalent peer meetings
• Roughly forty hours in chores, room time, walking the grounds, smoking outside (if the clinic permits), waiting
• Roughly twenty hours of crying. This is not a joke. Plan for it.
• The rest is the gap between the above. The gap is the work.

The point of putting numbers on it: the four weeks are not a holiday, not a hospital stay, not a retreat. They are a structured environment with most of the day accounted for, and the unaccounted gap is where the actual change happens. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.

The thing nobody sells

Most of what changes in the four weeks does not happen in the therapy room. It happens at the meal table at half past seven on a Wednesday evening, when the person two seats away says one true thing about themselves and you cannot un-hear it. The clinic builds the room. The room does the work.

The clinics will tell you about their evidence-based programme, their qualified counsellors, their accreditations, their meal plans, their grounds. All real. None of it is the thing that actually changes you. The thing that changes you is the room itself, the people in it, and the time you have to sit with both.

Day Zero — arrival

The day you walk in. What actually happens.

You arrive with a suitcase. The first hour is administrative. You hand over things. The list, in roughly the order it happens:

• PhoneMost clinics take it on arrival. Some allow a daily fifteen-minute window. Some return it at week two. You will be told. If the rule is no phone, the rule is no phone.
• Laptop, tablet, smart watchSame rule, usually.
• MoneyMost clinics will hold large sums in a safe. Petty cash for cigarettes, vending, taxis to outside meetings, is signed in and out. You will not need much. More on this below.
• Bank cardsSome clinics take them. Some do not. You will be told.
• MedicationAll medication, prescription and over-the-counter, is handed in. It is logged, dispensed by the nurse on a round, and returned at discharge. Including the paracetamol.
• Mouthwash, perfume, hand sanitiser, vanilla extractAnything containing alcohol is taken. Including the items you forgot contain alcohol. They are not punishing you. They are removing the chemistry.
• Razors, lighters, sharpsDepends on the clinic and depends on your assessment. Some clinics keep them at the desk and sign them out. Some do not.
• FoodMost clinics do not allow food in rooms. You will be told.

The first hour is paperwork. Consent forms. The treatment contract. Emergency contacts. Next-of-kin authorisations. A medical history that you will fill in three times over the next forty-eight hours because every department needs its own copy. Read what you sign. The legalities.guide page covers what the clinical consent forms actually mean.

Then the medical assessment. Blood pressure, blood draws, sometimes an ECG, the CIWA scale or equivalent if you are pre-detox, a urine sample, a breathalyser. The doctor sees you. The nurse sees you. A counsellor sees you. By the end of day zero you will have told your story to three or four strangers in a row, in slightly different versions, while exhausted.

You will be shown your room. It will be smaller than you expected if it is a country estate, and larger than you expected if it is a city clinic. The bed will be made. There will probably be a Bible or equivalent on the side table. There will be a kettle, sometimes. There will be a window. There will not be a minibar.

You will be given a printed schedule for the week.

Then dinner.

The first dinner is the hardest meal you will eat in the four weeks. You do not know anyone. They all know each other. They are watching the door for the new person, the same way you will be watching the door next week. Sit. Eat. Say your name when asked. Go to bed early. Day one starts at seven.

The Money in the Room

What happens to your finances while you are inside.

This was not on any brochure I read. It mattered more than I expected. Said plainly:

On arrival: Most clinics will ask you to hand over bank cards, large amounts of cash, and any device that gives you remote access to money. The rationale is partly clinical (impulsive online spending is a known feature of early detox) and partly safeguarding (high-value items in shared accommodation). The procedure varies — a safe at the front desk with a signed receipt is common. Ask at admission. Get the receipt.

Petty cash. Most clinics run a petty-cash float. You hand in, say, £100 on arrival; you can draw £10 a day, signed for, for cigarettes, a magazine, a taxi to an external meeting, a coffee in town if the programme permits. You sign on the way out, sign on the way back, return change. It feels infantilising. It is not. It is the same system that prevents impulsive online betting at three in the morning when you cannot sleep.

Standing orders, direct debits, mortgage payments, salary. Decide before you go in who has authority to handle these for the four weeks. A spouse with a joint account. A trusted friend with online banking access. An accountant. A solicitor with a limited power of attorney for the duration. The clinic will not do this for you. The bot will not. Decide before you walk in.

