Talk it through with the SI guide

James drank every day from eighteen to forty-five. Four weeks in treatment in June 2020, and sober since. This guide speaks in his words. It is not James, and it is not a person. Read more about James

Nobody taught most of us what actually happens inside treatment. We were assumed to know, or to be too afraid to ask.

Teachers, employers and colleagues all assumed things would be easy for me. Every one of those assumptions was wrong. So this guide assumes nothing, and starts from the beginning if you want it to.

What four weeks in treatment looked like from the inside, and help to work out what to ask your own clinic. It cannot arrange an admission.

Going into treatment is rarely only about the drinking. The job, the family and the money all come with you. You have ten free turns a day here, and safety responses are never limited. Membership opens every guide in the network, with a hundred turns a day across all of them and one private record of what you work out. See what membership includes

You are speaking with an SI guide, not James replying live. It can tell you what the four weeks looked like from the inside — the day of arrival, the money, the groups, the visit, the handover — and help you work out what to ask your own clinic. It is not a doctor, nurse, addiction clinician, counsellor or emergency service. It cannot diagnose you, arrange an admission, contact anyone on your behalf, or monitor you.

It does not diagnose and it does not treat. It will not tell you whether you are an alcoholic, whether you should go in, which clinic to choose, how to come off alcohol, what to take, or what any dose should be. Stopping suddenly after heavy daily drinking can be dangerous, and that is a doctor today, not a chat window. If you are inside a clinic now and in distress, the duty nurse is on the corridor. If anything has become an emergency, stop and use your local emergency number — the safety page sets out the routes.

Do not name your clinic, your employer, your doctor or other patients here, and do not paste documents. Nothing written in a chat window is confidential or privileged.

The safety page lists where to go.