The forgotten subscription. The category nobody mentions and almost everyone forgets. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, the App Store, Apple iCloud, Google One, the gym, the meal-kit subscription, the dating app, the gambling app, the betting account, the wine club, the whisky-of-the-month, the magazine, the cloud storage, the work software billed to a personal card. They renew while you are inside. Some of them — the gambling and betting accounts especially — are also things you will not want active when you come out. Before you go in: cancel the ones that are wrong for the next ninety days, pause the ones that can wait, write down the ones that must continue. The bot will walk you through the list. The free encyclopedia carries a Financial Handover Checklist for exactly this purpose.

Card access while inside. Clinics differ. Some allow you to draw from your card at the front desk under supervision. Some do not. If you have a business that needs you to authorise payments during the four weeks — a payroll run, a supplier invoice — handle it before you go in or delegate it. Coming out of group at 4pm to authorise a wire transfer is not the four weeks you came for.

The week-three problem. Around week three, when the structure has settled and you can think again, people start making financial plans. New gym membership. New therapist subscription. A holiday after discharge. A car. The clinic's advice, almost universally, is no major financial decisions for ninety days. Hold the line. The wanting is real. The decision can wait.

On discharge. Cards back. Cash back. Receipts checked. Get the discharge paperwork including the financial reconciliation in writing. If there is a discrepancy, raise it before you leave the building, not next week.

A note for the industry person, because this was me: the worst single moment of my four weeks was a Tuesday at the end of week one when I realised I had not authorised a payment that was now overdue. I had not delegated it. The clinic let me make a phone call. I made it from the corridor outside the office while a counsellor stood ten feet away, because the rules were the rules. It was fine. It was also entirely avoidable. The five hours I lost to it the next day, in distraction during groups, was a worse cost than the late fee. Delegate before you go in. List every recurring payment. Name a person. Write down what you have authorised them to do, and what you have not. The list itself takes thirty minutes. The peace it buys lasts four weeks.

Week One — detox and disorientation

Days one to seven.

The medical reality. If you are alcohol-dependent, week one is also a detox. The medication is usually a benzodiazepine on a tapering schedule (chlordiazepoxide, also known as Librium, in most UK clinics; sometimes diazepam). The dose is calibrated to your assessment. The taper is usually five to seven days. You will feel sedated. You will feel anxious in waves. You will sweat. You may not sleep well. You will be observed every few hours. You will hate the observations and you will need them. The nurse is not your enemy. The nurse is the one keeping you alive.

If you are dependent on benzodiazepines as well as alcohol, week one looks different and is medically more complex. That is for your clinical team, not this page.

The schedule. Even in detox, most clinics start the structure on day two. Light groups. A short walk. A nutrition session. The day is built so you cannot disappear into the bed, because disappearing into the bed in week one is what alcohol-dependence already taught you to do.

The food. Three meals a day, sat down, with everyone else. Communal. Most clinics put effort into the food because it is one of the few sensory pleasures available. Your appetite will return at unexpected speeds. You may also find sweet foods irresistible. That is the body asking for sugar in the absence of alcohol. It will pass. The kitchen knows. There is usually a fruit bowl and a biscuit tin available all day.

The phone rule, again. Week one is when you most want your phone and least need it. Trust the rule. The reason for it is not punitive; it is that the apparatus of your old life is what you came to interrupt, and your phone is the remote control for the apparatus.

The group. The first group is excruciating. By day four it is just a group. By day seven it is the place you find yourself, fairly often, before you know what is happening. The work is in the group, even when the work is not what is being said.

The night. The first night you cry, properly, is most often somewhere between day three and day six. It will feel like the end of you. It is the start of you. There is a duty nurse on every night. Knock on the office. They are not surprised.

End of week one. You will have detoxed, met the people you will spend the next three weeks with, fallen asleep in a group at least once, said something true at a meal table, received a printed schedule for week two, and started to suspect that something is shifting. The schedule will say the same kind of thing every day. The shift is not in the schedule.

Week Two — the work begins

Days eight to fourteen.

The detox is over. The medication has tapered. The fog lifts. The schedule deepens.

One-to-one therapy. Most clinics start serious one-to-one therapy in week two. Once a week, sometimes twice. Your assigned counsellor will have read your history, met you on day zero, and now starts the actual work. The shape of the work depends on the clinic's model — twelve-step, CBT, psychodynamic, integrative. You do not need to know the model on day eight. You need to turn up.

Group, deeper. The groups in week two are longer and more confrontational than week one. You will be asked to write things down. A timeline of your drinking. A list of consequences. A letter you will not send. A first step, if the clinic is twelve-step. A formulation, if the clinic is CBT. The writing is the lever. Do the writing.

The lecture. Most clinics run a daily lecture on a different topic — the neuroscience of addiction, the physiology of withdrawal, the family system, relapse, shame, the stages of change, nutrition, sleep, exercise, the brain on dopamine, the cost of hiding. They are uneven in quality and they are not the point. Take notes. Some of them will land in week three.

The visit. Most clinics permit a family visit somewhere between days ten and fourteen. It is structured. Often supervised. Usually two hours. Sometimes a Sunday afternoon. It is not a normal visit. The family has not seen you since detox. You have not seen them since you were the version of you that drank. Both of you are nervous. The clinic usually preps the family separately. If yours does not, ask. The family page on lovedone.guide carries what to expect from the other side.

The walk. Most clinics have grounds. Walk them. Twice a day if the schedule permits. Walking is the under-prescribed treatment in residential rehab. The page on rehydration.guide goes deeper into why.

The sleep. Sleep returns somewhere around day ten to twelve. It will not be like the sleep you had when you were drinking. It will not be like the sleep of a teenager. It will be the sleep of someone whose chemistry is recalibrating. Some nights will be five hours. Some will be ten. Both are normal.

The leaver. Most cohorts lose someone in week two. Usually they leave against medical advice. Sometimes they are asked to leave. The clinic will not tell you why. The cohort will speculate. Do not speculate too long. Their leaving is not your business. Your work is yours.

Week Three — the middle

Days fifteen to twenty-one.

Week three is the strangest week. The newness has worn off. The end is not yet visible. The structure has stopped feeling oppressive and started feeling normal. The institutional life has set in.

The plateau. Almost everyone hits a flat patch in week three. The big revelations of week two have stopped happening. The lectures start to repeat themes. The food is still good but no longer novel. The grounds are familiar. The other patients are no longer strangers. This is when people start to wonder whether anything is actually working. The answer is yes; the change is now subterranean. It is not arriving as fireworks. It is arriving as the absence of the previous thing.

The deeper one-to-one. Most clinics run the harder one-to-ones in week three. The childhood, if that is the model. The marriage, if that is the question. The ledger of harm. The resentments. The fear list. Whatever the model calls it. This is the week where the counsellor stops being polite. You should let them.

The meeting outside. Most UK residential clinics walk patients to an external twelve-step meeting in week three or week four. It is sometimes optional, sometimes mandatory. It is often the first time you have been outside the clinic for more than a walk in the grounds. The meeting itself can be remarkable, ordinary, or both. Go.

The plan. By the end of week three you will be asked to start writing the discharge plan. Where you will live. Who you will tell. What aftercare you will attend. What you will do at six o'clock on your first Friday at home. What the bot calls "the plan for the chair you will sit in on day twenty-nine." This is the discharge.guide territory — the day after rehab — and the plan is what bridges the two.

The financial reconciliation, started early. Some clinics will run the financial reconciliation in week three to flag any discrepancies before discharge week. If yours does, sit down with the duty staff and check the petty-cash log against your receipts. Now is the time, not the morning of departure.

The night you decide. Almost everyone has a night in week three when they decide, properly, whether they are going to do this for real or do it on paper. There is no announcement. There is just a moment, often around eleven o'clock, when the decision lands. It is yours. Nobody can be there with you for it. Knowing it is coming is the most useful thing this page can give you.

Week Four — the medical handover and the door

Days twenty-two to twenty-eight.

Week four is the week of leaving. Most of the clinical work is done. The work that remains is the handover.

The medical handover. This is the section nobody puts on a brochure and the section that matters most for the next ninety days. Said plainly:

• A discharge medical with the doctor. Bloods. Blood pressure. Weight. Liver markers if relevant. The clinic should give you the results in writing.
• A discharge letter, addressed to your GP, summarising the admission, the treatment, the medication, the recommendations for ongoing care. Signed by the doctor. Dated. Two copies — one for you, one to be sent. Make sure your GP receives it. Sometimes it is sent direct. Sometimes it is given to you to deliver. Ask.
• Any continuing prescription — antidepressant, sleep medication, vitamin replacement, naltrexone, acamprosate, disulfiram if relevant — written in the discharge letter and as a separate prescription you can take to a pharmacy on the way home. Quantities, dose, duration.
• A clear statement on alcohol blood markers — gamma-GT, MCV, LFTs — with the readings and a note on what they were on admission and what they are on discharge. This is the page you will want six months later when you go to your GP and they ask how you are doing.
• A vaccination check. Many clinics will offer a hepatitis A and B booster on discharge if your history suggests it. Ask.
• A nutrition handover. Vitamin B1 (thiamine) is not just "a vitamin" — it is the standing prophylaxis against Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, which is what untreated chronic alcohol use does to the brain when thiamine runs out. Most UK clinics use a high-dose course during detox (often parenteral / Pabrinex) and then oral thiamine for weeks afterwards. The discharge letter should specify the dose, the duration, and what to do if you cannot tolerate it. Magnesium, B-complex, and vitamin D are commonly continued. Do not stop any of them on day twenty-nine.

The handover conversation with your GP. The bot can role-play this with you if you want. The plain-English script is: I have just completed a four-week residential admission for alcohol use. The discharge letter is here, and a copy was sent to you. The current medications are X. The recommendations are Y. I would like to register the admission on my medical record, agree a follow-up cadence, and discuss whether the pre-admission medication for [unrelated condition] should be reviewed in light of this. The rehydration.guide page goes deeper into the GP conversation, the body markers, and the nutritional reset of the first ninety days.

The aftercare booking. Most clinics include twelve weeks of follow-up groups, often weekly, often online, often free. Book the slot before you leave. Put it in your diary. Show up.

The going-home conversation. Most clinics run a session with a family member or a partner in the last few days. This is where the conditions of the home are agreed. Alcohol in the house: yes, no, where. Trigger situations for the first ninety days. The plan for an external sponsor or peer. The plan for week-three home, which is a real thing and is harder than week three in the clinic.

The day twenty-eight handover. You hand back the keycard. You collect the cards and cash. You sign the discharge form. You collect the prescription. You take the printed schedule of aftercare. You take the copy of the discharge letter to your GP. You walk out.

There is a particular feeling, in the car park, on the day. You will not forget it.

The types of clinic, without naming names

Four shapes, recognisable on sight.

Naming clinics is the procurement question, and the procurement question lives on theirdrinking.guide with the cost, the contract, and the regulator's most recent inspection. This page describes the shapes, so a reader can recognise what they are walking into.

• The Country EstateA grand house with grounds. Often Georgian or Victorian. Often forty minutes from a city. Communal dining. Walks. A library. Twelve-step or integrative model. Higher cost. The aesthetic does some of the work; for some people that aesthetic is exactly the thing, and for others it is a distraction from the thing. Bedrooms range from comfortable to small. Wi-fi is often controlled or absent. The reader walks in expecting a hotel. The reader walks out understanding it was not.
• The City ClinicA converted townhouse or wing of a private hospital. Inside a city. Smaller cohort. Same programme, different feel. More clinical, less pastoral. Easier for family visits. Less sense of separation from the outside world, which is sometimes useful and sometimes not. The reader walks in thinking proximity to the city will help. Whether it does is the question the four weeks answers.
• The Medicalised UnitA psychiatric hospital wing or NHS-adjacent inpatient unit. More staff. More monitoring. More medical, less programme. Often appropriate for complex presentations, dual-diagnosis, or higher-risk detoxes. Less group time. More one-to-one. The reader walks in expecting a clinic. It is. It is also a hospital, and behaves like one. This shape also covers most NHS Tier 4 / charity-funded residential placements — the route a reader without insurance will most often arrive on — and many regional substance-misuse services. The funding is different. The interior is not, very.
• The BoutiqueSmaller cohort, often four to eight patients, sometimes one-to-one. High cost. Bespoke programme. Very individual. Excellent for the right person; the right person is not everyone. The risk is that the cohort dynamic that does much of the work in a larger group is simply missing, and the bespoke attention does not replace it. The reader walks in expecting privacy. They get it. They also get fewer of the meal-table moments that change people in a bigger room.

These are not categories with hard edges. Many real clinics are hybrids. The point of describing the shapes is to give a reader who has only seen brochures a way to ask the right questions. Is this an estate or a clinic? What is the cohort size? What is the model? How much is one-to-one and how much is group? How separated from the outside world will I be? The bot will go deeper. The procurement detail — cost, regulator, contract, refunds, who owns the company — is on theirdrinking.guide.

What this site will refuse — the asymmetric stakes list

There are some things a desk that takes the inside seriously must refuse, no matter what is offered, because the cost of doing them once is permanent.

• No commission for clinic referrals. No clinic pays the desk for a placement, a mention, a footnote, or a position on a list. If a clinic is described on this site, the description is mine, not theirs.
• No undercover marketing for any clinic. No clinic gets to dictate the description of its own type, its own programme, or its own typical week. If a clinic is unhappy with what is described here, the response goes to the Clarification Ledger on legalities.guide, not into a quiet edit.
• No naming clinics in a way that could be read as a recommendation. Types, not brands.
• No exploitation of the moment. The £49 bot does not get pushed at someone who has just typed "I am being admitted tomorrow morning." The free encyclopedia does, with the questions to ask the clinic on arrival, and the family routes for the people at home.
• No pretending my four weeks were everyone's four weeks. The page is one person's lived account, said clearly, with the bias named.
• No sharing of patient stories from the bot conversations, ever, even anonymised, even in a podcast, even as "a question I was asked once". Confidentiality is the standard. The bot does not become content.
• No offering myself as a sponsor, mentor, recovery coach, or aftercare provider. The desk is a resource, not a relationship. Aftercare is your clinic's, your fellowship's, your therapist's, your GP's.
• No selling rehab beds. The desk does not have rehab beds for sale. The desk is not a placement service. theirdrinking.guide is the procurement page; it is also not a placement service. There are no placement services on the network.

Each of those is a no that costs the desk money. That is the point.

The Refusals Ledger — cross-link

The Refusals Ledger is a single source of truth and lives on transparency.guide. Every commercial offer the desk has refused — across all sites — is logged there in the half-yearly Transparency Post, with the type of offer, the type of party, and what was at stake. A clinic offering a referral fee for placement on this page belongs in that ledger. So does a marketing agency proposing to soften the description of a clinic. So does anyone offering money or favour to change what is on this page.

There is no separate Refusals Ledger on this page. One ledger per fact. Cleaner audit. The first Transparency Post is dated June 2026.

How the site works

The encyclopedia free. The bot, forty-nine pounds, paid once.

The encyclopedia covers the four weeks in long-form, with the headlines on this page and the deeper detail on the inside pages — what to pack, what to expect from the first group, the family-visit script, the discharge-letter checklist, the conversation with your GP.

The bot is for the question that does not fit a general page. I am going in on Sunday and I do not know what to pack. I have never been in a group. What do they do? My partner goes in tomorrow, what happens to her phone? I am on day five and I cannot stop crying, is this normal? I am on day twenty-seven and I am terrified of going home, what do I say to my husband in the car? Forty-nine pounds, paid once, used for as long as you need it. No subscription. No upsell.

It speaks plainly. It speaks Spanish if you write in Spanish. It holds context across weeks. It picks up where you left off. It knows its limits. It is a companion, not a clinician. If a question crosses into clinical territory — withdrawal symptoms, medication, a worsening situation — it stops being clever and routes you to the duty nurse, the clinic doctor, A&E, or the appropriate crisis line. Crisis routing is never paywalled.

No subscription. No account. No login. The unlock lives in your browser. The encyclopedia is always free. Crisis routes are always free.

No higher tiers. No structured brief tier on this page at launch. If demand makes one honest later — for HR directors funding admissions, for occupational health, for family solicitors — the Transparency Post will name the moment. Not before.

Who James is — the lived authority and its limit

James Roberts. Fifty. Sober since June 2020 after a four-week residential at a UK clinic. Tenerife — the chair I work from. Twenty-plus years in industry before sobriety; nearly six years on this side of it.

The lived authority on this page is one admission, at one clinic, in one country, in one year, from one set of circumstances. That is real and it is also a limit:

• I went into a UK clinic in 2020. The programme has moved since. Specifics may be different now.
• I had insurance and the means to choose the clinic. Not everyone does. The page says so where it matters; theirdrinking.guide goes deeper into the cost question.
• I went in alone, as an adult with no children at home. The four weeks for a parent of young children, for a primary carer, for a person going in under a court order, look different. The bot will say so plainly.
• I did not have a co-occurring serious mental illness or a complex polysubstance picture. Both change the four weeks materially. I am not the right narrator for those. I will say so.
• I am a man, in my fifties, white, English-speaking. The four weeks for a woman in a mixed-sex unit, for a non-English speaker, for someone whose cultural background is not the dominant one in the room, are not identical to mine. The page names the gap; it does not pretend to fill it.

The bias is named. The lived authority earns the page where it earns it, and stops where it stops.

Who this site is for

• The person admitted next week, looking for the page that says what really happens
• The partner whose person goes in on Monday
• The HR director funding an admission for a senior employee
• The family solicitor advising on capacity, settlement, or return-to-work
• The GP whose patient is between assessment and admission
• The occupational health adviser making the recommendation
• The trustee or deputy authorising the cost
• The reader who has been before and is going back

The encyclopedia does not care where you are starting. The bot does not either.

What this site will not do

• Tell you which clinic to choose. theirdrinking.guide is the procurement page.
• Tell you whether to go. sober.guide is for that.
• Replace your clinical assessment, your detox plan, or your aftercare.
• Pretend my four weeks were everyone's four weeks.
• Pretend rehab is the only route. It is not. For some people it is the right route. For some it is not.
• Sell anything other than the £49 bot.
• Pretend the four weeks fix you. They do not. They start the thing that the next ninety days continues. discharge.guide is for the next ninety days.

The other doors

Same James. Different rooms in the same house.

This site is the inside-the-clinic pillar.

sober.guide

For the drinker, the family, the friend, the GP, the boss. The moment of deciding what to do.

partner.guide

For the person at home. The bottles, the argument, the question of whether to leave.

theirdrinking.guide

For the people on the outside making decisions on incomplete information. The procurement page — clinic costs, contracts, regulator inspections, what to ask before you sign.

lovedone.guide

For anyone who loves a drinker but does not share their kitchen.

discharge.guide

For the day after rehab. The first ninety days.

relapse.guide

For the night it started again. Plain. Kind. Useful. No lecture.

transparency.guide

For how the desk works. Where the money goes. The Refusals Ledger. The AI Ledger. The audit.

legalities.guide

For the legal questions the four weeks raise — capacity, disclosure, consent, employment, family law, data protection. The Clarification Ledger.

rehydration.guide

For the body's relationship with water, electrolytes, sleep, food, and the years that follow. The medical handover, deeper.

Forty-nine pounds, paid once, gets you James. Same person. Same standards. Independent of every rehab, in both directions. No referral fees, ever.

Start here

Pick the door that fits today.

• Going in next week → Day Zero — arrival
• Wondering about the money → The Money in the Room
• In the first week now → Week One — detox and disorientation
• In week three and flat → Week Three — the middle
• Coming out soon → Week Four — the medical handover and the door
• Trying to picture the place → The types of clinic, without naming names
• Choosingbetween clinics → theirdrinking.guide (procurement)
• Specific to your situation→ The bot, £49 once
• In crisis right now→ Crisis routes — never paywalled

If today is dangerous.

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

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.

If you are in withdrawal at home and frightened: alcohol withdrawal can be medically serious. Contact your GP, NHS 111, or A&E. Do not attempt an unsupported home detox if you have been drinking heavily for a long time. The clinic will not judge you for arriving from A&E.

If you are inside a clinic now and in distress: the duty nurse is on the corridor. The office is open. They are not surprised.

Domestic violence support: National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247 — free, twenty-four hours, confidential.

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

"Twenty-eight days is the smallest part of getting sober and the part most people never see described. The brochures are written by the clinics. The memoirs are written for readers. This page is written for the person who has the suitcase by the door on Sunday night, and the person who loves them, and the person who is paying for it. Forty-nine pounds, paid once, gets you the rest. The four weeks themselves are between you and the room." — James, Tenerife, May 2026

Last updated: May 2026 Operated by: James Roberts. Sole trader. Registered details on legalities.guide. Not medical advice. Withdrawal from alcohol can be medically dangerous; admission, detox, and medication decisions belong with a clinician who knows your case. Not a clinic comparison. Cost, contract, and regulator detail live on theirdrinking.guide.